In January 1838 the Oblates were in full swing preaching parish missions throughout the south of France. Eugene was receiving regular reports from seven of them and was exultant about the fruits that were being produced. Father Guigues, however, was having doubts about two of the processions. Eugene reflected in his diary:
Father Guigues would like to suppress the entrance ceremony and the penitential procession. We must not give in to that… He needs to have less confidence in his own enlightenment, and to enter into the spirit that inspired them and led them to be approved by the Church, and then he will experience the good results that are experienced elsewhere.
Eugene de Mazenod’s Diary, 22 January 1838, EO XIX
Eugene then wrote to Guigues directly, correcting him in strong language, but with no intention of hurting him.
If it were a question of modifying some customs, that would be understandable, but to change according to each one’s fancy now one thing, again something else, that will never be as long as there is order and a sense of religion, and some religious who wish to preserve our traditions in the Congregation.
Letter to Eugene Guigues, 26 January 1838, EO IX n 657
The temptation to relativism in the practice of our faith is still very much alive today: if I don’t like it, I ignore it or change it to suit myself.
I think of the greatest truth of all: God is! God’s existence does not depend on if I know and believe in God or not.
Imagine what our scriptures – the Word of God, would look like if we were to all take out the sections and stories that we did not like or found hard to believe in. There would be no scriptures left for us to know and experience.
I sit here this morning, glancing to the small green book with the letters O.M.I. on the front cover. I have fallen into the daily habit of writing out a Constitution, taking them in the order that they appear in the book, rather than picking and choosing; I do not skip over those I do not like or feel may or may not apply to me. I purposely write and reflect as I go rather than just read because I want to take them into myself. And while I know that they do not all ‘apply’ to me, still I do the same exercise every day and let God worry about the rest of it.
I do it because I am not just alone; I am a part of so much that is greater than myself. I am as an Oblate Associate of OMI Lacombe Canada Province a member of the Mazenodian Family, sharing in the charism Eugene with the Oblate Congregation. And in that I am a member of the church, and the universe that God created.
It is not so much about “me” as it is about “we”. How wondrous is that! I do not need to rely on just myself. I share my experience of God in all of that so that others might have their own experience and stand in the light that I stand in. It is not about me at all except that I am a part of it. For that I give thanks.