Eugene was happiest when he was with the poorer people of his diocese. Gathering people from four villages, he wrote:
October 16: Visit to Caillols. The children from St-Julien, from Paume and from Olives had all gathered there. For me it is a real consolation to instruct and catechize these good souls from the countryside.…
I always have occasion to be satisfied with the attention of my audience and to congratulate myself on the unmistakable method I have adopted for myself of always speaking to the people in their own language. I was told today that when the people of the village heard my instruction, they said among themselves: it is a pleasure to see that our bishop speaks our language…
How happy I would be to be able to reach their hearts and make them love the divine Master whom I am preaching to them as simply as I can!
Eugene de Mazenod’s Diary, 14 October 1838, EO XIX
Eugene’s conviction, born of personal experience, was:
“God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.”
“We love because God first loved us” (I John 4: 16,19)
He was so full of this conviction, that it overflowed in his ministry to those most in need of God’s love.
What does my life overflow with today?
I find myself focusing on the words from St. John: “We love because God first loved us.” (I John 4: 16,19) Most of us, though not all, learn early on in their lives what it is to be loved. We don’t love others until we have somehow experienced the love of God, until we experience God revealing God’s self to us through our parents, our family, our soulmates.
We love because God first loved us. Perhaps that is what overflows within me as the day begins. I believe that God loved me into being. Then an interruption took place. “Who told you that you are naked?” (Genesis 3:11) It took me many years to be able to again experience God; to hear God say my name, to hear that God loves me.
Conversion… Transformation…
Today I find myself still totally human even as I respond to that and other experiences of God. There is within me a burning desire to be like Eugene and share my own experience of God – totally personal yet in the same way, the same shared spirit as so many who have gone before me and who I walk with now.
I heard Eugene speaking to me – in my own language and that reached and held my heart. In fact he not only touched my heart, but he cradled it, nourishes and walks with me as it grows.
Today my life overflows with love – in spite of the truth of my humanness or perhaps because of it. And any opportunity, any invitation to love and share my own experience of love is greeted with joy and gratitude – it is for this that I heard Jesus whisper my name as he filled my heart, my being with love. They say that we can’t have our cake and eat it too; I am here to say that not only have I received my cake but that I now get to enjoy eating it as I share it with others.
It’s a remarkable thing to be so serene and calm that you can hear God’s voice above the noise of our everyday lives. It is a practice I am still working at. Thank you for this reflection, Eleanor