The question raised by Eugene, as Oblate Superior General, continues to be very relevant in the formation process of Oblates and Associates today.
Three men had come from Ireland to do the novitiate in France – in a new country and a language that they were not fully familiar with. By the end of the novitiate they were expected to make their commitment of oblation. Eugene reflects:
We must proceed with prudence. Before establishing the Congregation in that distant land, it is necessary that the men be trained. It took severalyears to bring Fr. Daly to where he is; it will take more than one year of novitiate, made by young people who do not know our language and who therefore will not have benefited much from the instructions provided there, so that we can count on these subjects.
Can we send them back to Ireland after such a short testing, before they know well and appreciate the Congregation, before they have been able to attach themselves to it? This is not possible.
Eugene de Mazenod’s Diary, 28 November 1841, EO XX
Today our houses of formation are international and the superiors and formators carry the same heavy responsibility: do the candidates know well the Mazenodian charism and spirituality?
The same question is posed regarding the formation of the lay members of the Mazenodian Family: have they been sufficiently steeped in the Mazenodian charism and spirituality for it to be the guiding light of their way of being disciples of Jesus the Savior?
As I sit here this morning, I have to almost laugh at myself, at my audacity and boldness; thinking that I had the complete picture of God’s call to me before I even had words to speak about it. While I was seriously attracted to St. Eugene’s spirit and mission I often tried to take what I was hearing and learning and fit them to my own life (sort of like taking a round peg and shaving off the edges so that it fit into a square box).
All that I have learned over the years is only now being realised in a deeper way of being. Each day is a new beginning, a new step on my journey of life and gratefully God has ensured that I receive everything I need to take new steps each day.
Perhaps one of the biggest or best gift that I have been given is to realise the many who have journeyed with me, taught me, listened to me and shared with me and how I now get to share that with another who I am privileged to walk with. Not to simply share what I think they need, but all that I have been given and come to know so as to ensure that they too have enough to live out how they have been called.
When my PTSD was triggered by a traumatic experience, I knew I needed help – I wasn’t sure what was happening, but I did know that I needed to somehow become healed. I remember I wanted to be able to share fully who I was without having to dumb-down my experience of life and who would understand as shared how God was a part of who I am and still becoming. I wanted a therapist who spoke the same language as me.
What an immense responsibility it is to take on another and to work to ensure that they are not only ready to go out, but to be able to send them out having given them the tools that they will need in their own journey as they share their experience of God.
I look at Eugene this morning and yet it is taken Frank’s wording to help me to be able to understand and reflect on the depth of Eugene’s words. Actually I that is what I try to share here each day, my own understanding of this so that others might also understand and incorporate it into their lives.