Eugene de Mazenod was a man of immediate action, and it frustrated him that communications with Canada took so long as the only means of doing so was by letters which travelled by slow sailing ships. As Superior General his letters to the superiors dealt with many necessary matters.
Father Honorat had always had a craze for building and for altering existing buildings in France. Now he was starting to do the same in Canada, and Eugene was alarmed.
Would you like me, my dear friend, to speak frankly to you? I find it somewhat alarming that notwithstanding my recommendations you have not put a stop to the mania that you have always had to make and remake, to demolish and reconstruct. You must have let yourself go to excess in this respect to have created in Canada the same reputation that you had here, causing yourself to be ridiculed by priests in that country and obliging the Bishop himself to intervene. It was wrong of you to squander money belonging to the diocese at St. Hilaire and I expressly forbid you to squander ours at Longeuil where I am told you have already formed a thousand plans each more expensive than the others. I cannot in conscience give you carte blanche.
The obligation to consult your confreres does not suffice. I reserve to myself most explicitly the approbation of any plan whatsoever. Such is the practice in any well-ordered Society. Do you know that bishop though I am, I cannot alter a partition in my house without sending the plan to the Ministry? That is what I intend should be done in our houses everywhere. What you must first do is send me the plans of your property… Until I reply, touch nothing. You have rooms to sleep in, a refectory for meals, an oratory in which to pray, that is enough to begin with.
Letter to Father Jean Baptiste Honorat (in Canada), 10 January 1843, EO I n 14
Whether we call it gilding the lily, or we think newer and larger is better perhaps we need to look at some of the ways we allow ourselves to become distracted from our true mission. I seem to realise this, not so much on my own, but when I am reminded as I am today in my daily prayer.
This morning I am reminded to look and see what is truly enough in my life and with myself. I am inspired to think of what is enough in my life and how my own tendencies can distract me from the person that God has created me to be. I ask myself what is most important to me: is it the “things” I have amassed or who I am growing to be?
The contentment comes not from striving for ‘bigger and better’ but from allowing myself to enjoy what I have been given and putting my energy in to sharing that with others. It is not just about ‘things’ but also about who I am as a person. I will strive to improve myself in the areas that call out for help but not to remake everything for the sake of making it bigger, richer, holier, greater…
God had put this banquet of life before me and it is up to me to decide if I am going to enjoy it and share it with others, or if I will try to do it bigger and better on my own.
To listen and reflect on what Eugene says as he speaks to me in my every-day life is a grace and a part of the “regularity” that he and his sons and daughters share with me.