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- Eleanor Rabnett, Lay Oblate Associate on THE NEED FOR SPIRITUAL GUIDANCE
- Eleanor Rabnett, Lay Oblate Associate on I RECOMMEND KINDNESS IN YOUR LEADERSHIP
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“A father’s communication with his many children… that is one of the most agreeable occupations of my life” 1857
My first reaction this morning upon reading the title was to giggle.
Eugene’s experience during his exile as a young man would have taught him some rather severe lessons on living, especially being among the poor as they fled from one city to another to stay ahead of Napoleon’s armies.
History has taught us that the missionaries being sent to the New World and other continents needed to work in order to stay alive, often having to build their own houses, and tend to the livestock.
A very real and often difficult “walking with” the poorest of the poor whom they, and we are sent to serve.
“In so doing, we risk finding ourselves among the marginalized of our community, our society and our church, taking our place among the por and the powerless, walking with those who, like us, hold within themselves tremendous beauty, strength and gifts as well as weaknesses, brokenness and limitations, that together we may help one another experience the love of God…” (from OMI Lacombe Canada Province Mission Statement).
We find God not only in the chapel, but also in the garden and the farmyard, the kitchen, the laundry room and workplaces of those we are sent to serve. At Madonna House I would work and pray to Our Lady of the Kitchen, the Office, the laundry room, the cheese room and every other room that I worked in.
I am reminded of Jesus who died on the cross, for sake of all of us. His death led to his resurrection. Our many small deaths will lead us to and through our own transformations. That is what it is like when we take our place and serve with the poorest of the poor and ourselves.
I am reminded of the first disciples chosen by Jesus; one a tent-maker, another a tax collector, and still more who were fishermen… “We were sent to evangelize the poor; the poor are evangelized.”