THE GREAT PRIVILEGE OF OUR MOTHER, QUEEN AND PATRONESS

Father Dassy had written a book and had consulted Eugene about whether to use the Oblate crest in the printed version. The response gives an idea of the fluidity of our name. It always had “Oblate” and “Mary Immaculate” in the title but it was expressed in different ways. See the article “Oblates of Mary Immaculate” in https://www.omiworld.org/lemma/oblates-of-mary-immaculate/

I do not think it necessary to put our coat of arms on the book’s frontispiece. I see it sufficient to indicate the author by your position as priest at Notre-Dame de L’Osier as you style yourself; but at the bottom of the dedicatory letter you should put your full and complete name, with your true and complete title of Oblate of the Immaculate Conception written out in full: in Latin you should put: E Congregatione Oblatorum B. V. Maria sine labe conceptae, for that is the title given us by the Apostolic Letters of our Institution. This beautiful title has but one defect, it is a bit too long. It is impossible to use in French: “of the Congregation of the Blessed Virgin Mary conceived without the stain of Original Sin.” It should be shortened into of the Immaculate Conception, an expression which the Church has adopted to state the great privilege of our Mother, Queen and Patroness, an expression which is, besides, the heading of our Constitutions.

Letter to Father Louis Toussaint Dassy, 8 November 1843, EO X n 822

Today our title is “Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate” – a name we carry with honor and pride as our “Passport to heaven”, as Eugene had written in 1825:

Oblates of the Immaculate Mary. But this is a passport to heaven! How have we not thought of it sooner?

Letter to Henri Tempier, 22 December 1825, EO VI n 213

Eugene “seems to become aware of the fact that, even if he had always loved Mary, he had not yet understood the essential role she played in the plan of Redemption. In searching for the patron who best expressed the goal of his Congregation – that is a person walking in the footsteps of Christ, committed to the apostolate of service and to the instruction of the poor – he had not thought of Mary. While in Rome, he understood who Mary really was. The title of the Congregation was thus born from a discovery that, in order to respond in an authentic way to the urgent needs of the Church, its members should identify with Mary Immaculate “to offer themselves” to the service of God’s plan of salvation like she did.”   Casimir Lubowicki, “Mary” in the Dictionary of Oblate Values, https://www.omiworld.org/lemma/mary/