PROVIDENCE IS OPENING UP A NEW FIELD FOR YOUR ZEAL

Posted on March 18, 2022 by franksantucci

Fr Etienne Semeria was a successful mission preacher in Corsica, (see: https://www.eugenedemazenod.net/?p=4685) and Eugene intended to recall him to Marseilles to look after the large number of Italian dockworkers in the city. “Shortly after his arrival in Marseilles as vicar general of the diocese in 1823, Father de Mazenod noticed that many Italian immigrants were deprived of spiritual help because of a lack of priests to minister to them in their own language. He resolved to take this matter in hand and gathered them in the church at Le Calvaire which, shortly before, had been entrusted to the Missionaries of Provence. He then put in charge of this work the Oblates of Italian origin.”(https://www.omiworld.org/lemma/marseilles-ministry-italians/)

Providence is opening up a new field for your zeal. I hope that the mission at Marseilles to your countrymen will make up for what you have not been able to do elsewhere.

… Nothing is more moving than your mission at Guagno. That will be an edifying page for our successors in the history of our missions. Your mission of Suarella, like all the others, has been blessed by the Lord, thanks be to Him.

Letter to Fr. Etienne Semeria, 25 October 1844, EO X n 860

It was because of his successes in parish missions on the island that the local Bishop fought against Fr. Semeria’s move, and thus he never returned to Marseilles for the Italian ministry. God had other plans for him in Asia.

This entry was posted in WRITINGS. Bookmark the permalink.

One Response to PROVIDENCE IS OPENING UP A NEW FIELD FOR YOUR ZEAL

  1. Eleanor Rabnett, Oblate Associate says:
    March 18, 2022 at 10:52

    From almost the outset of Eugene’s missionary work, he was able to recognize different ways that many of the abandoned were not just his own countrymen in France, in the region of Provence, but there were others who suffered from a sense of being disconnected from those around them, as was the case of the Italian immigrants living in Marseilles. As Beaudoin wrote about Eugene becoming aware how these immigrants were deprived of spiritual help in the form of priests to minister to them in their own language. And so in 1828 he made sure that the Calvaire had at least one Oblate who spoke Italian to minister to those Italian immigrants; a ministry which lasted until after the 2nd World War.

    I think of Albert Lacombe and his work to get priests sent to Canada to serve the Ruthenians (the Ukrainians) in their own language and rites and how he found a way to celebrate the sacraments with the many First Nations and Metis people that he came to know and live with during his lifetime.

    I look at St. Paul University here in Ottawa which was begun by the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate and which today serves many religions from around the world. Ecumenism that is not limited to unity of only the Christian denominations, but to many different religions such as Judaism, Islam and the spirituality of many of our non-Christian Indigenous brothers and sisters.

    I think of the sense of Unity of Life which when it is applied and lived-out pushes past the artificial boundaries that arise in our lives. “We achieve unity of our life only in and through Jesus Christ… We seek his presence in the hearts of the people and the events of daily life as well as in the Word of God…” (C31)

    This morning I celebrate with joy the sense “unity of life” that is found when someone suffering from the mental disconnectedness that is often a part of PTSD and other mental illnesses, but which with healing brings everything together.

    It is with joy that today we begin by thanking God for our differences and yet how with “unity of life” we are able to live and celebrate those differences as one.

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *