“But what took place most singularly in the Virgin Mary also takes place within us, spiritually, when we receive the word of God with a good and sincere heart and put it into practice. It is as if God takes flesh within us; he comes to dwell in us, for he dwells in all who love him and keep his word. It is not easy to understand this, but really, it is easy to feel it in our heart.” (Pope Francis)
Having decided to change the name of our Congregation, Eugene now asked the Pope to give us this name officially. When this request was eventually granted, Eugene was able to proclaim everywhere that it was “the name that the Pope has given us.”
At the same time, we ask Your Holiness that, in the Brief of Approval which the Missionaries request, you give them the name of Oblates of the Most Holy and Immaculate Virgin Mary
“As Father Fernand Jetté stated, the title of a religious family usually expresses its nature, essence and function. It really seems that the choice of the title Missionary Oblates of the Most Holy and Immaculate Virgin Mary must have been the culmination of a new and deeper insight into the mission of the Congregation on the part of Father de Mazenod. He discovered Mary as the person who was the most committed to the service of Christ, the poor and the Church and saw her as the most comprehensive model of apostolic life as required by his Congregation.” Casimir Lubowicki, “Mary” in the Dictionary of Oblate Values, https://www.omiworld.org/lemma/mary/
“Today the Church gives thanks to God for Saint Eugene de Mazenod, an apostle of his time, who, clothed with the Lord Jesus Christ, spent his life in service to the Gospel of God. We give thanks to God for the great transformation accomplished through the work of this bishop. His influence is not limited to the era in which he lived, but continues to act on our time as well. For the good accomplished by virtue of the Holy Spirit does not perish, but endures in every ‘hour’ of history.” Pope John Paul II at the canonization of St Eugene
What heartening words from Pope Francis: “But what took place most singularly in the Virgin Mary also takes place within us, spiritually, when we receive the word of God with a good and sincere heart and put it into practice. It is as if God takes flesh within us; he comes to dwell in us, for he dwells in all who love him and keep his word.” This is something that we can all understand – with or without the name of Mary. There is an “Aha” moment in all of this when I remember that Mary is our first model of “let it be done unto me according to your word” – those moments when Mary faced by an angel speaking to her, gave herself totally to the will of God.
It becomes deeply personal within each of us when we make our Oblation, that total gift of ourselves to God. A gift made only out of extraordinary love in response to God’s love for each of us. And while it is communitarian in nature it is also intimately personal at the same time.
It was not on a whim that Eugene made this request of the Pope that we be called Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate, but rather was founded on a deeply felt movement within him as the Spirit spoke to him.
Who among us has not had those flashes of understanding and insight, and which were totally transformative and somehow and directed all our steps forward from that moment on?
It is through our getting to know Eugene more deeply and allowing him to also become a model for us that there rises from within the certainty that Mary as a fully human person was, to paraphrase Lubowicki, the best and fullest model of apostolic life that the Church through the congregation asks of them, of us.
I remember the first time I heard the words “alter Christus” spoken to me – not something just for religious men who were priests – it goes far beyond our gender and role in life. It is dictated by our hearts and God’s call to each of us who make up this Oblate Family. Hard to understand as Pope Francis said, but it arises from our hearts.