PUT YOUR CONFIDENCE IN HIM IN WHOSE NAME YOU ARE SENT
“For we are the aroma of Christ for God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing” (2 Corinthians 2,15)
A wealthy Englishman, Ambrose Phillips owned the mansion of Grace Dieu, in Leicester county, England. He turned it into a Mass-center from which the priests could undertake the evangelization and conversion of the surrounding villages. In 1845 he invited the Oblates to establish a community there. Eugene appointed the 32 year-old Fr. Frédéric Perron as Superior by Eugene. He had only been a priest for 6 years, and Eugene wrote to encourage him in his responsibility of establishing a new mission.
Put your confidence in Him in whose name you are sent and be persuaded that He will bless your obedience and pour most abundant graces upon the work of your ministry…
Constantly in so many of his letters, Eugene repeats that the only source of guidance in any community and mission is to be the Oblate Rule, which is the application of the Gospel according to the charism that he had received.
Above all take great care to be bound by all things prescribed by our Rules and Constitutions. You have in the book wherein they are inscribed a sure and faithful counsellor to guide you on all occasions and advice which will enable you always to do what is most agreeable to God and most useful to yourself and others.
Then we encounter another of Eugene’s favorite expressions for mission: let the beautiful aroma of Jesus permeate from your community to all those whom you are evangelizing.
… Let order and regularity reign in the interior of the house, so that the good aroma of Jesus Christ may spread throughout the places where you dwell.
Letter to Father Frédéric Perron at Grace Dieu, England, 25 August 1845, EO III n 11
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Hello Frank –
How can i register for the blogs or writings so I can get them on my email?
Cheers,
Alex
I have written about this now on the webpage
“Let order and regularity reign in the interior of the house, so that the good aroma of Jesus Christ may spread throughout the places where you dwell.”
While I am a lay person, I find myself taking to heart Eugene’s words which he wrote to Fr Frédéric Perron. My heart is touched and grows from and with this kind of regularity (following of the Constitutions and Rules) in my life. I try to live them “according to my state of life” and to live it [the Mazenodian charism].
I do not have to rewrite them to realize they come from God. Eugene himself speaks of how he did not recognize himself as being the author, but only the instrument of the Holy Spirit who gave him the words, the sense to put them onto paper and which was then approved and adopted by the Church.
I do not need to write a personal Rule of Life for lay members of the Oblate family: I need only to allow this application of the Gospel according to the charism that Eugene received and shares with us, to touch my heart and become incarnate within me “in ways that vary according to milieu and culture” (R 37a). The Beloved shows me how to live them out.
What a gift it is not to have to found a group or discover a new way of being. The charism is so perfectly expressed in the Oblate Rule of Life. It is in living it as best as one can that there will be an aroma of Jesus Christ as together, we stand on what I dare to call ‘holy ground’.