I CANNOT CONSENT THAT OUR FATHERS GO ALONE INTO ANY KIND OF MISSION

Posted on November 24, 2022 by franksantucci

“Challenges exist to be overcome! Let us be realists, but without losing our joy, our boldness and our hope-filled commitment. Let us not allow ourselves to be robbed of missionary vigour!” (Pope Francis)

Eugene had imagined that Fathers Aubert and the newly-ordained Taché would be living in community and ministering from there. Eugene was alarmed to learn that this would not be the case:

What Father Allard tells me about the Red River leaves me no choice but to be alarmed. Our two Fathers, he tells me, are going to be separated for a year. But it is not my intention that this be so. I cannot consent that our Fathers go alone into any kind of mission. Any kind of good (envisaged) should be dependent on that (policy). Explain this, I beg you, to their Lordships the Bishops and take this to be the rule of your own administration.

Letter to Eugene Guigues in Canada, 30 July 1846, EO I n 67

The missionary challenges of thousands of people who had not been evangelized made this impossible, as Yvon Beaudoin narrates.

Father Taché spent part of the winter in Saint-Boniface and the rest in Baie-Saint-Paul where he studied the rudiments of the Saulteaux language. On July 8, 1846, he left in the company of the diocesan priest, Father Laflèche, to found a mission at Île-à-la-Crosse. They spent the winter in the Hudson Bay Company station and studied Cree. Then Father Laflèche worked among the Indians near the trading post and Father Taché, throughout the summers of 1847, 1848, 1849 and 1850, made long journeys to Lake Caribou and Lake Athabaska. On March 25, 1847, Bishop de Mazenod wrote to Father Guigues: “I sigh to think of such a young priest, having just left novitiate and being separated by such a great distance from our confreres.” (https://www.omiworld.org/lemma/tache-bishop-alexandre/)

Eugene’s alarm was to be multiplied and constantly repeated for the rest of his life: apostolic community and missionary zeal were two essential aspects of his charism – but how to maintain a balance in these essentials when the need for evangelization of people was so pressing?

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One Response to I CANNOT CONSENT THAT OUR FATHERS GO ALONE INTO ANY KIND OF MISSION

  1. Eleanor Rabnett, Lay Oblate says:
    November 24, 2022 at 13:11

    I find myself reflecting on how much we (and most certainly myself) rely on community in order to be healthy, both physically, emotionally and spiritually. When I look at the challenges presented to the early missionaries here in this part of the world, I am amazed at what they had to let go of simply to go out and spread the Good News along with trying to live apostolic community life.

    The Oblate Rule of life is about community living – that is what we are called to and what is woven into every aspect of our lives – every bit as important as the missionary zeal that we share with each other as we are sent out… No matter our role in life, our culture or ‘milieu’ we our called to be together. The word ‘community’ is mentioned 137 times in the Rule of life and variations of that word another 47 times. It begins in the Preface mentioning how Jesus called the apostles together.

    I think of the many ways that we have found to call community together during the lockdown periods of COVID – we used technologies to help us. Children drew pictures that were pasted on their windows facing the world outside their homes – ways of coming together and community. I think of the practice of Oraison that Eugene instituted as part of community life – enabling us to “meet in prayer” no matter the physical distances between us.

    My Oblate family, my Mazenodian family – perhaps one of the deepest communities that I am a part of, like the Family of God, foundational in my life… This family, community who comes here to this place of being each morning, finding nourishment for and with each other – sharing ourselves, being part of an intentional community, standing in the light of St. Eugene and the others as together we share and go deeper with each other. It is like a springboard for the rest of our day.

    I am so grateful to God for creating the ‘communion of saints’, for calling me to be a part of something that is so much greater than just myself. Community, communion is what gives me life.

    Reply

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