PREPARING FOR CHRISTMAS WITH SAINT EUGENE

Posted on December 23, 2022 by franksantucci

One of the privileged moments of prayer for Eugene was to be able to unite himself with those he loved in the presence of God. In our Oblate tradition we have come to know this exercise as “oraison.” As a seminarian in Paris he wrote to his mother one Christmas morning describing how united he had been with her during Midnight Mass, despite the distance that separated them.

Dearest Mother, do you really think that I was not beside you last night? How could I fail, meditating as I was on the holy Mother of God, who had just been filled with consolation on giving the world its Saviour, and at the same time had to experience so vividly the poverty, weakness and misery to which she saw her Divine Master reduced for love of men, how could these tender sentiments fail to draw me close to you?
Indeed yes, darling mother, we spent the night together at the foot of the altar, which for me represented the crib in Bethlehem; together we offered our gifts to our Savior and asked him to come to birth in our hearts and strengthen us in all that is weak, etc.
You know my heart all too well, since it was formed from your own, so you will have a very clear understanding that it is as active and goes through the same feelings as your own.

Letter to his mother, 25 December 1809, EO XIV n 37

Who are the people I want to unite myself with before the crib in Bethlehem this year?

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One Response to PREPARING FOR CHRISTMAS WITH SAINT EUGENE

  1. Eleanor Rabnett, Lay Oblate says:
    December 23, 2022 at 12:51

    What a journey we have shared in with our small daily retreats, led by the Word of God and St. Eugene’s response to it. Now we are preparing to go down from the hills that we journeyed through together and to walk towards Bethlehem and the birth of the Messiah. Each step bringing us deeper within ourselves while at the same time sharing the space with each and all others.

    In prayer we are not bound by time and space, by limitations and physicality. As I listen to Eugene writing to his mother, I think of all those I love and will not see, or be able to touch base with. I look at the storms raging across not just the part of the country that I live in, but across the continent affecting travel, but more importantly the safety of so many of our loved ones.

    I idly wonder for a moment as Mary prepared to give birth if she thought of her cousin Elizabeth, and of her own parents Joachim and Saint Anne, of siblings or friends that she had and how she wanted them with her.

    A small smile forms as I think of all of us coming together around the world, those in the past and those yet to come, and the many right now as hearts meet together within the heart of the Beloved.

    Meeting up with all of our loved ones, not just in our Oblate/Mazenodian Family, but of the many other families and friends, particularly those who because of illness or other wounds to the heart that we find ourselves carrying them with us in our hearts.

    Oh! I realise I am dreaming of what the kingdom of God looks like. We will be like the Wise Men and shepherds alike. And there will be room for the smallest and poorest of the shepherds as they/we will be asked to hold the Babe.

    Reply

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