FEBRUARY 17: A SOURCE OF GRATITUDE AND PROPULSION FOR EVERY MEMBER OF THE MAZENODIAN FAMILY?
On 17 February the Mazenodian Family marks the day when in 1826 Pope Leo XII, after a process of discernment, recognized that the group brought into existence by Eugene de Mazenod was a creation of God. Eugene understood the
steady determination of the Holy Father, whom nothing has been able to prevent from the first thought with which the Holy Spirit inspired him on the first day that I knelt at his feet and presented to him the plan of this enterprise which now we can call divine…
Letter to all the Oblates, 18 February 1826, EO VII, n. 226
The Pope recognized that it is a charism of the Holy Spirit. So it is an act of God that we celebrate!
For ten years this small group of men had survived by their founding vision, surviving hardships, persecution, defections and near-extermination, and yet never giving up. They believed that their vocation came from God, that their ideal was God-inspired and that their mission to the most-abandoned was God-given. The discernment of the Church confirmed this and injected new life and vigor into them. It was not meant to degenerate into a moment of back-slapping backward-looking community festivity. It was an injection of divine life that propelled the Oblates.
REFLECTION
May this 17 February be a moment of grace to rediscover the value of our God-given life as calling us into courageous new horizons
May it be a moment to give thanks for the gift of over 200 years of dedicated service of bring the Gospel to the most abandoned.
May it be a grace-filled moment to re-value, at our local levels, a Mazenodian family, where every way of life receives and is equally important in belonging and cooperating in God’s gift of the charism.
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Happy and Blessed Feast Day!
Beloved! Today we celebrate and give thanks for being called to and finding our hearts’ home in being a part of this beautiful and blessed Mazenodian Family. You have called each of us to grow in holiness, and to allow our hearts to be stretched, over and over again. We have not yet arrived at our end, but rejoice that we are on the way.
I remember Eugene’s words, inviting us each to stand at the foot of our crucifix to hear your invitation to take part in this “act of God” that continues to bring deeper and fuller life to each of us and to all who we lovingly serve.
I listened to Mary Walsh speak with such love and joy in the life you have given to her and her Alphonsian family, and could only smile and push back tears as my heart overflowed with a similar joy and gratitude for the love which you have lavished upon us in this Mazenodian family.
“Together we await Christ’s coming in the fullness of God’s justice so that God may be all in all. Growing in faith, hope and love, we recommit ourselves to be leaven of the Beatitudes at the heart of the world.” (Cf. Constitution 11)
Our journey has not yet come to an end, but rather it continues, deepening in your love. Praise be you Jesus Christ and Mary Immaculate.