RED RIVER: MISSIONARY EXPANSION TO NORTH-WEST CANADA

Bishop Provencher had been entrusted with the Vicariate of Red River (later known as St Boniface) which extended from the Rocky Mountains to the provinces of Upper and Lower Canada, and from the United States to the Arctic Ocean; and to minister to such an immense area, he had only five priests at his disposal. In 1843 he went to Europe in search of missionaries and met Bishop Eugene who promised him two Oblate priests.

Writing to Father Guigues, the Oblate superior in Canada, Eugene instructed:

I’ll go further: judging the importance of the mission proposed by the Bishop of Juliopolis [ed. Bishop Provencher] and by what you tell me about the representations of this Prelate, and mindful of the obligations we have towards him, my decision is that you ought to undertake it with the means you have at your disposal. It will not be a proper establishment at first and instead of three persons, you will only send him two for part of the year if you cannot do otherwise, but you cannot risk the great setback that you fear of seeing this mission taken away from you and of losing the opportunity, as you argue very well and rightly, of evangelizing the whole of North America by serving in the diocese of Quebec, Montreal, Kingston and Red River.

Fully aware that the “means at his disposal” for evangelization and sacraments consisted of Oblate priests who were already over-extended in their commitments in Canada (3 in Montreal, 4 in Saguenay, 4 in Bytown and a few scholastics in training), Eugene continued:

We need to have some courage and confidence in God who shows us the road and will not abandon us when we act in his name and for his glory. Everywhere we have established ourselves we have made a feeble start. The time has not yet come to do otherwise. So, I repeat, without hesitation, respond to the wish of the Bishop of Juliopolis and begin this work even with only two Oblates while awaiting others from the goodness of God.

Letter to Fr. Bruno Guigues, local superior in Canada, 5 December 1844, EO I n 50

REFLECTION

“In dreams begin responsibilities.” (William Butler Yeats)

The history of the world and of Christianity is made up of God inspiring people to undertake “crazy” adventures! If properly discerned and carried out in God’s guiding presence, humanly unexpected results follow. Joseph was a dreamer, Peter and Paul, Francis and Clare of Assisi, Ignatius and Mary Ward, Eugene de Mazenod and his missionary family, just to mention a few “dreamers”… Do I allow God’s dream for me to impel me in light and empower me in darkness?