I ASKED FOR MEN AND HERE THEY’VE SENT ME A CHILD!

“Accompanied by two Grey Nuns of Montreal, Fr Pierre Aubert and scholastic brother Alexandre Taché set out from Lachine, on June 25, 1845; they traveled 1800 miles by way of lakes and rivers, in a boat with a crew of six. It was not until August 25 that they reached their destination, after making 144 portages along the way and shooting about fifty rapids. Standing on the river bank to meet them, Bishop Provencher could not conceal his disappointment. Instead of the band of missionaries he had been expecting, one father and a twenty-two year-old subdeacon were being put at his disposal and the sub­deacon looked even younger than his age: “I asked for men,” he wailed, “and here they’ve sent me a child!”

It would not be long before the bishop realized that in sending him Brother Tache, whom he immediately ordained deacon and then priest, the congregation was giving him, not a child, but a man in every sense of the word, and a man of the most outstanding merit.

“Credit for the choice belongs to Bishop de Mazenod. The reasons behind it can be easily surmised. Brother Tache was a Canadian, a fact that must have gratified the small band of secular priests laboring with the vicar apostolic; it was Tache’s grand uncle, Varennes de la Verandrye, who originally explored the country the young missionary was going to evangelize. So, the grandnephew seemed to be the appropriate one to bring Christ to the Indians of the Red River region, thereby carrying on the traditions of his family, but on a spiritual and evangelical level. Furthermore, the information that had been furnished about the young man during his novitiate, the fact that he had been attracted to the missions from his childhood and that he had become a member of the Oblate community almost from the moment the Oblates arrived in Canada, all gave assurance of the stability and zeal of his apostolic vocation.”

Leflon II pages 165-166

REFLECTION

” People in general judge more from appearances than from reality. All people have eyes, but few have the gift of penetration”. (Nicola Macchiavelli)

As a Mazenodian Family we have the gift of penetration: Eugene teaches us to look at the world through the eyes of the Crucified Savior as the doorway to resurrection life.