CEYLON: HOW CAN WE RESIST SO MANY PRESSING MOTIVES AND NOT ANSWER WITH GRATITUDE TO THE INVITATION TO COOPERATE POWERFULLY IN SUCH A GREAT GOOD WORK.

Eugene wrote enthusiastically to Fr Vincens about his conversation with Bishop Bettachini from Ceylon (today Sri Lanka).

Here is a magnificent mission opening up to us. The Coadjutor to the Vicar Apostolic of the isle of Ceylon has just spent two days with me. Our conversations kept on until after eleven o’clock in the evening.

What a mission field is opening up before us! One million five hundred thousand Gentiles to convert in the most beautiful country in the world, one hundred fifty thousand Christians to instruct. This immense population is disposed by its gentleness of character and a certain trait of religiosity to listen with docility to the voices of the Lord’s envoys and will receive those who bring them the Good News.

Having given all these reasons for accepting the new mission, Eugene continued:

How can we resist so many pressing motives and not answer with gratitude to the invitation to cooperate powerfully in such a great good work. I have therefore accepted this new mission, one of the most beautiful in the world. I foresee that this great island will one day become an endowment our Congregation will sanctify entirely.

Letter to Father Ambroise Vincens, 12 August 1847, EO X n 936

REFLECTION

“Missionary zeal does not grow out of intellectual beliefs, nor out of theological arguments, but out of love.” (Roland Allen)