WHAT A BEAUTIFUL MISSION! MY HEART OPENS WIDE WHEN I THINK OF IT.

Father Leonard was completing his successful recruiting campaign in the French seminaries in search of missionaries to join the Oblates (see: https://www.eugenedemazenod.net/?p=5497 and related entries). Now he had another new mission field to speak about: Ceylon.

I have received letters from Ceylon. The Fathers have all arrived in good health, after 37 days at sea. It took only 18 days from Suez to the blessed island which awaited them. Nothing is comparable to the reception given to his lordship the Vicar Apostolic whom they accompanied. They praise him very much and the Bishop is no less pleased with them.

What a beautiful mission! My heart opens wide when I think of it. Bear in mind what it is to have 12 or 15 thousand non-believers to evangelize, 150,000 Catholics to teach and a great number of Protestants to bring back to the Faith. So we will soon have to increase our little colony. In your excursions, you may add a few words about this mission which presents such great hopes.

Letter to Fr Leonard Baveaux, 21 January 1848, EO X n 962

REFLECTION

“The Founder left us a legacy: “Among yourselves practice charity, charity, charity – and, outside, zeal for the salvation of souls.” In fidelity to that testament, each member’s zeal is sustained by the bonds of fraternal charity.” (Constitutions and Rules, C37)

“In the writings of the Founder we must understand the word zeal in the typical meaning attributed to it in the spirituality of his time. But we will immediately notice that as far as the Founder is concerned, zeal is the expression of charity’s fervor and of fraternal love. It was not by accident that the basic text of the Preface situated zeal at the very heart of the Oblate vocation.” (M. Courvoisier https://www.omiworld.org/lemma/zeal/)