A FRATERNAL MEAL, TAKING THE SYMBOL OF CHARITY AND OF UNION WHICH MUST REIGN IN EVERY HEART FOR THE HAPPINESS AND THE GLORY OF THE NATION AND THE PROSPERITY OF THE REPUBLIC

The new Republic seemed to bode well for the Church. Eugene noted in his diary:

It appeared that, in this revolution, it was being said that homage be given to religion and to its clergy; that’s a reason for lending oneself to certain demands which present a good side, as strange as they appear from the other side.

Eugene de Mazenod’s Diary, 15 April 1848, EO XXI

One of the demands was that the Bishop attend an open-air meal for the inhabitants of Marseilles to celebrate the Republic

I thus went to this huge gathering. I barely entered the enclosure when thousands of voices lifted up as they cried out: “Long live Monsignor! Long live religion!” Everywhere I passed these cries were repeated, and they accompanied me up to the place which had been prepared for me…

There were many speeches, and Eugene opted not to make one, but he wrote:

I would have said only a few words: more or less these: “It’s with happiness that I consented to the invitation made to me to be in your midst during this family feast. It’s consoling for a father to sit at the table of his children, especially when he sees at his sides this young and intelligent commissioner of the government who knew how to win over the sympathies, the esteem and the affection of all of our people, and these magistrates gathered here, those to whom the city owes so much gratitude, and this national guard so admirable in dedication and these soldiers, pride of the native land, etc.” I wanted to consider my allocution as a type of table blessing in this sense that I would have been able to add: “My well-loved brothers, so that on this solemn day no one may be exposed to violating the holy laws of the Church, I grant to all Christians seated at this banquet (there was for each a portion composed of a slice of ham and a slice of sausage, a piece of bread and a bottle of wine) a dispensation from quadragesimal abstinence (Ed: Lent – Palm Sunday). And I ask God Almighty, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, to pour forth his blessings on this fraternal agape, taking the symbol of charity and of union which must reign in every heart for the happiness and the glory of the nation and the prosperity of the Republic.”

Eugene de Mazenod’s Diary, 16 April 1848, EO XXI

REFLECTION

“Hope is not the conviction that something will turn out well but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.” (Vaclav Havel)