I BELIEVE IN YOUR PIETY, REGULARITY, ZEAL, BUT I FEAR YOUR SEVERITY, YOUR DEMANDS.

Father Dassy was a talented missionary and also an intellectual scholar who liked to do research and and write – but had a difficult character. He had offered to take on the role of director of the formation of the novices in Nancy. Eugene, who had a great esteem for him, responded in an outright and honest way.

You may perhaps tell me that if I gave you a good assistant you could take on this task. I believe in your piety, regularity, zeal, but I fear your severity, your demands. Though gentle in appearance, you lack suppleness in your character, you hold on too much to your ideas, you do not know how to give way in certain small things that it is best often to ignore in order to obtain major matters more easily. I fear that your authority in your usual contacts with the novices might be difficult to endure. You might perhaps not be sufficiently on guard against certain prejudices. In a word, you would have much and perhaps too much of introspection to win the confidence of young men; the latter is of primary necessity in the functions of a Master of Novices who must be considered a saint in his own novitiate, but also a good father.

Letter to Fr. Toussaint Dassy at Nancy, 23 June 1848, EO X n 980

REFLECTION

“The constructive criticism that I take very seriously is from people I know and respect.” (C. Thile)