JESUS, LIVING IN MARY, COME AND LIVE IN ME

On Eugene’s spiritual formation, Lubowicki writes:

Jean-Jacques Olier, the founder of the seminary, developed a spirituality in which he stressed the fact that the priest is an alter Christus [ed. “another Christ”), and therefore someone who follows Christ in everything, including his relation to Mary. One of the main driving forces that led Fr. Olier to a Marian devotion was “the desire of adopting the same sentiments as our Lord with regard to his Blessed Mother”.That is why the Sulpicians were vigilant to see that every priest whom they trained could say: “I live now not with my own life but with the life of Christ who lives in me” (Galatians 2:20). Mary was given to them as a model of this attitude since Christ lived in her in the fullest sense of the word. As a result, in the seminary spirituality, “to honor Mary” meant to contemplate in her the life of Jesus and to see to it that Jesus lived in us like he lived in Mary. The best expression of this Christocentric Marian spirituality seems to be the prayer O Jesu vivens in Maria [ed. O Jesus, living in Mary] which was recited after meditation. We can say that the ideas which it contains constitute the essence of Sulpician Marian spirituality and this was the spirituality in which Eugene was formed. (Casimir Lubowicki, “Mary” in the Dictionary of Oblate Values, mary )

Eugene wanted this prayer to be prayed each day by the Oblates, and it has become a part of our spiritual tradition:

O Jesus, living in Mary,

come and live in your servants,

in the spirit of your holiness,

in the fullness of your power,

in the perfection of your ways,

in the truth of your virtues,

in the communion of your mysteries.

Overcome every hostile power in your Spirit,

for the glory of the Father. Amen