FOR THESE MEN, ONLY GOD CAN ACCOUNT FOR THE SACRIFICE OF ALL THEY SUFFER FOR HIS GLORY AND THE SALVATION OF THE POOR AND TRULY ABANDONED SOULS.
In writing to the Society of the Propagation of the Faith requesting financial assistance for the foreign missions, Eugene gave some details of the Oregon and Red River missions.
I wish to begin this letter by expressing my thanks to you as well as to the Council for the grant allocated to the missions served by the Missionary Oblates of Mary. You would not believe the extreme needs of the missions, among others, of Oregon and Red River. In Oregon, the men are on the verge of dying from hunger. The reports I receive show me missionaries reduced to eating, as if it were a banquet, dogs and wolves, walking barefoot since they do not have the means to purchase shoes, and forced to clothe themselves by cutting up a blanket to make a sort of cassock. You know that I did not neglect to send them what they needed most, but the passage to reach that extremity of the world is so lengthy that they suffered considerably during the long wait.
The men in Red River live in any icy environment and are so distant one from another that it costs an enormous amount of money to procure even the simplest foodstuffs. For these men, only God can account for the sacrifice of all they suffer for his glory and the salvation of the poor and truly abandoned souls.
Letter to the President of Propagation of the Faith, 20 March 1850, EO V, n 11
Young p. 90-91: “They remained quietly among the tribes, slowly getting to know the ways of the people. While they could claim the comfort of land, they could not claim to have settled it. Food was scarce. After they had run out of wolf and dog, they had to resort to killing the horses and cattle that they were hoping to use as work animals. Their diet consisted mainly of potatoes and the catch of the day. Their clothes were in tatters and their shoes were falling off their feet. Worse than the physical tortures of their poverty were the tortures of loneliness. On the bright side, the mission continued to expand and the outreach to the native peoples grew more effective. Chirouse and Pandosy continued to improve in their study of the native languages as they traveled among the various people of their concern.They also began to have a sense of how to operate a mission among the natives, themselves.”
REFLECTION
Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age. (Matthew 28: 19-20)
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This morning I took a small detour into the Historical Dictionary before entering into the heart of our crucified Saviour with all of you in this space. My thoughts were on both missionaries, Frs. Pandosy and Chirouse, who spent the 2nd half of their lives in Canada and the USA. I say the 2nd half of their lives only because almost everything about them would change and deepen once they left France for the New World. And while there would be years of privations and doubts, along with ever deepening joy and love they never gave up and they lived exemplary lives as Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate.
Like so many other missionaries around the world they needed to be able to adapt to the ways of the people they were serving, living in such a way that many of the members of the Oblate Charismatic Family are living today and whose hearts have been transformed and become foundationally Oblate, serving the poorest of the poor whose hearts have not yet been fully touched by the structures of the Church around them.
My own clumsy attempt to speak to those who watch and wait for the outcome of what our behaviour will have upon the rest of the world, and how that may affect ourselves as community in our own small spheres of life inside greater spheres…
Today I will go to visit two of my Oblate brothers who are living in a Health Transition Centre as they await a more permanent move to realise their hearts’ desires. I will take them the Eucharist and visit with them as is possible, allowing those small gestures to become an example of loving service. My love for both of them has only deepened since I began this small practice every week and I think that it is I who am nourished by them. I think of Chirouse and Pandosy and how they were closer to the heart of Eugene than they were able to recognize. Hopefully they will intercede for us and our own small ways of love and faithfulness to how God has chosen and sent us to walk together as pilgrims of Hope in Communion remembering that God is with us always, to the end of time…