THE AMAZING EXPANSION OF THE CANADIAN MISSIONS

In Canada the Oblate missions were expanding, as we see in this report that Eugene sent to Rome to Cardinal Fransoni, Prefect of the Sacred  Congregation of Propaganda Fide.

In Canada, we have two communities in the diocese of Montreal for the urban and rural missions; one community in Saguenay, in the diocese of Quebec, for missions in the colonies and among the Indigenous. In the diocese of Bytown the Oblates of Mary Immaculate do practically everything: they have a novitiate, staff the seminary, go on missions among the Indigenous of Abitibi and Temiscaming and evangelize the lumbermen, the hundreds of men who spend most of the year in the woods cutting lumber. They used to be more like wild men than Christians, but they have changed completely since the Oblate Fathers have been visiting them at the cost of great hardship and sacrifice. Moreover, the Oblate Congregation is still providing almost all services in the vicariate of St. Boniface on the Red River and is moving towards Ile a la Crosse and Hudson Bay.

Letter to Cardinal Fransoni, Prefect of the S. Cong. of Propaganda Fide,, 25 July 1850, EO V, n. 16

REFLECTION

“Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgment that something else is more important than fear.” (Ambrose Redmoon)