TO LIVE CHRIST JESUS CRUCIFIED (Constitution 4)

Posted on March 18, 2025 by franksantucci

“To live Christ Jesus crucified” is the title given to Constitution 4 in the English version of the Constitutions and Rules.

It portrays clearly what it means to put into practice the statement that “the cross of Jesus Christ is central to our mission.” Eugene gives us a glimpse of how to do this using the image of a painter. When he was a seminarian he wrote:

To make myself like Jesus Crucified
It is like the painter who copies a model.
studies him carefully,
concentrates on him,
tries to engrave his image in his spirit,
then he traces some lines on the paper, which he compares with the original ,
then he makes corrections until he is satisfied that it conforms with the original, then he continues…

Unpublished exercise book in the OMI General Archives

Eugene was not aiming at transforming himself into an exact photographic reproduction of Jesus the Savior. That is unrealistic and impossible. Like an artist, Eugene’s spirituality consists in focusing intensely on the model, and then allowing that model to express himself through the vision of the artist’s experience and understanding of the human person and of the world in which he lives.

Eugene invites each of us, members of his charism family, to follow his example and become artists!

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1 Response to TO LIVE CHRIST JESUS CRUCIFIED (Constitution 4)

  1. Eleanor Rabnett, Oblate Associate says:
    March 18, 2025 at 13:00

    I remember when I met Fr. Jim Fiori OMI because I wanted to learn more about this “St. Eugene de Mazenod” who founded the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate. As he talked about St. Eugene I kept thinking of St Paul with whom I had a relationship. At one point Fr. Fiori handed me a sheet of paper and told me I could follow along as he read St. Eugene’s first letter to Fr. Henri Tempier OMI.

    “My dear friend, read this letter at the foot of your crucifix with a mind to heed only God…” It was in hearing those words that I began to cry and to this day I do not remember if they were physical tears or simply tears of the heart. I had an experience of standing at the foot of the cross some years before where I met Jesus as I stood at the foot of a crucifix asking of the Beloved. I tried to love those who were poor in spirit by walking with and loving them. This has been a part of the charism that I was given when God created me…

    I do not think of myself as an artist but I do recognize the small ways of offering myself to those who are poor, who feel abandoned or even worse that have been judged as unworthy. That God has given me this simple charism to offer and allowed to mingle with the various members of our Oblate Charismatic Family and beyond…

    Reply

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