LEAVE NOTHING UNDARED TO ADVANCE THE REIGN OF CHRIST (C7)

Posted on August 7, 2025 by franksantucci

We will spare no effort to awaken or to reawaken the faith in the people to whom we are sent, and we will help them to discover “who Christ is”

Constitution 7

Fr. Michel Courvoisier writes:

“Nil linquendum est inausum ut proferatur imperium Christi…”, states the text of the Preface of our Constitutions and Rules of 1826. As a literal translation, I suggest: “We must overlook nothing, leaving nothing undared to advance, to extend the reign of Christ”. This apothegm has sustained and presently sustains the missionary thrust of the Congregation.”

Eugene’s life was made up of a series of daring actions, of sparing no effort, for his Savior. Breaking away from his mother’s dominating wishes and the high society of Aix, his going to the seminary in Paris unleashed a chain reaction of daring events. He spared no effort in his defense of the rights of the Church in the persecution of Napoleon (nor of any other King of France in later years).

He spared no effort in giving himself to the service of prisoners and youth in Aix, and then to the villages of Provence. He dared to invite others to join him and spared no effort to get us to evangelize the rural towns of southern France.

He dared to introduce the moral theology of St Alphonsus which stressed mercy and compassion in the face of the prevailing Jansenism in France.

He dared to send missionaries to Canada and to the British Isles and Ireland at a time when we were so few and not coping with the demands in France. He spared no effort in the missionary outreach of the Oblates until his death.

As Bishop of Marseille, he spared no effort to evangelize his people and to lead them to respond to the never-ending needs of the poor with their many faces.

“Daring” in the Dictionary of Oblate Values (http://www.omiworld.org/en/dictionary/dictionary-of-oblate-values_vol-1_d/1037/daring/)

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One Response to LEAVE NOTHING UNDARED TO ADVANCE THE REIGN OF CHRIST (C7)

  1. Eleanor Rabnett, Lay Oblate says:
    August 7, 2025 at 13:52

    My first response to this is looking at the Oblate Value of Daring and in doing so I begin to see the word as lived out in Eugene’s life and in the lives of his sons and daughters – then and now. I see the depths of the words used and going to the online dictionary to capture the sense and history of the word.

    Thus I begin my prayer this morning and determine that I will have to return to all of the Values, if only because I see that the Spirit has dictated the words and sense of each of them. The joy and wonder of this one has led me to tears as I return to this place with all of you: tears of joy and awe as well as no small amount of wonder…

    I look at Jesus and how he spared no effort to awaken us to our faith and way of being: from the time he began his public life, until he died on the cross and dared to walk around in his resurrected state. He hung on the cross and continues (outside of the limitations of time and space). Not something I can explain only that I sense in his presence within all of us. He IS!

    “But you, who do you say I am?” (Mt.16:15) It is not only Peter who was asked, but also Eugene de Mazenod and indeed ourselves be we ordained priests, brothers or members of the Oblate Charismatic Family. Our response originates in our creation by and with God. And so Eugene himself continues to dare and invite us to come and learn who we are in the eyes of God. It is how all of us leave no stone unturned on our journey, our pilgrimage of life.

    Ours are the faces of a love which burns within us as we make our oblation which we renew over and over again as we come together here each day, whenever we can. We dare to go deeper within ourselves and we dare to share that with all whom we meet.

    Reply

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