Awareness of our own shortcomings humbles us, yet God’s power makes us confident as we strive to bring all people – especially the poor – to full consciousness of their dignity as human beings and as sons and daughters of God.
(Constitution 8)
The sound of Eugene’s first sermon in the Madeleine church to the most abandoned of Aix continues to echo across the centuries:
Come now and learn from us what you are in the eyes of faith.
Poor of Jesus Christ, afflicted, wretched, suffering, sick, covered with sores, etc., all you whom misery oppresses, my brothers, dear brothers, respected brothers, listen to me.
You are God’s children, the brothers of Jesus Christ, heirs to his eternal kingdom, chosen portion of his inheritance; you are, in the words of St. Peter, a holy nation, you are kings, you are priests, you are in some way gods, You are gods, children of the Most High.
So lift up your spirits, that your defeated souls may breathe, grovel no longer on the ground: You are gods, children of the Most High. (Ps. 81:6).
Notes for the first instruction in the Church of the Madeleine, 1813, EO XV n. 114
I have been drawn to St. Eugene’s first Lenten Homily in the Church of the Madeleine in Aix en Provence ever since I first heard it. And each time I listen to it I hear something new that draws me even closer to him and to those who are not yet touched by the structures of the Church. I am drawn to Eugene’s words from The Preface: “We must lead men to act like human beings, first of all, and then like Christians, and, finally, we must help them to become saints.” We don’t live this way by crossing the street so that we don’t have look at some of the poor or by self righteousness to see ourselves as being better or holier than others.
Eugene invites us once again to learn who we are in the eyes of faith.
The other thing that seemed to leap out of my laptop screen was that Eugene was paraphrasing what St. Peter wrote. This was not just some way that he dreamed up to get the poor to follow him: the Word of God was/is deeply immersed within him. And he shares and passes this on to all of his sons and daughters
This past couple of weeks my reflections on being “close to the people” have inspired me to think of St. Mother Teresa of Calcutta. Her way of loving and serving the poor, even as she suffered within herself.
It would seem that in becoming close to the people we join with St. Eugene and others in becoming martyrs for love…