I HAD BEEN SO HAPPY DURING MY JOURNEY!

On 26 November 1825. Eugene wrote to Fr. Tempier to tell him of his safe arrival in Rome after a journey of several weeks, which he had interrupted to visit various Bishops to get their opinion on the Rule he was taking to Rome. For the last part of the journey he had been  been traveling in a coach with three other clerics, one of whom was a talkative Jesuit!

My very dear friend, I arrived this morning at Rome too late to have the happiness of saying holy Mass, although I had remained fasting until two o’clock, after having spent the night stretched out in the carriage hired from the inn of Monterosi, in order to have our coachman leave a little earlier. This is the first day since my departure from Genoa that I have been deprived of this consolation.

I had been so happy during my journey! The Lord had made me experience so much happiness at the altar to which I ascended every day, in spite of the beautiful discourses, the reasonings to the skies of the Jesuit Father who travelled with me, and to whom coffee at three o’clock in the morning was as indispensable as the fresh air he had to breathe. Our exercises, our conversations in a coach where we were all four invested with the priesthood, the pleasure of meeting twice a day at the inns with four others, Carmelite discalced religious, who travelled along with us and yet again, besides such company, the habit of interior recollection which gave me the facility of transporting myself in spirit either to be with you or at the bishop’s house, either in our houses and on the missions…

I am lodged at Saint Sylvester, close to the Quirinal palace. It is the novitiate and house of studies of the members of Saint Vincent de Paul. I have found it more convenient to be placed in a convent where I find altar and table within reach. … I embrace you as well as our Fathers. I rejoice that my uncle is in good health and I kiss his hands. I have you all present to me always in every place. Adieu.

Letter to Fr. Henri Tempier, in Marseilles, 26 November 1825, EO VI n. 208