After many weeks of absence from the Oblates in France, Eugene expressed his frustration at hw slowly things moved in Rome, and how much he missed his community.
Were I to pay attention to myself, I now have had my fill of Rome; I cannot accustom myself to live in separation from those I love, I have no pleasure away from them. Oh! how happy we will be in heaven when we are all there together! Then there will be no more journeys, no more separation and although absorbed in God we will love our friends more than ever. His intuitive vision of God did not prevent Jesus Christ from loving men, and amongst them, some more than others. That is how it is, however it pleases refined mystics to wish to give us, for the sake of perfection, another nature which assuredly would not be worth that which we have from God. So much so that there is no happiness for me, separated from those who are mine!
Judge from that how saddened I must be at seeing how matters proceed here. It is a world in which there are nine months of vacation in the year. Business in consequence is done very slowly
Roman Diary, 9 December 1825, EO XVII
