LET ALL OF YOU REDOUBLE YOUR FERVOUR AND EXACTITUDE FOR THE OBSERVANCE OF THE RULES.

The Pope’s openness to the working of the Holy Spirit regarding our Rule places an obligation on us as Eugene stress to Fr Tempier and the Oblates in France:

Thus our cause is on its way, but if it has taken a great step initially, this is not to say that it is finished. Before God and as far as we are concerned, it is quite as if the Head of the Church has spoken, his will is known to us, but for it to have effect we have a procedure to follow and many formalities to perform which will take much time. Here I am then kept far from you and from our whole dear family. Believe me, this is a great sacrifice I make; but if ever it had to be, it is certainly at this time; yet if I make such a remark, it is not to complain about it, nor, God forbid, to murmur; but it is to let you know that I am only happy beside those whom the good God has given me. Let all of you redouble your fervour and exactitude for the observance of the Rules. You know that today they have taken on a more imperative character.

Try to respond to the expectations of the supreme Head of the Church, this is the means to draw down upon us and upon our holy ministry new blessings.

Letter to Henri Tempier in Marseilles, 22 December 1825, EO VII n. 213

Two hundred years later this is the attitude that Eugene asks of each member of his Oblate Charismatic Family: to do our best to live by the spirituality and mission that is expressed in our Rule of Life.