THE HOLY SPIRIT INSPIRED HIM ON THE FIRST DAY THAT I KNELT AT HIS FEET AND PRESENTED TO HIM THE PLAN OF THIS ENTERPRISE WHICH NOW WE CAN CALL DIVINE

“We praise you, O God: we acknowledge you to be the Lord”… My dear friend, my dear brothers, on February 17, 1826, yesterday evening, the Sovereign Pontiff Leo XII …specifically approved the Institute, the Rules and Constitutions of the Missionary Oblates of the Most Holy and Immaculate Virgin Mary.

 Announcing this wonderful news to his brother-Oblates, Eugene offers some suggestions as to how to react to this event. Two hundred years later, let us slowly reflect on his words and apply them to ourselves and to those we serve. First of all to be aware that it was God who prompted the Pope to recognize that the existence, spirituality and mission  of the Oblates was divinely inspired.

 Everyone is stupefied at this. Even those called upon to contribute with their votes to the execution of the very emphatic will of the Pope, are surprised by the unanimous agreement of views and especially with the imperturbable resolution of the Holy Father, whom nothing has been able to deter from the first thought with which the Holy Spirit inspired him on the first day that I knelt at his feet and presented to him the plan of this enterprise which now we can call divine.

The Pope knew everything and weighed everything in his profound wisdom. We have not here the decisions the view, the approbation of a certain few, of certain Prelates: we have the decisions the view, the approbation of the Head of the Church who has not depended on the judgement of others, even that of the congregation of Cardinals to which he entrusted the matter for examination, but who has pronounced himself on the facts presented, with full and entire knowledge.

Letter to Fr Tempier, 18 February 1826, EO VII n. 226

 Today all the Oblates present in Rome will celebrate Mass at the tomb of St Peter and then gather at the tomb of Pope Leo XII to recall the event of the approbation with gratitude. “We praise you, O God: we acknowledge you to be the Lord”