Our mission is to proclaim the Kingdom of God and to seek it before all else (cf. Mt 6: 33).
Constitution 11
This Constitution is a direct reference to the words of Jesus:
“Set your hearts on God’s kingdom first, and on God’s saving justice, and all these other things will be given you as well” (Matthew 6:33)
It is a theme that appears constantly in the thought and writings of Eugene. As a seminarian we find this missionary preoccupation in wanting to evangelize the peasants of the countryside near his grandmother’s home:
I intended to visit Grandma in Saint-Julien and planned to teach these poor, neglected people a little; I was already delighted by the thought of the fruit that this teaching might bear. Poor Christians who have not the slightest idea of their dignity, for lack of having met anyone to break the bread of the Word with them; yet I am convinced that they are not far from the Kingdom of Heaven.
Eugene’s letter to his mother, 3 July 1810.
After his ordination to the priesthood, his first recorded sermon in the church of the Madeleine repeated the same sentiment:
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).”
Because they have:
a soul ransomed at the price of the blood of Jesus Christ, more precious in the eyes of God than all earth’s riches, than all the kingdoms of the earth, a soul of which he is more jealous than of the government of the entire universe.
Eugene de Mazenod’s sermon to the poor of Aix en Provence, 1813
