EUGENE, MINISTER OF GOD-GIVEN HUMAN DIGNITY
© Laurent Girard / Studio Mazenod (2011) – Tableau du Jean-Jacques Martin
1813: The beginning of Eugene’s preaching to the most abandoned
Come now and learn from us what you are in the eyes of faith.
Poor of Jesus Christ, afflicted, wretched, suffering, sick, covered with sores, etc., all you whom misery oppresses, my brothers, dear brothers, respected brothers, listen to me.
You are God’s children, the brothers of Jesus Christ, heirs to his eternal kingdom, chosen portion of his inheritance…
…let your eyes see for once beneath the rags that cover you, there is within you an immortal soul made in the image of God whom it is destined to possess one day, 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.
Christians, know then your dignity…,
Notes for the first instruction in the Church of the Madeleine,
O.W. XV n. 114
But called by my vocation to be the servant and priest of the poor to whose service I would like to be able to devote my whole life, I cannot help being touched when I see the eagerness of the poor to hear my voice;
Instruction at the Madeleine on the fourth Sunday of Lent,
O.W. XV n. 115