The mission in Fuveau took place from the 1st to the 29th September, 1816 and was conducted by Eugene and Fathers Tempier, Mie and Deblieu.
In their book, Al Hubenig and René Motte write of this mission:
That the missionaries put themselves completely at the disposal of the populace was an important aspect of the mission and warrants notice. Two missions ran concurrently – one for the people of Fuveau and the surrounding district, during the day, and another at night for the miners of Gardanne, who daily walked the sixteen kilometres to and from Fuveau to attend the mission after their long hours of work in the mines.
Late at night, after an exhausting day of ministering, the missionaries would sit down to their frugal evening meal, with a watch placed on the table so none would eat beyond midnight. (Remember, those were still the days of Eucharistic fast from midnight on.) They then went off to bed, but rose again at 3:30 a.m. for their religious exercises and to get the mission ceremonies of the day underway. That was the “holy foolishness” of which Father Rambert spoke in the reference cited. The missionaries were in the honeymoon of their beginnings, when no sacrifice was too great and when everything, no matter how difficult, was a joy.
Living in the Spirit’s Fire, p. 79
Last night I was on a zoom in which two others of our Mazenodian Oblate Family were present: one of them an Oblate priest and the other an Oblate Associate. Both of them having extremely full and busy lives as they give themselves to serving God and the Church. I dare to say that they are the incarnation of the charism that Eugene de Mazenod and his founding community have shared with us down through the years.
I am humbled by the beauty of their hearts and how they and other members of this family open and ‘enlarge the space of their hearts’ just as Eugene and his founding community did on the “honeymoon of their missionary beginnings”. This was/is not a love that burns out with a brilliant fire, leaving them empty – but rather a love that burns deeper and which rises up and become visible to all those with whom they share their spirit. I am reminded of Abraham’s burning bush that did not consume the bush.
We are given moments throughout our lives in which we are again in the ongoing and ever-deepening honeymoon of our missionary lives. We need only to find a way give all of our struggles, hopes and dreams to the Beloved: to be still and listen. It is then that we can turn our heart’s eyes to our Beloved and hear God’s whisper: “…walk with me.” It is then that we once again renew our oblation and move closer as pilgrims of hope in communion.
I join with you in this ‘holy foolishness’ which we have been called to live…