Eugene was not afraid to show his affective nature and express the importance of others. In his self-evaluation, written at the seminary when he was 26, he had said:
I have always longed for a friend, but I have never found one, at least one such as I am seeking; it is true that I am hard to please for as it is my nature to give generously I expect the same in return.
Self-evaluation written for his spiritual director in 1808, O.W. XIV n. 30
Now, nine years later, he has found this person in Henri Tempier, to whom he writes from Paris:
I have come to spend half the day at Mont Valérien, my very dear friend, and as I cannot enjoy something special unless you are part of it, I come to speak with you for a while.
His affectivity, while having a unique depth with Henri Tempier, extends to the community of Missionaries, whom he considers as his family:
I am sad indeed to find myself two hundred leagues from my dear, my very dear friends, from my family, my children, my brothers and especially from you who are unique to me;
This relationship is life-giving and a source of energy for Eugene in his efforts in Paris to ensure the continuation of the Missionaries of Provence:
but one must bear one’s exile with patience and resignation. It will be prolonged until I have met and seen our new archbishop; it is with him that I must deal regarding our affairs. There is nothing to do at the moment with the Government…
…Adieu, my dear, my very dear friend; I love you as myself, pray for me. Adieu.
Letter to Henri Tempier, 25 July 1817, O.W. VI n. 18
I think it is important to note that Eugene was not simply throwing the word love out in an exaggerated way to bind Tempier or the other members of the fledgling society to him. It is not empty or false but rather a part of the deepest truths that we long for. A love that surpasses physicality and it’s many boundaries…
I remember his words to the poor of Aix that he proclaimed in his first Lenten Homily in the Church of the Madeleine; this is the love Eugene experienced when he spoke of “when His eyes met mine” and that we experience and express when we love through the eyes of our crucified Saviour. Dare I say that it one of the closest ways of loving as God loves each of us.
Foolish, extravagant, lavish and perhaps the purest love that we are able to experience within ourselves. Scary and without walls, excuses… This is the kind of love that demands that we share it without measure, no holding back. And even as I write it the image of the cross is seen by my heart’s eyes. It is beyond the physical and what some may have to wait until God calls them home, receiving their dying breaths.
This is the love that we want others to know and experience themselves; to share with the whole world, which we try to express with the giving of our whole selves as much as is humanly possible. To love others as ourselves with an openness to all that belies our humanness.
Dare I say as martyrs to love, to full love…
This is Oblation!