The life experience of Eugene had led him to come into direct contact with the wounds inflicted on the Church by the French Revolution, and with the void left by the destruction of the ancient religious orders.
In exile in Venice, he had spent several years with Bartolo Zinelli, who longed for the re-establishment of the Jesuits. Returning to Aix as a young priest, in 1812, he lived with Brother Maur, whose Trappist monastery had been destroyed and the monks dispersed. In 1815 his buying the old Carmelite convent in Aix, made possible because the sisters had been chased away and their convent desecrated. With each disappearance, the people who made up the Church were impoverished. The particular example and ideals offered by each Order to the Church and world was no longer there – nor the good humanitarian works that they were known for. Thus Eugene feels that his little group was called to make up for that emptiness in Provence.
I cannot express how much I would wish that our little community would recall to the eyes of the Church the fervour of the religious Orders and regular Congregations that shone brightly with virtue in the first periods of their establishment.
Eugene dreamt that the small community of Missionaries fill this gap through their actions, by being healers to the people of God, and by allowing themselves to grow personally in God’s light and life:
It seems to me that, although few in number,
we could do much good,
console the Church for so many wounds that consume her on all sides,
and make ourselves holy in a way that is most consoling and happy.
Letter to Henri Tempier, 12 August 1817, O.W. VI n. 20
My mind flirts with thoughts of Pope Francis and all he is trying accomplish – not on his own or just with a few bishops, but with all of us: we are all called to take part in the Synod. God’s people – we are all God’s people, no matter the divisions, cultures, places of origin…. It is God who gets to judge and condemn. Did Jesus die on that cross for all of us, or only for a very few?
“I seems to me that, although a few in number, we could do so much good, console the Church for so many wounds that consume her on all sides, and make ourselves holy in a way that is most consoling and happy.” Eugene’s words remind me that if I love with the heart of Jesus, see others through the eyes of the crucified Saviour, share my experience of God, that I too will end up enlarging the space of my tent (Isaiah 54:2) and my heart.
Not just for a few: it is deeply personal and communal for each and all of us, as stated in this morning’s focus.