Eugene de Mazenod speaks to us

The Letter of Superior General to the Congregation on the Anniversary of the Papal Approval of the Constitutions and Rules – February 17, 2021

Pope Leo XII formally approved our Constitutions and Rules on February 17, 1826. To this day, revised and adapted over the past 195 years, they remain “a privileged means for each Oblate to follow in the footsteps of Jesus Christ “(C # 163). The Preface to the CCRR expresses the vision that burned in Eugene’s heart: motivated by his love for Christ, he called together others who would embrace a life of holiness, announcing Christ to the poor and working to rebuild the Church. The virtuous life of those preachers was essential to effective evangelization.

This year, February 17th falls on Ash Wednesday, and we will celebrate our feast day on Tuesday, February 16th. All over the world marked by the pandemic, we will gather as best we can to give thanks for the grace of our vocation. The COVID-19 virus has been an occasion to see the Oblate charism, with its great flexibility and focus on the urgent needs of the people, rising to the occasion to respond with unmeasured zeal. Oblates have found creative ways to minister spiritually, as well as assisting many people in their material needs.

With our collaborators and Associates, we have provided needed financial help for the unemployed and for essential needs such as rent, food, water, medicines, cleaning needs, gloves, masks, and even some lodging. Together with the Treasurer General’s office, the Office of Oblate Mission Sustainability and Global Oblate Fundraisers have assisted many Units in reaching out to the most vulnerable sectors of society at this time. OMIWORLD.ORG has been publishing the many creative efforts that Oblates have developed to attend to the needs of the people we serve.

… We are blessed that a dimension of our charism is missionary flexibility and adaptability as we consider new approaches to our life and ministry.

Father Louis Lougen OMI

Superior General

Father Louis Toussaint Dassy was an intelligent and highly talented Oblate who excelled at everything he did, both as a missionary preacher and the author of books as well as studying archaeology as a hobby. Eugene writes to him and gives him some advice on making sure that he relied on God and not on his talents.

I never cease thanking God for the good accomplished through your ministry. As for you. my child, and your companions, ever keep in your heart and on your lips these beautiful words of the Apostle: “We are worthless servants; we have done only what we ought to have done!”[ed. Luke 17:10]

Who are we, in fact, to perform miracles? What should surprise us is that we do not spoil the mission God has entrusted to us, by our infidelities and what we substitute from ourselves.

He warns the 33 year-old:

Let us humble ourselves in our own eyes, and be careful not to ask anything from the people. We do not want their praises, admiration, etc. any more than their money. Especially you, my good son, you need to be on your guard because the public spoils you on account of your good qualities, zeal and everything else that is striking about you.

Letter to Father Louis Dassy, 17 July 1841, EO IX n 733

Eugene, like St. Paul, was the father of the Oblate missionary family, and expressed his affection for the community leaving for Canada.

As for me, I give thanks to God each time I think of you, in all my prayers, supplicating him with joy for you all because of your communion in the Gospel; confident also in that He who has begun a good work in you will bring it to completion, until the day of Christ Jesus, as is rightful for me to believe as well as for you whom I bear in my heart.

God indeed is my witness how I follow you all with my affection in the tenderness of Christ; and I ask that your charity may abound more and more in knowledge and in every sentiment through Jesus Christ, to the glory and the praise of God.

Bishop Berteaud of Tulle is reported to have come out of a talk with Eugene and exclaimed, “Gentlemen, I have met Paul!” Whether these words were factual or not, they do illustrate the spirit with which Eugene understood the foreign missions of his Oblates.

Go then forth upon your journey with a light and willing heart. May God our Father himself and Our Lord Jesus Christ guide your steps. The benevolent protection of the Most Holy Virgin Mary, conceived without stain, be with you and the attentive care of the holy Angel of God.

Letter of obedience to the first Oblate missionaries to Canada, 29 September 1841, EO I n 8

Eugene’s missionary mandate to the first community of Oblates to go to Canada stressed how important it would be to support one another.

Therefore be mutually encouraging and edify one another. Be united in the same spirit, working together for the faith of the Gospel.

Then, addressing Father Jean Baptiste Honorat, the superior of the community:

You especially whom we have appointed to lead and direct your brothers, excel more in merit and virtue rather than in being elevated as the one in charge; endeavour more to endear the hearts of those under you by charity and mildness than to lead them by authority.

Strive by the observance of our Rules and the practice of piety towards God to show yourself such that your companions may seek avidly to follow you step by step and to imitate you.

The rest of the community was charged to be supporting:

As for you whom Our Saviour has deigned to call, rather than your fellows, to so great a work, endeavour with all your strength to respond to this holy vocation of God and moreover seek carefully to lighten the burden imposed on your Superior by humility, by the practice of mortification, zeal for perfection, assiduity in prayer, respecting him truly for God’s sake, joyous obedience and especially a sincere love.

Letter of obedience to the first Oblate missionaries to Canada, 29 September 1841, EO I n 8

In a machine the smooth  running of every component is essential for it to achieve its purpose. The same is true in every community that we are a part of, no matter how unimportant our role may appear.

Quoting Saint Paul, Eugene sent his missionaries to Canada with evangelical courage.

For the rest, brothers, take comfort in the Lord and in the might of His power. Put on the armour of God, hold yourselves erect, loins girded with truth, wearing the breastplate of justice and your feet shod in readiness to evangelize; so that the Lord may help you to announce the Word mightily, to withdraw from sin the children of the Church and lead them to holiness; and that He may open your mouth to make known with assurance the mystery of the Gospel to those ignorant of it.

Letter of obedience to the first Oblate missionaries to Canada, 29 September 1841, EO I n 8

In our difficult days let us remember that the words of Paul, are still true for us and invite us to take courage:

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.

For we are not contending against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.

Therefore take the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.

Stand therefore, having girded your loins with truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the equipment of the gospel of peace; above all taking the shield of faith, with which you can quench all the flaming darts of the evil one.

And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

(Ephesians 6:10-17)

In the formal letter sending out his Missionary Oblates, Eugene de Mazenod as Superior General mandated their mission.

GOD AND FATHER OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST, who has chosen and predestined us for the praise of the glory of his grace, has established us so that we may go and gather fruit and our fruit may remain.

Eugene was emphatic that the existence of the Oblates was brought about by God’s intervention and not by human effort. He recalled the foundation and its fruitful evangelization in Provence:

You know that from the moment the Father sent us, his little flock, at the last hour to work in his vineyard, we returned from our modest labours with abundant fruit; that on beginning to proclaim his Word, God accomplished great things through us though unworthy and that many were the wayward brought back to the right path as we went through the regions about us to seek sheep in peril.

Just as God had blessed their humble beginnings, God would continue to bless the Oblates in the vast new field that was opening up in Canada.

But here is a road that leads afar and an immense field that unfolds. A gateway is wide open to us. We are now sent not only to those who are close and who are brothers in the faith but to others who are far afield and outside the faith, we who, being so few, were unequal to the task of gathering the abundant harvest lying before us.

Letter of Obedience to the first Oblate missionaries to Canada, 29 September 1841, EO I n 8

Today, the same spirit impels the Mazenodian Family to be missionaries in every situation in which we find ourselves.  “A gateway is wide open to us” in our daily lives to see those around us and the world through the eyes of our Crucified Savior and to witness to his love in whatever way possible. Mission begins in our immediate environment.

Finally, the moment of departure of the six Oblate missionaries had arrived. The gathered in Marseilles for a farewell. Filled with admiration for their generosity and spirit of oblation, Eugene exclaimed in his diary:

September 28: Tonight we parted with our dear missionaries who leave tomorrow for Canada. Nothing more edifying than the feelings that animate them, they leave full of holy zeal and boundless devotion, generously sacrificing the most natural affections without even the thought of taking pride in them so that they be appreciated. It must be said because it’s true: they were all perfect; God will take it into account for them.

Eugene de Mazenod’s Diary, 28 September 1841, EO XX

Choosing the first missionaries to go to Canada required the application of discernment on the part of Eugene and his Oblate council

I assure you, my very dear son, that I thought of you only as well motivated in offering yourself to me as one to be chosen to found our first establishment in Canada. I have blessed the Lord for the dispositions in which His grace has put you. Yet I hesitated on remembering the letter you wrote me when I told you that you were assigned as member of the community of Lumières…

After talking about the difficulties that Fr Bermond’s attitude had caused, Eugene continued:

You know that in a far-off mission like that of Canada, one must be equal to any trial. We must be able to count on the solidity of the religious virtues of those who are going to find themselves 1500 leagues from me. Who can foresee the afflictions that one will suffer from men or events if one is not strengthened in the practice of humility and abnegation, if one is not rooted in obedience which is the basis of any religious edifice, if one is not disposed to endure the imperfections of others and especially if one has not so thoroughly renounced his own will that it no longer hurts to submit to that of a superior, which he even does without effort, without sadness, without the least murmur?

Eugene then concluded:

You will not bear me any grudge, my dear son, if I tell you frankly all I think. Give me more reassurance and you will be included in a second contingent.

I embrace and bless you.

Letter to Fr. Francois Bermond, 19 August 1841, EO I n 4

“In this you rejoice, even if now for a little while you have had to suffer various trials, so that the genuineness of your faith—being more precious than gold that, though perishable, is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed” 

I Peter 1; 6-8

For more details: https://www.omiworld.org/lemma/bermond-francois-xavier/ 

Before accepting the Canada mission, Eugene had consulted every member of the Oblate congregation. The majority of members had indicated their desire to be sent there, so it was difficult to make a choice. Here is a letter to one of them who was accepted.

My dear Father Lucien, bless the good God. He has granted your wish. I have definitely chosen you to be a member of the community which will go and plant the standard of the Congregation, which is that of the Cross itself, in another part of the world.

I have the greatest confidence that you and your companions will be worthy of your vocation, that you will do much good and that you will honour the Congregation by your devotedness, your zeal and your regularity.

These were the first Oblate missionaries to arrive in a new country. First impressions count, and all future missionary invitations would depend on this.

On the impression you give will depend the growth of the family not only in all of Canada but in other mission countries ready to be evangelized and to which are lacking only the workers to announce to them the good news of salvation. You will be the first to open the way; others will follow you.

I shall have difficulty to console several who hoped to be included in the first contingent.

Adieu, I have only time to embrace and bless you,

Letter to Fr. Lucien Lagier, 28 August1841, EO I n 5

“No one after lighting a lamp puts it under the bushel basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.” (Matthew 5: 15-16)

For further details see: https://www.omiworld.org/lemma/lagier-lucien-antoine/