Eugene de Mazenod speaks to us

“In the prolonged silent prayer we make each day, we let ourselves be molded by the Lord, and find in him the inspiration of our conduct”  (OMI Rule of Life, 33).

Icon by Oblate Partner, Lauretta Agolli

The practice of Oraison was an important part of St. Eugene’s daily prayer during which he entered into communion with the members of his missionary family. While they were all in France it was easy for them to gather in prayer at approximately the same time. When Oblate missionaries started to be sent to different continents it was no longer possible to pray at the same time, yet each day there was a time when they stopped and prayed in union with one another – even though not at the same time.

This is a practice that Eugene wanted the members of his religious family to maintain. This is why you are invited to take part in this practice of Oraison on Sunday, May 17, 2020, as we commemorate the anniversary of St. Eugene de Mazenod’s death on May 21, 1861.

Some suggested texts to pray with:

Hebrews 13: 7-8

Remember your leaders who spoke the word of God to you. Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

Excerpt from: Marcello Zago, O.M.I., Renewing Ourselves in the Charism of Eugene de Mazenod (January 25th, 1995).

Eugene de Mazenod still remains a living person with whom we have a personal relationship. Since he lived between 1782 and 1861 a life rich in events and responsibilities, he owes his importance not simply to his achievements and intuitions, to the Institute he founded and the movement he created in the Church. To this day he continues to relate to us and we to him through the communion of saints. So, remembering him is not enough. We must develop a personal rapport, always more intimate, with him. That is the reason why I invite you together to focus your attention on the Founder, considering him as

-a saint to imitate,

-a founder to follow,

-a teacher to heed

-a father to love,

-an intercessor to invoke.

Let us pause to reflect on how we recognize these qualities in St. Eugene today. The complete article by Father Marcello Zago (OMI Superior General 1986-1998) is worth reading: https://www.omiworld.org/wp-content/uploads/RENEWING-OURSELVES-IN-THE-CHARISM-OF-EUGENE-DE-MAZENOD.pdf

These are the words that St Eugene addressed to his family on his deathbed. They apply to the whole Mazenodian Family today.

Bishop, one of us asked him, give us some words to pass on to all our brothers. It will make them very happy!

Be sure to tell them that I die happy… that I die happy that God was so good as to choose me to found the Congregation of the Oblates in the Church.

Bishop, would you reveal to us the last wish in your heart.

Practice among yourselves charity … charity…. charity… and outside, zeal for the salvation of souls.

-Circular letter of Father Fabre, 1861 after the death of the Founder.

I call you friends, because I have made known to you everything I have learnt from my Father. (John 15: 15)

“How does God love me, and how do I reflect this love to others?” is the question that Jesus explains in today’s Gospel (John 15:12-17). It is a love expressed, not in abstract concepts, but in everyday relationships. Through our baptism, Jesus makes us ongoing participants in his relationship with his Father – not as unworthy fearful servants but as friends called to an intimacy expressed in love.

St Eugene’s daily sentiment:

“May the love of Jesus Christ be ever in our hearts!” (1814)

This led him to his vocation

‘that called me to devote myself to the service and to the happiness of my neighbor whom I loved with the love of Jesus Christ for all people.” (1839)

We are living these days in hope and in fearful confusion: we strive to begin to restore normality to our activities and interactions, and yet we still face the unknown menace of the virus.

In this hope and uncertainty let us remember that what really counts is the conviction that we are truly “called friends” and it is from this vision that we are invited to live each of these days.

“A person can have no greater love than to lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends” (John 15:13-14)

Every sentence of today’s Gospel (John 15: 9-17) is an invitation to deep reflection and transformation.

It is about the love between Jesus and his Father, shared between Jesus and his disciples and shared among each of us. It is not a bond of love, but better expressed as “a moving sea between the shores of our souls” (Kahlil Gibran).

St. Eugene understood the power of this “moving sea” when, in 1830, he insisted that

“Charity is the pivot on which our whole existence turns.”

Repeated again on his deathbed:

“Among yourselves, charity, charity, charity.”

Today let us focus on this moving sea of God’s love overwhelming us. The pandemic bombards us with so many powerful forces – but nothing can take away the power of the overwhelming love of the one who gave his life for us, his friends.

“I am the vine, you are the branches. Whoever remains in me, with me in him, bears fruit in plenty.” (John 15: 5)

In the context of the last Supper, Jesus is preparing his disciples to live in the world without him being physically present. In today’s Gospel (John 15:1-8), the key word is “remain” and it is repeated 10 times. The image for “remaining” is that Jesus is the Vine and you and I are the branches kept alive by mutual indwelling in love. The sap of our daily life comes from the Vine, and it produces fruit in and through us.

St Eugene de Mazenod meditated on himself using the image of a tree:

I was a tree damaged by original sin. The head of the household could have had it cut down and thrown it in the fire. He preferred to transplant it into good soil for it to bear good fruit. Such was the effect of baptism.

…Transplanted into the blessed soil irrigated by the blood of Jesus Christ, enriched with his very substance, etc., what fruit did I produce? Great God! (1814)

We have been living and continue to live challenging days, necessitating the importance of an awareness of us being the branches and of an Indwelling that challenges us to produce fruit in an unusual context. Let us remember that Jesus said “remain” ten times in today’s Gospel – and he constantly keeps repeating it to us throughout the day.

“Peace I bequeath to you, my own peace I give you, a peace the world cannot give, this is my gift to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid.”  (John 14: 27)

Peace in today’s Gospel (John 14:27-31), does not essentially mean “feel good” or “lack of violence” – it is about the covenant relationship with God that no one or nothing can take away (see Romans chapter 8, especially verse 38-39: “For I am sure that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”)

It is peace with God because Jesus as Savior reconciled us on the Cross and sealed it with the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Saint Eugene writing to his mother in 1811 (XIV n 93):

But would we want to win heaven at no cost to ourselves? No; so let us place all these contradictions at the foot of the cross of our good Jesus; let us offer him throughout the day all that we are doing to please him, and after that let us be at peace.

He urges her to unite herself more often with Jesus in prayer, especially in his Eucharistic presence:

Dear mother, are you not going a little more often to the source of all consolation? Cannot you hear this Saviour, who calls to you from his tabernacle: Dear soul, why am I humbled here like this? Is it in vain that I keep on re-echoing these selfsame words that I said to my disciples: come to me, all you who labour and are heavy-laden: come and I will give you rest, and restore you; unite with me in this intimate union for which I remained with you, and balm will flow in your veins, and your soul will be filled, strengthened, renewed.

This is the same assurance that Jesus gives to his disciples at the Last Supper as he prepares them for a different way of living in a world that is rapidly changing for them. We, too, are his disciples adjusting to new realities and to us he says: Do not let your hearts be troubled or afraid.”

Today three versions of St Eugene Speaks appeared – sorry about the confusion.

For exactly ten years (1 May 2010) these reflections have been published, with the aim of going through the writings of St Eugene in chronological order. We have reached 1838 in this series.

With the pandemic, I decided to pause this program and rather do something more connected with what we are living in our everyday life through the focus of the Gospel of the day and a connected thought of St Eugene. This will continue until Pentecost.

On June 1 Eugene will go back to guiding us through his life and writings.

In the hope that you find this service useful.

Frank Santucci OMI

“If anyone loves me he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we shall come to him and make our home with him.” (John 14: 23)

In these days the daily Gospel in the liturgy is from the Last Supper discourse of Jesus. We see the community of disciples (the Early Church) being prepared for life without the physical earthly presence of Jesus. The community is being trained to recognize the presence of God in many different ways.

Today’s Gospel (John 14:21-26) plunges us into the dynamics of Trinitarian love by putting us into relationship with the Holy Spirit. If we love God, then God will make a home of our lives.

St. Eugene wanted his life to be God’s home:

The only way, I believe, is to act always in a perfect dependence on God’s will, in perfect liberty of spirit, in union with God by an interior movement of connection to what it pleases him at that moment, with the conviction that that is what he wants me to do, and absolutely nothing else. 

The pandemic we are living through has shaken our foundations and invites us to re-examine our life choices:
to begin by loving,
to listen to the Loved One’s Word,
to allow ourselves to be loved, and
to transform our life into the home of Love.

Come to know St Eugene in more depth in presentation 6 of “Eugene de Mazenod 101” prepared by Oblates David Muñoz Lopez, Bonga Majola and I.

We invite you to participate in this series of 20 -minute videos – the first six of which are now available online. We promise: no homework, no assignments, no exams, no teachers snooping over your shoulder to check whether you are paying attention!

Eugene 101: “Let me show you who you are in God’s eyes”

Each presentation comes with some questions for personal reflection and prayer, which could also be useful for group meetings – as well as suggestions for further reading.

If you have not already registered, you can get further information at https://moodle.ost.edu/course/index.php?categoryid=28

There is a small fee to cover the expenses of production.

(If you are enjoying the course and are feeling super-generous, we invite you to provide a scholarship or more to make it possible for the participation of those whose financial means don’t permit it. To do so visit https://ost.edu/donate/, and in the drop-down menu select “Oblate Studies”.)

“Do not let your hearts be troubled”  (John 14:1)

Today’s Gospel (John 14:1-6) gives the reason why distressed disciples have hope and meaning in their lives: Jesus assures them “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life”

The “Way” – was how discipleship was expressed from the time of the earliest followers of Jesus. (Acts of the Apostles)

The “Truth” – “You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free” (John 8:32)

The “Life” – “And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” (John 17:3)

Bishop Eugene de Mazenod wrote to the people of Marseilles:

We have told you, united to Jesus Christ we are established in a happy solidarity with Him, on which our salvation depends. The Christian life is simply a perpetual communion with Jesus Christ.

(Pastoral Letter, February 1846)

These are not empty theological ideas: Jesus lived these in his love for people, giving his life to teach, serve and redeem. We are seeing reflections of the Risen Christ continuing this around us every day – highlighted during the pandemic in those who continue his actions of teaching, serving and saving.

After he had washed the feet of his disciples, Jesus said to them: ‘I tell you most solemnly, no servant is greater than his master. (John 13:16)

Today’s Gospel (John 13:16-20) begins at the conclusion of one of the most dramatic gestures of Jesus, when he washed the feet of his disciples at the Last Supper. It was a very necessary action performed by the lowliest servant when people came into a household after wearing sandals in filthy streets. A necessary action that became highly symbolic. Jesus then teaches that whoever welcomes the servant, welcomes him.

Eugene de Mazenod’s response:

I will meditate on Jesus my love in his incarnation, his hidden life, his mission, his passion and death; but especially in his Sacrament and Sacrifice. My chief occupation will be to love him, my chief concern to make him loved. To this I will bend all my efforts, time, strength, and when after much toil I have succeeded in winning but a single act of love towards so good a Master, I will rightly consider myself very well paid.

Retreat notes, December 1812, O.W. XV n. 109

Today our feet are washed by every one of the generous people who contributes to our welfare and hope in any way.

Let us look at them with new eyes.

Let us recognize this gesture of Jesus loving us through them.