Eugene de Mazenod speaks to us

In the darkness and insecurity we are living through, we recall a 25 year-old in Aix en Provence whose life was insecure because he had no clear sense of direction.

I looked for happiness outside of God and for too long with resulting unhappiness.

As he struggled to find meaning in what was going on he understood the presence of God in a new way one Good Friday, looking at the Cross, and realized the only focus that could made enduring sense for the rest of his life. As he looked at the Cross he learnt to focus from darkness to light

Detail of an icon written by Lauretta Agolli

Never was my soul more satisfied, never did it feel such happiness; for in the midst of this flood of tears, despite my grief, or rather because of my grief, my soul took wings towards its final end, towards God its only good whose loss it felt so keenly.

 Just the memory of it fills my heart with a sweet consolation. Thus I had looked for happiness outside of God, and outside of God I found only disorder and anxiety.

Let me at least make up for lost time by redoubling my love for God. May all my actions, thoughts, etc., be directed towards that end. What more glorious occupation than to act in everything and for everything only for God, to love God above all else, to love God all the more as one who has loved God too late.

Eugene de Mazenod’s Retreat Journal, December 1814, EO XV n.130

“Just the memory of it fills my heart with a sweet consolation” – an invitation to recall the “God-moments” in our lives and to allow them to help us to refocus on what counts.

The current pandemic has not made it possible to attend Mass in our churches. I share this  text from Ciara Lubich which reminds us of the promise of Jesus:

“Where two or three are gathered in my name, I am present among them”

Matthew  18:20

Even though we may not be physically present to one another, we can make this presence real among us by declaring that we desire that this be a reality with others who declare the same desire. Jesus assures us that he IS present!

Chiara Lubich writes:

What struck me most, perhaps, in looking more into the reality of his presence, was that for him just a few things are enough. All that is needed is two or three people, and wherever he is, he creates what he came on earth to bring us: the Church. And so he aroused within me an immense passion to build thousands and thousands of churches, hundreds of thousands, millions, really millions of churches, made not of stone, but of two or three people united in his name scattered throughout the world. . . .

The idea of being able to build, with Jesus in person in our midst, an infinite number of churches, is the idea that I find so exhilarating in these days. I would like to communicate it to all of you, to tell you that we have a treasure in our hands…

Let s make this presence of Jesus a reality wherever we are.

Reflecting on the children in the rural parishes to whom Bishop Eugene was administering the sacrament of confirmation, he exclaimed:

However, how does it happen that, when I speak to them in the style in which I think we should always speak to them, those children pay extraordinary attention? How does it happen as today again, I saw some of them weeping just like some adults who attended the ceremony?

I did not, however, use frightening language, but on the contrary I focused on the immense goodness of God and our Lord towards us, and I explained that it was especially expressed in the Sacrament of the Eucharist.

A clear example of “being” in order to “do,” Eugene shared with them the love for God that he experienced in his own life.

Those children understood me perfectly, you could see that they shared in the sentiments of which I was speaking, with the fervor that God communicated tangibly to my soul. Besides that, I admit that I myself savor that kind of instruction, which I always give with indescribable consolation, which do me as much good as those who are listening to me

Eugene de Mazenod’s Diary, 13 September 1837, EO XVIII

The essence of being a missionary is to communicate that which we are living in our relationship with God.

On a pastoral visit to some rural parishes for confirmation, Bishop Eugene commented on the knowledge of the children.

A visit to Caillols where the parishes of Saint Julien, Camoins and Chateau-Gombert had come together… I was very pleased with the childrens’ attention to my instruction which was drawn precisely from the indifference or rather the carelessness that they, as all other children, give to supernatural matters. Oh! how poorly do they instruct them! It is only too true that no one makes an effort to stimulate in their souls the sentiments to which they are nevertheless susceptible. They dryly teach them the letter of the catechism, more or less well explained, but do not try to bring out God’s goodness, the infinite love of Our Lord Jesus Christ for people, and do not form their hearts.

Eugene de Mazenod’s Diary, 13 September 1837, EO XVIII

While never watering down religious teaching and moral demands, Eugene always tried to communicate his passionate love for God in response to the love which he personally experienced from Jesus the Savior.

An important reminder to us who are teachers of the faith as parents, catechists, teachers or preachers: it is all about God’s goodness and the infinite love of Jesus Christ, with all the commitments and responsibilities entailed in that relationship and its expression.

Eugene, as Superior General, gave Fr Hermitte a new missionary assignment to serve the spiritually needy.

I am directing you to leave for N.D. du Laus so that you may give good service in this shrine to which so many needy souls flock to find some relief from their misfortunes. There you will hear the confessions of both the pilgrims and the people of the place who may come to you.

Eugene reminds him of the model of every Oblate mission: co-operator of the Savior in the footsteps of the apostles.

There you must be everything to everyone, as was the divine Master whom we serve and the holy Apostles in whose footsteps we follow. Go therefore, my dear son, with the disposition of making up with zeal for the small number of labourers.

The Savior never abandons his co-operators:

The Lord, whose work we are doing, will provide for our needs, if we are faithful servants and accomplish well the beautiful mission he has entrusted to us through a grace of having been chosen.

Letter to Jean Hermitte, 25 August 1837, EO IX n 636

Today, as Eugene’s Mazenodian Family, we are invited to the same vision in our daily lives.

Eugene records two of his pastoral visits to comfort those who were suffering.

Coming back to the city, I went to visit Father Fissiaux who is sick with grief, seeing that the plague of cholera had taken seven little girls of his community.

Father Charles Fissiaux, a member of the diocesan clergy, had started poor girls and those orphaned by cholera epidemic of 1835. In 1839, he founded the Society of Saint Peter in Chains for young people in jail.

From there I visited M. Jourdan, down with cholera, but with some hope of a cure. My visit did him unspeakable good and greatly edified Doctor Ducros who came to the sick man’s house at the same time as I did. If they understood the true meaning of what a Bishop is, they would be less astonished to see him approaching his sheep when they are suffering some affliction or in the clutches of sickness and death.

Eugene de Mazenod’s Diary, 8 September 1837, EO XVIII

As a Mazenodian Family, let’s try to set aside some time each day to pray (oraison) in solidarity with all the members of the Mazenodian Family throughout the world.

Recent entries of this daily reflection have been dealing with the 1837 outbreak of cholera in Marseilles.

I invite you to go back to the entries regarding the cholera of 1835:

They begin from 5 July 2019 (https://www.eugenedemazenod.net/?p=3997) and continue to 7 August 2019 (https://www.eugenedemazenod.net/?p=4021).

Also the article in the Historical Dictionary:   https://www.omiworld.org/lemma/cholera-epidemics/

As the cholera epidemic was lessening, so did the awareness of the misery it had caused.

But misery is being felt on all sides, and we do not dare to hope that the collections taken up so ostentatiously in the previous cholera epidemic will relieve it very much.

Eugene then spoke of the money that had been collected in the previous epidemic of 1835, and how those funds had been misused and never reached the intended victims.

Meanwhile, the poor are relying on the bishop’s house, and soon we will be reduced to selling our silverware to help them, since we have not received a cent from all those philanthropic collections whose proceeds are disappearing into a fund where I think they put them. There is a universal complaint in the city, regarding the misappropriation; and yet, many a man who would not give a hundred sous to his pastor, glories in seeing his name pompously inscribed on a published list for a hundred francs and sometimes less. [ed: 5 sous made 1 franc]

Eugene de Mazenod’s Diary, 7 September 1837, EO XVIII

“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).    

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, March 15, 2020, as we remember feast of St. Joseph, protector of the Congregation.  

From the Dictionary of Oblate Values:

Icon written by Oblate Partner, Lauretta Agolli

It would seem that one has to see this devotion as being associated to his vision of the Church, bought by the blood of Jesus Christ, a vision which extended beyond the limits of the Church here on earth and led him to enter into constant communion with the Church of heaven. This was the source of his deep devotion to the saints, especially to Mary Immaculate and as Father Toussaint Rambert wrote: “immediately after the Blessed Virgin, Saint Joseph held first place in his heart”. relationship with the Savior and Mary Immaculate, the Servant of God’s two greatest devotions. 

In addition, we see him having constant recourse to his intercession, confiding to him the material interests of his Congregation, the recruiting of vocations, the health of missionaries, the success of their apostolate, the success of General Chapters which he officially placed “under the patronage of Saint Joseph, our beloved Patron”; he often placed our houses under his protection, “after that of the Holy Virgin who is always to be the first patron of our houses”.  

Matthew 2,13-14;19-21: 

Behold, the angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Rise, take the child and his mother, flee to Egypt, and stay there until I tell you. Herod is going to search for the child to destroy him.” Joseph rose and took the child and his mother by night and departed for Egypt…When Herod had died, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt and said, “Rise, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel, for those who sought the child’s life are dead.” He rose, took the child and his mother, and went to the land of Israel. 

From a letter of St. Eugene to Fr. Eugene Guigues:

I believe his soul more excellent than all the celestial intelligences, above which it is indubitably placed in heaven. In that blessed abode Jesus Christ, Mary and Joseph are just as inseparable as they were on earth…I am quite persuaded as well that the body of St. Joseph is already in glory and that is where it is meant to be for all time. Speaking of his soul close to Jesus and Mary I said it was: above the choirs of angels…” 

From a letter of St. Eugene to Fr. Vincens: 

Concerning prayers, I must tell you that several of our Fathers want me to ordain a daily invocation to St. Joseph, foster father of the Holy Family, to obtain that from Heaven above he may provide for the temporal needs of the Congregation which recognizes him as principal Patron. Not that we want to become rich, but that we may provide for the needs of those whom Providence sends us. 

From a letter of St. Eugene to his father: 

On the morning of St. Joseph’s feast day I was close to the end; and as if my holy patron had wished to show me the effect of his powerful protection that was being invoked for me on all sides, that very evening I took a turn for the better with astonishing rapidity.  The next day or the day after that there was no longer any danger. 

Eugene reacts, in his private diary, to those who think only with their heads and not their hearts.

He knew and loved Scripture, and in this text we see him freely using texts from the First Letter of John, chapters 3 and 4.

After the coming of Jesus Christ, the example of Saint Peter, and the teachings of Saint John, they still present to us a type of perfection, more worthy of stoics than true Christians! Let us love God because of his infinite perfections, let us love him also because he first loved us, “but that he loved us first,” but “since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another”, and notice well: “Little children, let us love, not in word or speech,” like all those who love with the head, “but in truth and action”.

Oh! no! “He who does not love does not know God, for God is love”. And to show that such love is not speculation and abstraction about a person, and it is so true that we must know how to love here below, in order to promise to love God for whom, in a true sense, we love his creatures, that the Apostle tells us: “for those who do not love a brother whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen.”

There is no middle way: “The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers.” Let them study Saint John, let them delve into the heart of Saint Peter and his love for his divine master, let them especially examine everything that emanates from the so-loving heart of Jesus Christ, not only for all men, but especially his apostles and disciples, and then let anyone dare to come and preach to us a speculative love, deprived of sentiment and without affection!

Eugene de Mazenod’s Diary, 4 September 1837, EO XVIII