Eugene de Mazenod speaks to us

In preparation for next year’s two hundredth anniversary of the pontifical approbation of our Rule and official recognition of our charism, join St Eugene (and me) in spending some time exploring he Rule and its contents.

“St Eugene speaks” to us through the Rule of Life, and so we invite him to join our pilgrimage in communion, as instruments of hope.

Our current Constitutions and Rules begin with a Foreword. Today, with our awareness that the Oblate charism is lived by many different vocations, we can adapt the vocabulary of its message (but not the underlying charism) to our own way of life.

Our Lord Jesus Christ, when the appointed time came, was sent by the Father and filled with the Spirit “to bring the good news to the poor, to proclaim liberty to captives and to the blind new sight, to set the downtrodden free, to proclaim the Lord’s year of favour” (Lk 4: 18.19). He called men to become disciples and share in his mission; in the Church, he continues to call others to follow him.
 
Saint Eugene de Mazenod heard that call. Burning with love for Jesus and his Church, he suffered deeply on seeing how God’s people were abandoned. He chose to become “the servant and priest of the poor” and to give his life wholly to them.
 
Faced with an overwhelming task, he gathered a few priests around him, men who shared his impassioned zeal for the most abandoned… “Live together as brothers,” he urged them; “Strive to imitate the virtues and example of our Saviour Jesus Christ principally through preaching the Word of God to the poor.”

At his persuading, they committed themselves permanently to the preaching of missions, binding themselves by religious vows. Soon afterwards, he decided to receive Brothers as true sons of the family. Thus began the Congregation of the Missionary Oblates of the Most Holy and Immaculate Virgin Mary.  (CCRR Foreword)

Each of us is a true son or daughter of Eugene’s family. Let’s take some time to reflect on these words and let them make a difference to our daily life…

Eugene’s pilgrimage of relationship with Jesus is mirrored in our present Rule:

Novitiate formation ends with a free and faith-filled commitment in the Oblate Congregation. The novice, having experienced the Father’s love in Jesus, dedicates his life to making that love visible. He entrusts his fidelity to the one whose cross he shares, whose promises are his hope. Constitution 59)

As members of the Oblate Charismatic Family, we can make these words our own: “having experienced the Father’s love in Jesus, each of us is impelled to making that love visible. We entrust our fidelity to the one whose cross we share, whose promises are our hope.”

Page-by-page the Oblate Rule guides us on our pilgrim way of love and hope.

When Eugene contemplated his religious family, he recalled his own vocation. He had experienced the Crucified Christ as his Savior and understood that he was being called to be His co-worker: to journey with others in their search for meaning and happiness.

In the first Rule of his Missionary Family, he defined us in this way:

They are called to be the Savior’s co-workers, the co-redeemers of mankind.

(1818 Rule)

That is quite a “job description!” On the day of our baptism each of us was “claimed by Christ the Savior.” As Christians it is part of our DNA to be the co-workers of the One we belong to. In our everyday lives we are invited to see in every person and event, the invitation to be the co-workers of the Savior. We are not called to heroics, but to realize that in a simple smile, a helping hand, a word of encouragement or apology we are co-workers.

St Teresa of Avila understood this when she wrote:

“Christ has no body but yours,
No hands, no feet on earth but yours,
Yours are the eyes with which he looks
Compassion on this world,
Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good,
Yours are the hands, with which he blesses all the world…” 

As we will discover, while we explore the book of the Constitutions and Rules, that it is our manual of how to achieve this ideal.

Can I ever forget the sight of the Cross on that Good Friday?

St Eugene de Mazenod

At the sight of the Cross Eugene understood that he was poor and needed the Savior. His years of “searching for happiness” finally found their meaning and their goal. The rest of his long and eventful life hinged on the sight of the cross and on working to bring everyone to its same saving vision.

The Oblate Rule becomes a teacher that leads of every member of our Charismatic Family to embrace the Cross and the salvation it offers. Whoever embraces it, automatically embraces the Savior. We wear it proudly and it spurs us to be transformed into this sign and means of salvation for others.

Every time I look at my Oblate Cross I am reminded of the statue of Jesus, whose arms were blown off in war and never replaced, and that has a plaque with the message: “I have no arms but yours.”

Eugene’s life changed at the foot of the Cross when he realized that he was poor and needed the Savior. He then became aware of the poverty of people in France, and later throughout the world, because they did not know Jesus Christ as their Savior and companion on life’s journey. For this reason God called him to become a priest, and later to invite others to join him in what was to become his Oblate Family.

The very first article of his very first Rule (1818) reflects Eugene’s pilgrim journey:

The purpose of the Institute of the Missionaries of Provence

is first of all to form a group of priests who live together

and who strive to imitate the virtues and examples of our Savior Jesus Christ

principally by dedicating themselves to preaching the Word of God to the poor.

1818 Rule

It is in imitating our Savior Jesus Christ in his preaching the Gospel to the poor that we find the reason for the existence of our Oblate Charismatic Family. Each of us, in his or her own specific way, is called to share our experience of the Savior’s presence in the poverty of our hearts.

Through the witness of our lives we are “preachers” of the good News to those who need Him.

In 1826 the Church officially recognized that in our Constitutions and Rules we find the means of doing this.

When Jesus began his public ministry, he announced: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring the Good News to the poor” (Luke 4, 18)

One Good Friday when the young and directionless Eugene looked at the Cross, he realized that he was poor, he was a sinner who had wandered away from God:

I looked for happiness outside of God and for too long with resulting unhappiness.
How often in my past life had my wounded, tormented heart taken wings for God from whom it had turned away!

…Can I forget the bitter tears that the sight of the cross brought streaming from my eyes one Good Friday? … they welled up from the heart, there was no checking them, they were too abundant I was in a state of mortal sin and it was precisely this that made me grieve.

He realized that he was poor and that Jesus had brought him the good news of salvation:

Blessed, a thousand times blessed, that he, this good Father, notwithstanding my unworthiness, lavished on me all the richness of his mercy.

Retreat Journal, December 1814, EO XV n.130

He founded the missionary Oblates in 1816 because he understood what it meant to be poor and in need of salvation, and wanted to bring the Good News to the poor who did not know God’s mercy and love.

We can thus say that our Oblate Rule is a shrine that preserves this ideal and helps us to live it as redeemed sinners: we recognize our poverty and allow ourselves to be transformed by God’s love and mercy.

In  focusing on the Oblate Rule as a reflection of the Gospel, Vatican II reminds us that each founding figure, and the charismatic family around that figure, reflects a particular aspect of Jesus Christ, which is expressed in their Rule:

[They] should carefully keep before their minds the fact that the Church presents Christ to believers and non-believers alike in a striking manner daily through them. The Church thus portrays Christ in contemplation on the mountain, in His proclamation of the kingdom of God to the multitudes, in His healing of the sick and maimed, in His work of converting sinners to a better life, in His solicitude for youth and His goodness to all, always obedient to the will of the Father who sent Him (Lumen Gentium 46) .

St John Paul II described this: “the various vocations are like so many rays of the one light of Christ, whose radiance ‘brightens the countenance of the Church” (Vita Consecrata 16).

Eugene de Mazenod’s ray of light, and that of the Oblate Charismatic Family, is Jesus Christ as Savior and Evangelizer. We are cooperators of the Savior in his aspect of preaching the Gospel to the most abandoned. It is this “ray of light” that is captured in our Constitutions and Rules.

“Do this and you will live” (Luke 10, 28) are the words of Jesus to us as he invites us to recognize him in the Gospel.

As members of the Oblate Charismatic Family exploring the Rule that is our inspiration, we remember that it is our reflection and application of the Gospel. In the words of St Francis of Assisi, “The Rule is the life of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”

The Vatican Dicastery for Consecrated Life pointed this out clearly for us in 2002:

It was the Holy Spirit who sparked the Word of God with new light for the founders and foundresses.

Every charism and every Rule springs from it and seeks to be an expression of it.

In continuity with founders and foundresses their disciples today are called to take up the Word of God and to cherish it in their hearts so that it may be a lamp for their feet and a light for their path (cf. Ps 118:105).

The Holy Spirit will then be able to lead them to the fullness of truth (cf. Jn 16:13). (“Starting Afresh from Christ,” n. 24)

These are the words ringing in the ears of every newly professed Oblate as he receives the book of the OMI Constitutions and Rules. These are the words ringing out in the hearts of the lay members of the Oblate Charismatic Family as they make their commitment to live by the spirit and charism of St Eugene.

Having just celebrated February 17, we now begin our journey of preparation to commemorate 200 years of the Church’s approval of our Rule and the spirit and way of life it proposes. In these daily reflections I invite you to join me on this pilgrimage.

The Oblate Brothers and priests are bound to follow every prescription of this Rule, while the lay members of our Family are invited to live by its spirit and whatever is applicable to their way of life. Our approach as we reflect on the Rule is to let its pages speak to us as pilgrims on a common journey.

“Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus said to him, “What is written in the law? How do you read it?” He said in reply, “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your being, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” He replied to him, “You have answered correctly; do this and you will live.” (Luke 10, 25-28).

Live the Gospel and you will live! The Constitutions and Rules are a reflection of the Gospel through the eyes of St. Eugene and our charism. They were recognized as such and approved by the Church in 1826.

Today we read:

The Constitutions and Rules set out a privileged means for each [member of the] Oblate [Charismatic Family] to follow in the footsteps of Jesus Christ. They are inspired by the charism lived by the Founder and his first companions; also, they have received the approval of the Church. (Constitution 163)

Our Superior General wrote for today: February 17th – 199th Anniversary of the Papal Approbation of the Constitutions and Rules. We read in C. 163:

“The Constitutions and Rules set out a privileged means for each Oblate to follow in the footsteps of Jesus Christ. They are inspired by the charism lived by the Founder and his first companions; also, they have received the approval of the Church. Thus, they allow each Oblate to evaluate the quality of his response to his vocation and to become a saint.”

To help us put Christ at the centre of our lives, we have a tool with authoritative confirmation of the Church. Our CC and RR help us evaluate whether we are genuinely following Christ, whether we are indeed responding to his call to embrace Oblate life, whether we are indeed on the path to holiness and whether we are faithful to the mission we have received.

In all humility, we must recognize that we can always move forward and do better. By placing our trust in the Lord, we can always take new steps on this pilgrimage of hope. We are not hindered by our past, nor our age, nor by our health conditions, or the circumstances around us; on the contrary, it is all this that contextualizes and makes our missionary oblation take flesh. “ #SuperiorGeneral #Letter_Febrary17 #CCRR #pilgrimsofhopeincommunion