Eugene de Mazenod speaks to us

I have received your two letters, my dear Fr. Semeria, I would not say merely with great pleasure, but with a transport of joy. I was counting the days and the hours, and continually asking whether the boat had yet arrived, when at last your delightful letter was brought to me. Thank you, my dear son, first for having given me your news and that of your dear travelling-companions, and also for having gone into all the details of which your letter informs me. This is how things should always be done…

I had some news of you in the desert. A traveller who passed through here on the diligence saw you on your donkeys and told me that you were near Suez when he met you. We laughed a good deal about your mode of travel, but he assured us that it was excellent.

Letter to Fr Etienne Semeria in Ceylon, 25 January 1848, EO IV (Ceylon) n 2

REFLECTION

We smile at donkeys! Yet, it is amazing to pause and reflect on the means of travel used by missionaries since Gospel times: on foot, horseback, canoes and boats, sailing ships and steam ships… Paul describes his Gospel adventures:

“Three times I was shipwrecked; for a night and a day I was adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from bandits, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers and sisters; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, hungry and thirsty, often without food, cold and naked.” (2 Corinthians 11:25-27)

and

“I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ; for whenever I am weak, then I am strong.” (2 Corinthians 12:9-10)

Father Leonard was completing his successful recruiting campaign in the French seminaries in search of missionaries to join the Oblates (see: https://www.eugenedemazenod.net/?p=5497 and related entries). Now he had another new mission field to speak about: Ceylon.

I have received letters from Ceylon. The Fathers have all arrived in good health, after 37 days at sea. It took only 18 days from Suez to the blessed island which awaited them. Nothing is comparable to the reception given to his lordship the Vicar Apostolic whom they accompanied. They praise him very much and the Bishop is no less pleased with them.

What a beautiful mission! My heart opens wide when I think of it. Bear in mind what it is to have 12 or 15 thousand non-believers to evangelize, 150,000 Catholics to teach and a great number of Protestants to bring back to the Faith. So we will soon have to increase our little colony. In your excursions, you may add a few words about this mission which presents such great hopes.

Letter to Fr Leonard Baveaux, 21 January 1848, EO X n 962

REFLECTION

“The Founder left us a legacy: “Among yourselves practice charity, charity, charity – and, outside, zeal for the salvation of souls.” In fidelity to that testament, each member’s zeal is sustained by the bonds of fraternal charity.” (Constitutions and Rules, C37)

“In the writings of the Founder we must understand the word zeal in the typical meaning attributed to it in the spirituality of his time. But we will immediately notice that as far as the Founder is concerned, zeal is the expression of charity’s fervor and of fraternal love. It was not by accident that the basic text of the Preface situated zeal at the very heart of the Oblate vocation.” (M. Courvoisier https://www.omiworld.org/lemma/zeal/)

The excitement of the arrival of the first-ever steam locomotives in Provence, continued the day after the blessing. Six hundred people were invited to ride in the new train from Marseilles to Arles and back for a similar ceremony.

Bishop Eugene was not amused to have had to participate:

I would have preferred to attend the pontifical High Mass in the Cathedral rather than going to make the station stop at Arles with the new railway wagons. The trip took place promptly and safely. In Arles there was a superb luncheon and especially some well-heated stoves, because a person could freeze to death in this glacial atmosphere, the snow was falling in large flakes. The plentiful assemblage was to return at four thirty.

Eugene de Mazenod’s Diary, 9 January 1848, EO XXI

The newspaper was enthusiastic, however:

“Two and a half hours to go from Marseille to Arles, isn’t that the sign of a forthcoming revolution in our habits, in the conditions of existence of populations for whom distances are thus erased, and whose relationships will multiply ad infinitum?”.

And the journalist concluded:

“This day of January 9, 1848, despite the inclemency of the skies, is one of the most beautiful that Marseille has ever recorded in its annals”.

REFLECTION

The distance from Marseilles to Arles was 85 kilometers so the locomotive marvels were speeding at around 35 kilometers per hour (around 20 miles per hour). Presumably the Bishop was not in the carriage drawn by “Lucifer”!

“The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” (Lao Tzu)

The official version of the blessing of locomotives, quoted in the previous entry, was not fully correct. Only nine were blessed according to the narrative of the local “Sémaphore” newspaper:

However, a small problem arose in the last minute, just before the ceremony.

Each of the ten brand-new locomotives had its name engraved on a plaque. But if, as the journalist from Le Sémaphore so aptly wrote, “some of these fearsome steam-powered machines had very sweet names, others had quite different names, and it was in the demon category that their names had to be sought!

One of them was indeed called “Lucifer”. Go and get a bishop to bless a machine named after the prince of demons!

And so, as the locomotives, slowly festooned and adorned with flags and foliage, made their way to the podium, over there, at the far end of the station, at the very end of a siding, a solitary machine could be seen making a few vague maneuvers to escape the fallout of the episcopal blessings. It was the ill-named “Lucifer”.

REFLECTION

Nothing spiritual today, just a smile!

“It’s not how much we have, but how much we enjoy that makes happiness.” (Charles Spurgeon)

The biographer, Rey, continues his description of Bishop Eugene’s historic blessing of the first railway station in Marseilles in 1847.

The Bishop then blessed the water according to the Pontifical ritual, and said the prayers for the blessing of the locomotives…  He then descended in his cope and mitre to the rails, over which ten locomotives decorated with flags and foliage passed majestically, or should we say in small strides, with engineers and mechanics standing on them. Each engine stopped in front of the altar, was blessed by the Bishop, then resumed its march and was replaced by the next. When the parade was over, the ten locomotives all took up their stride at once, and soon disappeared into the distance, leaving behind them a long plume of smoke. At this point, Mgr de Mazenod, back in front of the altar, intoned the Te Deum, while the music, the sound of the cannon and the cheers of the multitude lining the rooftops gave this moment of the ceremony a grandeur difficult to describe. Monseigneur withdrew only after giving the pontifical blessing.

Rey II p 264-265

REFLECTION

“There is no work, however vile or sordid, that does not sparkle before God.” (John Calvin)

Rey continues his description of the blessing of the railway: “Then, unfolding a rapid picture of the developments Marseille was destined to undergo through its trade on the Mediterranean and through the railroad “which will bring it into contact, as it were, with all points of Europe,” the Bishop lifted his listeners’ minds to supernatural heights:”

“The finger of man could never have traced with such beautiful hopes this railway which unites us to the interior of the country, if a divine hand, after having dug in the bosom of the earth the basin around which it made Marseilles sit, had not given it in this place the very prominence of the Queen of the Mediterranean.

Providence, not content with adding new advantages to the material existence of peoples, wants to bring them closer together, to unite them in the moral order. By multiplying relations between them, we accelerate the movement towards the mysterious unity of all the children of the human family under the same God, the same faith, the same baptism.

Look at the legions of missionaries who, on the ships destined to carry the riches of the earth, set out everywhere to carry the riches of heaven! Soon the shepherds of the peoples, even more numerous than in the past, will be arriving among us from all parts of the world to go from here to strengthen the links of their churches with the mother and master Church, to bring all the rays of Catholicity ever closer to the center and nourish the conversion of souls, to inspire themselves ever more with the apostolic spirit before the tomb of the holy Apostles and at the feet of the successor of Peter, to whom it has been given to confirm his brothers in the faith…

May those who travel on this railway , wherever they go, not be at the mercy of the blind force that will drag them along, and be protected by the Angel of the Lord, messenger of this divine Providence, who always accompanies them and brings them back to their families after their journeys, happy at their return”.

Rey II p 264-265

REFLECTION

“If any occupation or association is found to hinder our communion with God or our enjoyment of spiritual things, then it must be abandoned. Anything in my habits or ways which damages happy fellowship with others or robs me of power in service, is to be unsparingly judged and made an end of– ‘burned.’ Whatever I cannot do for God’s glory must be avoided” (A. W. Pink)

The railway line to Marseilles was completed and inaugurated in January 1848. It was an awe-filled experience for all as most people had never seen a steam locomotive before. Bishop Eugene, who had fought for this with the French Government was one of the guests of honor. Rey describes the event:

On Saturday the 8th, the city’s clergy… set off in procession from the Minor Seminary to the railway station, where an altar bearing the cross had been erected on a vast platform; to the right and left were seats for the priests and authorities, a little further down an enclosure reserved for those specially invited; beyond were the rail tracks and locomotives over which the Bishop’s blessing was to be given.

The ceremony began with a speech by Mr. Wulfran Puget, Chairman of the Board, in which the religious note was expressed with moving eloquence: “Without the manifest protection of Providence,” he said, “such work could not have been accomplished in so few years, and with such happiness. Our first act should therefore be one of thanksgiving and gratitude to God. Bishop, you are so kind as to call down heaven’s blessings on the railway we are inaugurating; we thank you for it. Your lofty ministry has never been given a finer mission. You will consecrate this work, completed at the cost of so much sacrifice and effort. You will bless these animated and almost intelligent machines, which seem to be the last and most complete expression of man’s genius, and these railroad tracks to which so many human lives will be entrusted.

“This consecration will not only be a thanksgiving for the past, it will also be a prayer for the future. It is the duty of religion, which blesses the harvest of the earth and the fruits of agriculture, also to call down heavenly protection on the fruits and harvests of this other branch of labor, commerce and industry, and on the railroad which will fertilize them.

Bishop de Mazenod then spoke, and after recalling the blessing of the Durance canal, which had become a source of wealth for the city, he paid homage to

 “to the religious sentiment which had led the honorable members of the Board of Directors to use the voice of religion to glorify God for the enterprise over which they preside with such praiseworthy zeal, and to place it solemnly under His all-powerful protection”.

Rey II p 263-264

REFLECTION

“If our identity is in our work, rather than Christ, success will go to our heads, and failure will go to our hearts.” (Tim Keller)

Marseilles had a reputation of not being overly favorable to King Louis Philippe, with occasional protests against him erupting. The King had consequently decided that the proposed railway line would not go to Marseilles. Eugene wrote to him to make him aware of the consequences to his popularity of this decision. He had noted in his diary in 1842:

April 21: I would be happy if my comments inclined the king to modify a plan so disastrous for our city! Nobody could doubt whence came this act of generosity and this would be the bishop, whose solicitude extends to all, who secured it for his people. The ingrates would profit like the others.

Eugene de Mazenod’s Diary, 21 April 1842, EO XXI

The King relented to this pressure and the railway from Lyons to Marseilles was built and inaugurated in January 1848.

REFLECTION

“This country will not be a good place for any of us to live in unless we make it a good place for all of us to live in.” (Theodore Roosevelt)

CLICK THE IMAGE BELOW FOR THIS MONTH’S ORAISON REFLECTION

https://sites.google.com/view/mazenodianfamily/news/december-2023-updates/memorial-of-the-oblate-martyrs-of-laos

https://sites.google.com/view/mazenodianfamily/news/december-2023-updates/blessed-paul