Eugene de Mazenod speaks to us

In 1847, Eugene had responded to the invitation of the local bishops to send Oblates to work in present-day Oregon and Washington states. He had chosen Father Pascal Ricard, one Oblate Brother and three scholastics for this new mission. It took them seven months of travel to reach Walla Walla. Four months later, two of the scholastics were ordained priests while the third chose to mission as a Brother. (see https://www.eugenedemazenod.net/?p=5355 and the following 9 entries)

After the difficulties of the journey, the reception from the Bishop was not very welcoming. Eugene complained about him to Bishop Bourget of Montreal:

I was going to say in confidence how little the Bishop of Walla Walla had responded to the alacrity with which I had, in his pressing appeal, furnished him with devoted missionaries. Having been provided, during the period that our good Fathers were on their way by sea, with what he thought would suffice, I believe he was annoyed to see them arrive. He received them in the first place more than coldly and does not appear to have become more amiable towards them since. What appals me is that the distance between us and these good missionaries means that they are going to suffer greatly before I can get to them the reinforcements which I had to presume this prelate would furnish since he had asked me for them as a great favour, his letter being proof of that.

Letter to Bishop Bourget of Montreal, 12 February 1848, EO I n 93

Bishop Bourget tried to calm the waters by responding: “I believe that Fr. Ricard and his confreres might well have been surprised by the cold manner of the Bishop of Walla Walla. But I hope that when they will have lived with him, they will better be able to judge the goodness of his heart. He is naturally serious and his manner is cold and even glacial to anyone approaching him for the first time. Besides you understand that in the sorrow one feels on leaving his fatherland and in the middle of the fatigues of a long and uncomfortable journey, one is not naturally inclined to laugh.” (Footnote in EO I n 93)

REFLECTION

Sometimes we can be very shallow about the way in which we speak about carrying the Cross. These four Oblates had responded to the call of the Crucified Savior through their oblation, and had sacrificed themselves to bring the message of salvation through the Cross and Resurrection to people who had never heard the Gospel. Their sufferings were redemptive. When we encounter situations of suffering let us never forget that the Cross is the doorway to the resurrection – we may not understand, but God uses us as instruments in these situations.

Fr. Telmon was being sent to Pittsburgh USA, and was hesitating because of his poor knowledge of English. Eugene’s reaction was to be the same towards all the Oblates who were sent to mission: learn the local language of the people!

How is it that all our Fathers in Canada have not made it their duty and their pleasure to learn English? We have thirty Oblates at the seminary and there is not one who is not learning this language. You should hear all these young men conversing. They speak nothing but English in their recreation periods. What does Father Telmon mean by protesting on the grounds that he does not know English?

This is a new mentality consonant with the republican spirit of our time. Formerly missionaries were sent all over the world; not one knew the language of the people he was going to evangelize. They set to with courage and they succeeded… So put your people to work at learning English.

Letter to Bishop Guigues in Bytown, 25 July 1848, EO 1 n. 99

REFLECTION

We Oblates pride ourselves that people always recognize us as being “close to the people” – the foundation of this is to learn their language. This, however, is more than linguistics. It is an invitation, which refers also to our own native language, to learn the lived “language” of the people: their values, their hopes and dreams, their sufferings, all that is important to them so as to be able to journey with them in Christ Jesus, and they with us.

I have received a letter from Fr. … [ed. name not given in the text] with which I am not pleased. Obedience is little or badly known to our Fathers in Canada. They know not how to submit themselves without complaining and they always have to put their own feelings ahead of the instructions of their superiors. This is a sorry state of affairs, diametrically opposed to the spirit and the letter of our Constitutions and indeed to the very essence of the religious spirit.

Letter to Bp Bruno Guigues, 26 September 1848, EO I n 103

REFLECTION

Our OMI Constitutions and Rules remind us: “In the Superior, we will see a sign of our unity in Christ Jesus; through faith, we accept the authority he has been given. We will give our loyal support once a decision has been made and, in a spirit of cooperation and initiative, we will devote our talents, our activity, our very lives, to our apostolic mission in the Church.” (C 26)

It is not only vowed Oblates who have a Superior. In the Church all of us are called to listen to those who represent our unity in Christ Jesus .

And I thank the Lord doubly because I am more than ever convinced that in what has come to pass, divine Providence not only has your good in mind but that of the Congregation which you are called to direct towards the fulfilment of her duties in this part of the world…

Letter to Bishop Bruno Guigues, 25 August, 1848, EO 1, n. 101

Bruno Guigues may have become Bishop of Bytown, but he also remained the Superior of all the Oblates in North America. Having congratulated him, Eugene now got down to business.

Father Telmon had been appointed Superior of a new missionary venture to the USA in Pittsburgh, and he was raising objections. Eugene needed him to be reminded of his vow of obedience and of the confidence that he needed to have in the person of the Superior General who understood the bigger picture of the whole Congregation’s personnel and mission and had “the grace to assign work to each one.”

Whatever might be Father Telmon’s objection, you will reaffirm on my behalf what I wrote to him directly that I expressly put him in charge of this mission and, if needs be, in virtue of holy obedience, although it pains me considerably to employ this means, given that all members of our Institute like those of so many others should make it their duty to march forward at the first word of the father of the family, putting all their confidence in God and in the paternal blessing of him who has the grace to assign work to each one…

Letter to Bishop Guigues in Bytown, 25 July 1848, EO 1 n. 99

REFLECTION

Authority is not a popular word in our relativistic society. As Christians, we accept God’s authority in its many manifestations: Sacred Scripture, the magisterium of the Church with its teachings and guidelines, those who have been appointed our Church leaders, the faith of our fellow believers – all these expressions of authority contribute to the formation of a mature and well-informed conscience. Religious and priests, through our freely-chosen vow of obedience, have the responsibility to lead the way.

On the subject of being at the service of the Catholics of Bytown, we know it is quite repugnant to our Fathers to serve in a manner too similar to the parish ministry. They have been known to say on other occasions that they were made to be missionaries, not parish priests.

One should be able to organize their service as a kind of mission but in such a way that our Fathers might never be less than two together with a brother to cook their food; if they could be three or more, that would still be better; let us not overlook that the members of our Society wish and ought to live in community… we do not lack members but we must always take care to employ them in a manner consonant with their vocation.

Letter to Bp Bruno Guigues, 26 September 1848, EO I n 103

REFLECTION

Bytown was the first place where the Oblates actually began a diocese and had to staff its parishes. They complained that the Oblate vocation was to be missionaries, not diocesan pastors. Eugene’s response remains pertinent today: Oblates in diocesan parishes approach it as missionaries, with the flavor that the charism gives it.

How sad it is to meet many people in Oblate-run parishes who do not even know that there is a difference between their pastor and other pastors – where OMI means little to them except that it always appears after their pastor’s name and nothing further. As members of the Mazenodian Family we have an identity to be proud of, to invite others to participate in and to give a missionary flavor to  all we do in our parishes.

Eugene clarifies that even though Bruno Guigues was the diocesan bishop, he was living the Oblate charism and was to rely on this identity and spirituality to fulfil his new role.

The diocese which has been confided to you and the people who will form your flock, far from turning you away from your vocation, on the contrary establish you therein in a more perfect manner. You can well say now that you are by divine right the first missionary of this vast country of which you are the pastor. You are wholly by nature the superior of the missionaries who work under your direction; you are the chief who marches at their head. Were I in your position, I would change nothing in my habits, nor in my relations with those who are your brothers by vocation and your collaborators in the great work of the conversion of souls… Your missionaries and you then form but one and the same family, having only the same views, the same interests.

Letter to Bp Bruno Guigues, 26 September 1848, EO I n 103

REFLECTION

There is an expression used in many countries that always applies. For example: “You can take a person out of Italy, but you can never take Italy out of that person.” This is the message of Eugene to the members of his religious family: “once you have embraced the charism that God has given you through my instrumentality, it always remains in you.”
With gratitude for all that St Eugene gives us today, let us live our particular vocations fully with that focus.

The father of the Oblate family recalled with emotion his 27 years of association with the newly-orained Bishop Bruno Guigues since his admission to the novitiate in 1821.

Oh, how I would have pressed you to my heart, my dear son, whom I received so young into our family, whom I have seen grow in age, in knowledge and in virtue, whom I have chosen to be my “other ego”, in whom I have put all my confidence to govern a considerable portion of this family that I have sent so far from me to serve the Church, the glory of God and the salvation of souls. I was thus preparing, without knowing, your accession to the sublime dignity to which the will of God has called you.

Being a Bishop changed nothing of his Oblate roots and identity. Eugene encourages him to stay faithful to all that has helped him as a religious now that he is a successor of the apostles.

Fear nothing, dear friend; a missionary Bishop who wishes to be faithful to his vocation and keep the spirit thereof and even, inasmuch as possible, the life-giving practices which were so useful to him in the course of his apostolic life, this Bishop is in possession of the “bonum opus” [ed. the good work] which he has not desired but from which he will derive all the benefit that the first bishops of the Church knew how to profit from, those to whom the Apostle Paul gave his own example and counsels.

Letter to Bishop Guigues in Bytown, 25 July 1848, EO 1 n. 99

REFLECTION

“Spiritual identity means we are not what we do or what people say about us. And we are not what we have. We are the beloved daughters and sons of God. (Henri Nouwen)

Bruno Eugene Guigues was consecrated as the first bishop of Bytown (later Ottawa) in July 1848.

It is upon descending from the altar, very dear son, brother and friend, where I have just offered the Holy Sacrifice in union with that which you offer yourself at this time  in your capacity as Bishop, in order to draw God’s blessings on you, your diocese and your ministry, that I write these few lines. I do not wish to put off until tomorrow the expression of all the sentiments which fill my heart, transported as I am in spirit to your side at this solemn moment when the Holy Spirit is working such great marvels in your soul. This beautiful day must be so devoted to you that I’m concerned only with you, either before God or with people

Letter to Bishop Bruno Guigues in Bytown, 25 July 1848, EO 1 n. 99

A month later, Eugene once again expressed his sentiments to his “friend, brother and son” on the day of the consecration:

My very dear friend, brother and son… I was united to the great event enacted at Bytown, the 25th or 30th. I was present to such an extent that you can say you were consecrated by four bishops, for the heart goes out farther than the arms can stretch; and it was with the Pontifical [ed. The missal used for the ceremonies of bishops] before my eyes that I called upon you all the blessings implored by the Church for the new elect.

Letter to Bp. Bruno Guigues, 25 August, 1848, EO 1, n. 101

REFLECTION

“The heart goes out farther than the arms can stretch.” (St. Eugene)

Continuing his fatherly letter to Fr. Henri Faraud, he asks for his news and establishes a tradition that he expected each Oblate in the foreign missions to follow faithfully: to write a letter to him every six months.

Why then, dear son, when Fr. Aubert writes to me, do you not add some lines to his letter or, better still, why not write directly and tell me about yourself and narrate what you have done for the glory of God? Twice a year, there being no means to correspond more frequently, is not difficult to manage and you would give me so much pleasure, so much benefit.

You know me little if you do not know how much I love you. Make up, dear child, for your past negligence by putting down your story for me since your departure for the missions until the day your letter is dated. For that you take a large sheet of paper and you write on all four pages and more if necessary or continue in a second letter from the place your story leaves off. There is no detail to which I am indifferent. All that comes to me from my dear children interests me to the highest degree. Give me this pleasure, my dear Fr. Faraud. I ask you this in return for the good I wish you, for the friendship and the paternal love I have for you.

Letter to Fr Henri Faraud in Canada, 10 May 1848, EO I n 95

REFLECTION

” Music has seven letters, writing has twenty-six notes” (Joseph Joubert)

Eugene certainly knew the music of corresponding with those he loved.  His canonization indicated that the “music” continues today in our relationship with him.

My dear Fr. Faraud, there is a father beyond the great lake whom you must not forget; know that you are always present to him, whatever the distance which separates you from him, not only at the holy altar where each day he offers the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass for the family and all the members of which it is composed but during the day’s routine and in the frequent conversations wherein the names of his children, their ministry, their strenuous labours and all the good they do never cease to be present to his memory and on his lips.

Twenty-five year old Henri Faraud had begun his theological studies in Marseille, but was then sent as a scholastic to Canada in 1846. He continued his theological studies while learning some of the indigenous languages and was ordained a priest a year later. He was to spend the rest of his life working with the First Nations peoples and to be ordained as Bishop of Athabaska-Mackenzie.

[…] Adieu, my dear son, may the Lord pour his most ample blessings upon you, on your brothers and on your holy ministry. May he render you ever more worthy of your sublime vocation and heap upon you spiritual consolations in recompense for the trials that you endure for His glory and the salvation of the souls He has redeemed with His precious blood. I bless you likewise with all my soul.

Letter to Fr Henri Faraud in Canada, 10 May 1848, EO I n 95

REFLECTION

Eugene’s reminder of his spiritual fatherhood was a constantly expressed throughout his life. Today I believe that those words are still true for each of us, members of his charismatic family: “there is a father in heaven whom you must not forget; know that you are always present to him.” May we never forget that he intercedes for us.

St. Eugene de Mazenod, pray for us.