Eugene de Mazenod speaks to us

In his speech on the occasion of the blessing and opening of the canal in Marseilles, Eugene could not resist reminding everyone of the project, so close to his heart, of building a new cathedral. From the moment of his appointment as Bishop of Marseilles, Eugene had constantly worked for “a new cathedral worthy of a great city.”

Finally, in the presence of the great things that are being accomplished on our soil with a view to material utility, may we be allowed to hope that soon, in this city its Bishop and its civic officials will be able  to solemnly consecrate to the heart of Jesus, an imposing temple which will rise in honor of this adorable heart, worthy of being the most beautiful ornament of our city. This cathedral will fulfil the most ardent wishes so highly expressed and so generously supported by its representatives, and will be like the necessary crowning of all the works that human art has produced.

Eugene de Mazenod quoted in Rey (Volume 2 pages 255-256)

See: https://www.omiworld.org/lemma/marseilles-cathedral/

REFLECTION

“Now my eyes will be open and my ears attentive to the prayer that is made in this place. For now I have chosen and consecrated this house so that my name may be there forever; my eyes and my heart will be there for all time.”   (2 Chronicles 7:15-16)

May these benefits of the natural order remind us of those even greater in the supernatural order

Rey concludes his narrative by recalling how much Bishop Eugene’s speech was acclaimed.

This speech earned the Prelate many eloquent congratulations. We will quote just one letter, from Cardinal de la Tour d’Auvergne, Bishop of Arras: “Monseigneur, I read with admiration and keen interest the speech you gave at the inauguration of the Marseille canal. This gigantic undertaking could not have been more magnificently celebrated than by you, Monseigneur. The eloquence and dignity of your words have made this ceremony unforgettable, and the part you played in it, by doing the episcopate such great honor, proved to our century that the Church knows how to understand great things and associate itself with truly useful inventions. I thank you, Monseigneur, and I congratulate the city of Marseille for the benefit it has received from the canal, just as I praise it for having called upon religion to magnify this extraordinary work”.

Rey Volume 2 pages 255-256

REFLECTION

The Second Vatican Council stressed the role of the church in the modern world:

“Since the Church is in Christ like a sacrament or as a sign and instrument both of a very closely knit union with God and of the unity of the whole human race, it desires now to unfold more fully to the faithful of the Church and to the whole world its own inner nature and universal mission. This it intends to do following faithfully the teaching of previous councils. The present-day conditions of the world add greater urgency to this work of the Church so that all men, joined more closely today by various social, technical and cultural ties, might also attain fuller unity in Christ.”

Lumen Gentium 1

Rey continues to describe Bishop Eugene’s words at the blessing of the canal which brought life-giving water from the mountains to the city of Marseilles.

After having shown the intervention of Providence in all human works, and the purpose of these works which can only be the triumph of religion, after having paid homage to the skilful engineer, M. de Montricher, and to all those who had contributed to the realization of such a great and beautiful work, the Prelate concluded:

“Above all, honor and praise, glory and eternal gratitude to God, from whom all good guidance proceeds! May these benefits of the natural order remind us of those even greater in the supernatural order, and teach us to appreciate them with dignity; may these beneficial waters, flowing among us, be to our eyes like those of Jacob’s well, an image of the living waters of grace, alone capable of quenching the ardent thirst of the soul, and may they make us more eager to draw for eternal life from the springs of the Savior.”

Eugene de Mazenod quoted by Rey (Volume 2 pages 255-256)

REFLECTION

“For every house is built by someone, but God is the builder of everything.”   (Hebrews 3:4)

While we are focusing on Eugene’s writings to his Oblate missionaries, we need to keep in mind that he was also Bishop of the second largest city in France at the same time. In this position he was very involved in all that was happening in the city of Marseilles. His contemporary and biographer, Rey, described one of these moments (in the flowery language of that time)

“In the early days of July, a work of a very different kind received its religious crowning from the hands of the venerable bishop. He was invited by the municipality of Marseilles to bless the canal that was to bring the waters of the Durance River to the city’s surrounding area and to the city itself. Anyone who knew Marseilles and its suburbs before this inauguration can understand what wealth, fertility, freshness and beauty this canal made possible. The city was transformed. Mgr de Mazenod had been an enthusiastic supporter of the creation of this great work, had backed its execution with all his influence, and was happy to exercise his ministry for the benefit of all those who had taken part, but above all for the promotion of religion.

The inauguration was set for Thursday July 8. It was a day of solemn celebration, with magnificent weather and a huge turnout. All the civil, military and administrative authorities were present, in the village of La Gavotte, near Saint-Antoine, at the magnificent canal downstream from the Notre-Dame underground passage: the waters were to enter Marseille from this point. At around 7 o’clock in the evening, the waters began to appear. The Bishop took the podium and, in a powerful voice, delivered a speech that was followed by thunderous applause. We will quote only the beginning and the end of his speech:

“Gentlemen, it was worthy of the men called to represent the spirit of an eminently Christian city, to ask for the support of religion to solemnize one of the most memorable days in Marseille’s history. They have followed a happy and praiseworthy thought in wishing to invoke with us the name of the Lord on the magnificent work of their foresight and solicitude over so many years.

This homage to heaven of a great project already almost entirely realized, this consecration of human labor to the protection of Him to whom everything must be related, gives to their beautiful undertaking the character of a religious homage, the noblest, the purest, the best sustained, the only one that is always well inspired.”

Eugene de Mazenod quoted by Rey Volume 2 pages 255-256

REFLECTION

Unless the Lord builds the house,
those who build it labor in vain.
Unless the Lord guards the city,
the guard keeps watch in vain.

Psalm 127:1

Our daily reflection will be paused until Monday November 6.

Eugene has been speaking to us since May 2010 and the 2993 entries are available on the website: https://www.eugenedemazenod.net/

Please note that there is a “Search” function on that page, making it easier for you to look up themes etc.

With gratitude for your support and interests

Frank Santucci OMI

Kusenberger Chair of Oblate Studies
Oblate School of Theology, San Antonio

For more information on this prayer, visit: https://sites.google.com/…/mazenodianfa…/monthly-oraison

In refuting the accusations against him by listing all the times that he refused honors and positions, Eugene now reveals something in his diary, intended for his eyes only, that he had kept a secret for many years:

I forgot a fact very pertinent to strengthening my argument. It is what happened in Rome when I went to see Pope Leo XII to have the rules and constitutions of our congregation approved. This great pope set his eyes upon me, for whom he had taken a very special liking, and wanted to keep me in Rome in order to admit me to the Roman prelature and lead me to the cardinalate. Such was his definite intention and not more than two years ago Cardinal Orioli divulged this secret, which I had always kept hidden.

Did I let myself be seduced by this prospect, which might well have dazzled someone else? No, thank God, I only insisted more strongly with the Holy Father granting me what I had come to ask for: the approval of our institute, and it is perhaps to this selflessness that I owe the unexpected favor of having obtained what cardinals and secretariat officers had assured me was impossible.

Did I let myself be attracted to this viewpoint which might well have been able to dazzle someone else? No, thanks be to God, I insisted only more strongly with the Holy Father that he grant me that for which I had come to ask him: the approbation of our institute, and it is perhaps to this indifference that is owed the unexpected favor of having obtained what the cardinals and the officials of the secretariats had assured me to be impossible.

Eugene concludes his reflections on how he had always avoided personal honors:

After all these actions, will people be persuaded that those who have ascribed an ambitious outlook to me are slanderers? I insist on noting it because my reputation belongs to the Church and also belongs to the congregation of which I am the father more than the head.

Eugene de Mazenod’s Diary, 31 August 1847, EO XXI

REFLECTION

“True humility is not an abject, groveling, self-despising spirit; it is but a right estimate of ourselves as God sees us.” (Tryon Edwards)

Continuing to list some of the occasions when he had refused a promotion, Eugene reflected on how he was offered the position of Bishop of the diocese of Châlons-sur-Marne:

            I turned this burden away from myself in making it known to the one responsible that I was absolutely necessary to my uncle who had consented to being bishop only on condition that I would bear the burden of his office and it was then that he was told: “We’ll only loan him to you and take him back when the time comes,” to which I replied: “Yes, but it will be given and taken.”

The authorities told him that his freedom would not last indefinitely. While being his uncle’s Vicar General in Marseilles he had crossed swords with the government.

I wasted no time in putting these arrangements in order, taking upon myself the responsibility for all the measures taken by my uncle and which have properly been attributed to me, and strongly asserting the rights of the Church and the independence of the episcopacy in an ongoing correspondence with the Minister, who from then on, as I had foreseen, feared me to the point of swearing that he would see to it that I would never be a bishop…

In the light of all his refusals to receive honors and ecclesiastical positions, he considers on how God did eventually lead him to accept being a bishop for the good of the Marseilles Church and of the Oblate Congregation in 1832.

It took circumstances truly brought about by Providence for me to become what I am against all odds and as if by miracle.

Eugene de Mazenod’s Diary, 31 August 1847, EO XXI

REFLECTION

“To be a leader means to have humility, to have respect and to serve the people that we are leading. And that type of character, that type of integrity not only brings real fulfillment to our own hearts, but also has a great effect on the lives of all the people around us.”  (Radhanath Swami)

During his 1817 visit to Paris, Eugene himself was also offered the post of Vicar General of Chartres by Bishop Latil, which would certainly have led to the episcopacy.

I was well aware of this and this is what I did not want; and I didn’t think I was making a sacrifice by stubbornly refusing such flattering and obliging offers, on the argument that, having already formed a group of missionaries in Provence and gathered around me a large number of young people whom I was leading to God, all this would vanish if I left the position.

He continues describing his relationship with this bishop who had authority in the French government over ecclesiastical matters and appointments, none of which interested Eugene:

This excellent friend later proved what he was to me, when so many years later, he came to die as I held him. The beautiful portrait of Pius VII that he bequeathed me in his will, executed when he was in the best of health and far from foreseeing his imminent end, and the ring that I wear on my finger, which he wanted to give me when he called me to him, bear witness to the feelings that he had retained for me and prove what he would have done for me if I had so wished.

Eugene de Mazenod’s Diary, 31 August 1847, EO XXI

REFLECTION

“Sometimes it may seem to us that there is no purpose in our lives, that going day after day for years to this office or that school or factory is nothing else but waste and weariness. But it may be that God has sent us there because but for us Christ would not be there. If our being there means that Christ is there, that alone makes it worthwhile.” (Caryll Houselander)

Continuing to vent his annoyance at being accused of seeking personal honors and dignities, Eugene expressed his reactions in his personal journal. Referring to his visit to Paris in 1817 he wrote about the possibility of restarting his friendship with the Duke de Berry, son of the future King Charles X of France. They had been in Palermo together when Eugene was 18 and the Duke was 22. It was a friendship that could have led to Eugene’s asking for favors if they met again.

Did I not prove this, when after the Restoration, having gone to Paris to represent the rights of my venerable uncle who had been completely forgotten, I did not want to just present myself before the Duke de Berry by whom I was particularly well known, with whom I had, for several months, constantly spent every evening in Palermo in a small committee of several other persons in the residence of the Princess de Vintimille where we took supper together and where he treated me with a sort of intimacy even to the point of concerning himself with my appearance, while wishing that I have my hair cut like his and while permitting me to join myself to his chevalier d’honneur and other great officers of his house, the Count de Sourdes, the Chevalier de Lajand, and to accompany him on the walks which he took in the environs of Palermo, finally giving me as a souvenir, when he departed, a fine-looking, small hunting dog.

Eugene de Mazenod’s Diary, 31 August 1847, EO XXI

REFLECTION

“People who use other people as stepping stones will one day lose their balance.”