This is a one-semester course for members of Institutes of Consecrated Life.
The lectures are asynchronous, which means that you can can look at each one in your own time. There is an assignment each week, inviting you to apply the material to your own Institute. I will journey with each student to help you to work on deepening the spirituality of your institute.
Eugene, as the father of a missionary family, was constantly aware of the situation of the missionaries and wanted to be united with them. He was frustrated by the time of several months that it took for a letter to reach its destination and received each communication from the missionaries with joy:
You cannot imagine, my dear man, the pleasure that I experience on receiving your letters. I was overcome with joy on receiving that which you wrote from Saint Boniface on the date of June 20th. How many times I have re-read it and read it to others to whom it could be communicated! All you say interests me. I am insatiable for details of everything you do and of all that concerns yourself. So my very dear son, spare me nothing, be not afraid of giving minute details for all that comes from you is of great weight and is inestimable to me.
Then he reveals the beautiful way in which he united himself with each member of his missionary family each day.
I must say that it happens sometimes when I find myself in the presence of Jesus Christ that I experience a kind of illusion. It seems to me that you are adoring Him and praying at the same time as I and with Him being as present to you as to me, we feel as if we were very close to one another although not able to see each other. There is something very true in this idea. I revert to it constantly and cannot describe the good and the consolation I derive from this. Try to do the same and you will experience it as I do.
Letter to Fr Pierre Aubert in St. Boniface, Canada, 3 February 1847, EO I n 81
REFLECTION
This practise has come to be referred to as “oraison” and it is a precious part of our spirituality and family communion. Try to take some time each day to experience communion with loved ones who are not with you – and with all those who share the same ideals as you in the Mazenodian family.
Eugene had sent the two missionaries to evangelize the indigenous tribes and was proud of their zeal and courage. He wrote to the Bishop of Montreal:
I have received news from Red River. Fathers Aubert and Taché have written to me and the letter of the latter is charming. He has made his profession and said his first Mass, October 13th. They are both happy with their situation. They are going to establish a mission at 300 leagues from Saint Boniface in the Ile de La Crosse. Father Taché is going there with M. Laflèche and Father Aubert is going to leave for Wamassinoury with M. Belcourt. He will become proficient at that mission in the native language.
Letter to Bishop Bourget of Montreal, 23 December 1846, EO I n 72
Now the missionary challenge of the early days emerges. Eugene wanted his men to live in community with a regular prayer life and mutual support, while having been sent primarily to be itinerant evangelizers not contemplative monks. Writing to Fr Guigues, the Canadian Superior, Eugene refers to the Bishop of St Boniface having sent Fr Taché on mission:
I see that he has sent Father Taché to Ile de la Crosse. But I groan to see so young a Father, scarcely out of novitiate, separated from all our Oblates at so great a distance.
Letter to Fr Bruno Guigues in Canada, 25 March 1847, EO I n 82
REFLECTION
Here we see the tension between religious life, community and mission that has existed throughout our history. How does one establish an equilibrium in responding to the many challenges that each day brings, while maintaining a unity with God and with those we are committed to in family or consecrated life?
The Oblate Rule encourages us to:
achieve unity in our life only in and through Jesus Christ. Our ministry involves us in a variety of tasks, yet each act in life is an occasion for personal encounter with the Lord, who through us gives himself to others and through others gives himself to us
Constitution 31
Father Aubert and Taché were the pioneer Oblates in this part of Canada, some 2000 miles away from the nearest Oblate community, with letters taking over two months to reach their destination. For this reason the small community of two Oblates needed to ensure that they remained united by living according to the spirit and practices of the Oblate Rule.
As of now, you only form quite a small community. No matter. Conform yourselves to the Rule as much as you possibly can. Although you are only two, nothing prevents you from doing several things in common: your morning and evening meditations, your office, your examen. You will thereby accomplish a duty and those who live in the house of the Bishop will be edified. Remember that wherever you are, you must always be what you are.
Letter to Fr Pierre Aubert in St Boniface Canada, 21 February 1846, EO I n 61
REFLECTION
“Authenticity is the daily practice of letting go of who we think we are supposed to be and embracing who we are.”
The choice of and commitment to our specific way of life invites each member of the Mazenodian Family to “always be what we are” in whatever circumstances we find ourselves each day – and to set aside time each day to reflect on our vocation.
With Canadian men becoming Missionary Oblates, Eugene was not able to get to know them. Despite this, he regarded them as his sons in exactly the same manner as the Oblates he knew in France. His letters show his strong sense of spiritual paternity as Founder of the Mazenodian missionary family, as this one to Fr Aubert does:
Reverting to the subject of Brother Taché whom I have not yet come to know, I await from him a little letter showing me his handwriting for in lieu of the person, it is something to see some lines traced by the hand of one we cannot see, but whom we already love by virtue of the admirable union of charity which makes all of us but one heart and one soul. I enjoin you earnestly, my dear son, to express to him all the sentiments which you know me to have for the children the good God has given me.
Letter to Fr Pierre Aubert in St Boniface Canada, 21 February 1846, EO I n 61
REFLECTION
“It is not flesh and blood, that makes us fathers and children” (Friedrich Schiller)
Today, we are also the children that the good God has given to Eugene, who is our teacher and intercessor in the fullness of the Kingdom of God.
Eugene spoke often of the “enemy” as the power of darkness who prevented people from coming to the light of salvation given by Jesus Christ. He followed the Gospel understanding of the world as being in the power of the Evil One, and hence the missionaries were called to engage in battle against the forces of evil and to bring the light of salvation.
I presume however that the dear companion who went with you to found the house of Red River has been raised to the priesthood and also that he has had to place his profession in your hands as I had authorized.
Twenty-two year-old Alexandre Taché had been ordained to the priesthood on October 12 in St Boniface and then made his perpetual oblation as an Oblate the following day and celebrated his first Mass.
It is good to make one’s vows on the battlefield in the face of the enemy one has come so far to fight. Such thoughts were on my mind on the 17th of this month and indeed I spoke of them at the fine reunion we had of all our Fathers and Brothers who renewed before me and in the presence of Our Lord Jesus Christ the consecration they had made of themselves to the Lord in years more or less remote…
Letter to Fr Pierre Aubert in St Boniface Canada, 21 February 1846, EO I n 61
REFLECTION
“The mark of a saint is not perfection, but consecration. A saint is not a person without faults, but a person who has given oneself without reserve to God.” (Brooke Westcott)
The mark of each member of the Mazenodian charism family is consecration – how we live and express our oblation in everyday life.
“Accompanied by two Grey Nuns of Montreal, Fr Pierre Aubert and scholastic brother Alexandre Taché set out from Lachine, on June 25, 1845; they traveled 1800 miles by way of lakes and rivers, in a boat with a crew of six. It was not until August 25 that they reached their destination, after making 144 portages along the way and shooting about fifty rapids. Standing on the river bank to meet them, Bishop Provencher could not conceal his disappointment. Instead of the band of missionaries he had been expecting, one father and a twenty-two year-old subdeacon were being put at his disposal and the subdeacon looked even younger than his age: “I asked for men,” he wailed, “and here they’ve sent me a child!”
It would not be long before the bishop realized that in sending him Brother Tache, whom he immediately ordained deacon and then priest, the congregation was giving him, not a child, but a man in every sense of the word, and a man of the most outstanding merit.
“Credit for the choice belongs to Bishop de Mazenod. The reasons behind it can be easily surmised. Brother Tache was a Canadian, a fact that must have gratified the small band of secular priests laboring with the vicar apostolic; it was Tache’s grand uncle, Varennes de la Verandrye, who originally explored the country the young missionary was going to evangelize. So, the grandnephew seemed to be the appropriate one to bring Christ to the Indians of the Red River region, thereby carrying on the traditions of his family, but on a spiritual and evangelical level. Furthermore, the information that had been furnished about the young man during his novitiate, the fact that he had been attracted to the missions from his childhood and that he had become a member of the Oblate community almost from the moment the Oblates arrived in Canada, all gave assurance of the stability and zeal of his apostolic vocation.”
Leflon II pages 165-166
REFLECTION
” People in general judge more from appearances than from reality. All people have eyes, but few have the gift of penetration”. (Nicola Macchiavelli)
As a Mazenodian Family we have the gift of penetration: Eugene teaches us to look at the world through the eyes of the Crucified Savior as the doorway to resurrection life.
Fr. Guigues, receiving the instruction from Eugene to send two Oblates to the new mission, responded: “I consider this foundation imprudent and consequently contrary to God’s will. We are two thousand miles from Red River; . . . communication is extremely difficult; for the subjects, it will be a life of loneliness and of every kind of danger. ” (Quoted in Leflon II p 164)
Bishop de Mazenod was not impressed that his orders had not been carried out, and responded with a strongly-worded letter which ended with:
To settle this matter once and for all, I order you to write to Bishop Provencher and tell him that we are granting the request he made on behalf of his vicariate apostolic and that you have two missionaries to put at his disposal for that purpose.
Letter to Fr. Bruno Guigues, local superior in Canada, 24 May 1845, EO I n 54
Fr. Guigues had no choice but to carry out the order and send the two men chosen by Eugene: Fr Pierre Aubert and a Canadian scholastic Alexandre-Antonin Taché, who had not yet been ordained.
REFLECTION
“You will find as you look back upon your life that the moments when you have truly lived are the moments when you have done things in the spirit of love.” (Henry Drummond)
A good summary of the life of St Eugene. How true is it of your life?
Bishop Provencher had been entrusted with the Vicariate of Red River (later known as St Boniface) which extended from the Rocky Mountains to the provinces of Upper and Lower Canada, and from the United States to the Arctic Ocean; and to minister to such an immense area, he had only five priests at his disposal. In 1843 he went to Europe in search of missionaries and met Bishop Eugene who promised him two Oblate priests.
Writing to Father Guigues, the Oblate superior in Canada, Eugene instructed:
I’ll go further: judging the importance of the mission proposed by the Bishop of Juliopolis [ed. Bishop Provencher] and by what you tell me about the representations of this Prelate, and mindful of the obligations we have towards him, my decision is that you ought to undertake it with the means you have at your disposal. It will not be a proper establishment at first and instead of three persons, you will only send him two for part of the year if you cannot do otherwise, but you cannot risk the great setback that you fear of seeing this mission taken away from you and of losing the opportunity, as you argue very well and rightly, of evangelizing the whole of North America by serving in the diocese of Quebec, Montreal, Kingston and Red River.
Fully aware that the “means at his disposal” for evangelization and sacraments consisted of Oblate priests who were already over-extended in their commitments in Canada (3 in Montreal, 4 in Saguenay, 4 in Bytown and a few scholastics in training), Eugene continued:
We need to have some courage and confidence in God who shows us the road and will not abandon us when we act in his name and for his glory. Everywhere we have established ourselves we have made a feeble start. The time has not yet come to do otherwise. So, I repeat, without hesitation, respond to the wish of the Bishop of Juliopolis and begin this work even with only two Oblates while awaiting others from the goodness of God.
Letter to Fr. Bruno Guigues, local superior in Canada, 5 December 1844, EO I n 50
REFLECTION
“In dreams begin responsibilities.” (William Butler Yeats)
The history of the world and of Christianity is made up of God inspiring people to undertake “crazy” adventures! If properly discerned and carried out in God’s guiding presence, humanly unexpected results follow. Joseph was a dreamer, Peter and Paul, Francis and Clare of Assisi, Ignatius and Mary Ward, Eugene de Mazenod and his missionary family, just to mention a few “dreamers”… Do I allow God’s dream for me to impel me in light and empower me in darkness?
In the previous entries I have gone into a fair amount of detail on the question of the nomination of Bruno Guigues as the first bishop of Bytown, later known as Ottawa. I did this, firstly, because it opens an important chapter in the history of the missionary expansion of our Mazenodian Family.
These letters also show the deep faith of Eugene in God’s guidance and his way of making difficult decisions. He shared with and listened to the opinions of people whose opinions he respected: Bishop Bourget of Montreal, the Oblate General Council, Oblate Bishop Guibert, and Bruno Guigues himself among many others. He also listened to the fears and disagreement of the Oblates in Canada and showed them that he understood how they felt. As Founder, Eugene was aware of the bigger picture of the good of the Church and of the Oblate Congregation. Putting his trust in God, through constant prayer, he went ahead with approving the nomination – and his insight was to prove to have been the correct one that was to bear much ongoing fruit in the future.
We must leave ourselves in the hands of divine Providence and pray God to direct events according to his good pleasure and not according to the pretentious claims of people.
Letter to Hippolyte Courtès, 8 March 1822, EO VI n 81
REFLECTION
May we learn from Eugene the need to listen, consult, pray and rely on God’s guidance – today we call this the “synodal way.”
The spirit of the Oblate Constitutions and Rules applies to the ministry of all members of the Mazenodian family, according to their particular state:
“Our life is governed by the demands of our apostolic mission and by the calls of the Spirit already dwelling in those to whom we are sent. Our work makes us dependent on others in many ways; it requires real detachment from our own will and a deep sense of the Church” C25
“In major decisions and in matters concerning the life and mission of the whole community, there will be a process of discernment conducive to consensus” R26a
