Father Tempier, Eugene’s right-hand man, had been sent to Nancy to finalize all the necessary arrangements for the new Oblate establishment. Eugene wrote to the Vicar General of Nancy assuring him of his support for all the decisions made.
You will settle everything with Father Tempier, my Vicar General and my first and eldest companion in the holy work that you plan to adopt in your diocese. In advance I approve everything that he may decide. You will have no difficulty in coming to an agreement with him; he is a zealous and dedicated man, very wise, very astute in business matters. By excellent qualities he compensates what may be lacking in some external graces, if you judge him by his coldness. But capable men value merit on its true scale. Father Tempier has my fullest confidence and you can give him yours without hesitation.
Letter to M. Marguet, Vicar General of Nancy, France, 15 June 1847, EO XIII n 111
REFLECTION
Eugene’s admiration for his first companion in the foundation of the Oblates is clear in this letter, as is his realism about Henri Tempier’s character. Eugene and Henri complemented each other perfectly in their leadership of the Missionary Oblate Congregation and the Diocese of Marseilles. Where one was outgoing, impetuous and a visionary, the other was taciturn and an outstanding ansd calculating administrator who had to bring Eugene back down to earth at times.
“Constancy is the complement of all other human virtues.” (Giuseppe Mazzini)
By the end of July 1847 Father Tempier had already travelled to Nancy to make all the necessary arrangnemnts for the Oblate establishment. He had forgotten to take the letter of recommendation that Eugene had written for him
My dear Tempier, the only thing you forgot in leaving were your credential letters. It is true that an open face like yours has only to show itself and hearts will open in confidence when seeing your qualities written there. However, as a precaution I am sending you these documents. Anywhere one can come across a bunch of dimwits who can’t read people’s faces.
. … So, goodbye, I await your news with some impatience. I embrace you wholeheartedly.
Letter to Fr. Henri Tempier, 28 July 1847, EO X n 934
REFLECTION
Eugene’s wry sense of humor emerges at times in his writings. He loved and respected Fr Tempier, but could not resist teasing him.
“My best friend is the one who brings out the best in me.” (Henry Ford)
Once the decision to send Oblate missionaries to Nancy had been made, Eugene wrote to his friend, Alexis Menjaud, who was the Bishop of Nancy.
I would be happy if you could become a second father to my sons … I dare assure you, and I guarantee that you will never regret having adopted them. The spirit I instil into them and which they have perfectly understood, is that they see themselves as the bishop’s men, promising him inviolable submission and affection, making his person and authority respected everywhere and by everyone, never doing anything without his approval, in a word, to be in his regard what children are toward their father.
Letter to Bishop A.B. Menjaud of Nancy, France, 14 June 1847, EO XIII n 110
and later,
I dare to assure you that, in the family you are adopting, you are giving yourself not only good workers to cultivate your vineyard, but also devoted sons who by principle attach themselves to their bishop as to their father. They are the born defenders of his interests in regard to everyone and against all, in a word, his right-hand men ready to carry out all his commands, because they know the value of obedience to the one who represents God in the diocese …
Letter to Bishop A.B. Menjaud of Nancy, France, 24 July 1847, EO XIII n 112
In response to this declaration, Bishop Menjaud wrote: “You will not find in France a bishop… better disposed than the bishop of Nancy to support your views for the benefit of religion and the spread of the faith in foreign countries. Your sons will be my sons and they will find in my heart something of the tenderness that is found in your heart…”
REFLECTION
Eugene’s flowery words to the bishop shows his understanding of the important role that the bishop of a diocese has for the Oblates who are working under his jurisdiction. In a more sober reality, all this was true as long as the local bishop recognized the specific spirituality and mission of the Oblates. We will see several examples in the future of Eugene removing the Oblates from a diocese when the bishop did not respect our charism.
What Viktor Frankl says about individual mission, applies equally to the mission of a group like the Mazenodian Family: “Everyone has his own specific vocation or mission in life; everyone must carry out a concrete assignment that demands fulfillment. Therein he cannot be replaced, nor can his life be repeated, thus, everyone’s task is unique as his specific opportunity to implement it.” (Viktor E. Frankl)
Thirty years after the foundation of the Congregation, the missionaries were in Corsica, the British Isles and North America and in the south of France. We have seen, in previous entries, the success of the recruiting tour of Fr Leonard Baveaux which brought in a large number of candidates to the novitiate. The novitiate at ND de l’Osier was overflowing, so it was time to open a second one. Eugene and his council decided to open this in Nancy, in the north of France, in order to have an Oblate community closer to England and Ireland as a “relay point” with the south of France.
Eugene was nervous about this establishment. Nevertheless, as he wrote to the Vicar General of Nancy:
…Faced with this enormous burden, there would be cause for concern were it not for the boundless confidence that God has placed in my heart toward his adorable Providence.
So let’s get on with it and make the best of it. I can only pray to the Lord to bless this holy undertaking, which has been conceived with such simple and supernatural aims in mind; it is his divine hand that is driving us forward; let us allow ourselves to be led, and let us make every to cooperate with his admirable designs.
Letter to M. Marguet, Vicar General of Nancy, France, 15 June 1847, EO XIII n 111
REFLECTION
“God can do nothing for me until I recognize the limits of what is humanly possible, allowing God to do the impossible.” (Oswald Chambers)
Eugene had very high expectations and standards for those preparing for ministry in the scholasticates (here referred to as “Oblates” as opposed to Missionary Oblates being those who had completed formation)
As I have said to some of your other brothers, I cannot accept dissipation in an Oblate. You are neither a college student nor even a seminarian, and yet it happens that seminarians have a better attitude than Oblates do. Also, notice the results. For several years now, not a seminarian has entered the Congregation, they see them too closely. On the contrary. it should be because they see them so closely that they should be attracted toward them by the good impression and example of their virtues.
At this time the Oblate scholastics were studying with the diocesan seminarians.
That is no small disappointment for me because I fear that those who did not want to be fervent during their probation as Oblates will become deficient missionaries, lukewarm religious and miserably imperfect when the time comes to perform miracles in their holy ministry. Impress this truth upon yourselves; and be always concerned in case you lessen the effects of God’s special graces by being unfaithful to that which is required of you.
Letter to Brother Charles Baret, at N.-D. L’Osier, 17 July 1847, EO X n 931
REFLECTION
Sobering words from Eugene, which apply to all of us in whatever our state of life. We are called to live by and be strengthened by the special graces we received at our baptism and constantly through the experience of living our faith.
“Happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, worn or consumed. Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace, and gratitude.” Denis Waitley
Eugene’s strong sense of fatherhood of his missionary family received a new expression once he was ordained bishop in 1832: he could now be the one who ordained his sons to the priesthood. It was an awe-inspiring gift for him, as we read:
I would like nothing better, my dear son, than to confer the subdiaconate on you; I would like to keep you present in my heart unceasingly. You can imagine how happy I am when I can communicate the heavenly gifts to you, especially in sacred ordination.
I am so penetrated by this thought that you know how much I would like to lay hands on you to receive the sublime priesthood, but I am delighted when, independently of the claim I make for this great order, I am allowed to give you the minor orders as well. So you see, my dear son, that we are in perfect agreement.
Now it’s a question of preparing yourself well, so that you can take advantage of your successive steps to Holy Orders to make yourself ever more worthy of your vocation by advancing in the perfection of your holy state… But you must be fervent to become a deacon! Pray to St. Stephen. St. Lawrence. and St. Francis of Assisi to suggest how you should respond. Goodbye once more, my dear son.
Letter to Brother Charles Baret, at N.-D. L’Osier, 17 July 1847, EO X n 931
REFLECTION
I am always moved when I see a parent blessing their child – this is a special gift that only the one who generates life is capable of imparting. Eugene was always conscious of, and grateful for, having been chosen by God to be the Founder who brought a religious family into existence. How much more grateful he was for the privilege of being able to be God’s channel of grace to impart ordination on some of its members.
“You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.” (Kahlil Gibran)
Father Hippolyte Courtès had been a member of Eugene’s youth group and was one of the first novices to join the Missionaries in 1817. He was afflicted by poor health and became depressed at times, but was an example of patient endurance and perseverance in his service. This quiet man was to remain a friend and respected confidant for the whole of Eugene’s life.
We can thus understand Eugene’s concern over Hippolyte’s wellbeing when he fell ill in May 1847.
A thousand times, thank you, and I bless you, my dear son, for having had the happy thought of giving me news of yourself. Good Father Martin had very well fulfilled this duty during your short but very violent illness. He kept me informed day by day. I cannot tell you with what tender interest he spoke about you. I really needed that to moderate the pain against which I found no defense, in spite of everything he told me to reassure me. I bless the Lord for your prompt recovery; I am sure that you felt that we invoked Him in these circumstances. I was full of confidence, but when the heart is troubled, it is alarmed.
Letter to Fr Hippolyte Courtès in Aix en Provence, 13 May 1847, EO X n 929
REFLECTION
“The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing… not healing, not curing… that is a friend who cares.” (Henri Nouwen)
Marseilles, as an important port city, was the home to several military establishments. Bishop Eugene had just confirmed 30 soldiers and First Communion to six of them. His joy and pastoral satisfaction in expressed in his diary entry.
April 22: [Confirmation of soldiers.] No one could be more edifying than these good people are, nor more attentive to the paternal words I spoke to them.
This is another of my consolations; they multiply and follow one another, and they are certainly heartfelt.
Eugene de Mazenod’s Diary, 22 April 1847, EO XXI
REFLECTION
When Eugene was appointed Bishop of Marseilles in 1837, he had undertaken to “attach myself to this people as a father to his children” (EO XV n 185). Ten years later we glimpse this fatherly attachment, and the joy and consolation he experiences when he ministers to his flock.
His words echo those of St Paul: ” We also constantly give thanks to God for this, that when you received the word of God that you heard from us you accepted it not as a human word but as what it really is, God’s word, which is also at work in you believers.” (I Thessalonians 2:13)
An invitation for us to give thanks today for those whose ministry has made a difference to our faith life.
Bishop Eugene’s publication for the people of his diocese of Pope Pius IX’s letter to the universal Church asking for help for the famine in Ireland, concluded with a call to support the Pope in his suffering for the Church.
Popes, until Pope Paul VI abolished it, were crowned with a tiara. This crown had its origin in the dual role of the Pope as the spiritual head of the Church and as, still in Eugene’s lifetime, the temporal ruler of the Papal States. The latter were finally eliminated in 1870 but the tiara remained in use until 1963.
His head wears the crown of thorns of the divine Savior under the tiara of the Pontiff-King.
A firm supporter of the divinely-instituted mission of the successor of Peter, Eugene believed that the pope had a special understanding of the destiny of the Church, despite its sufferings.
So, like Jesus Christ from the cross, his Vicar from the throne of the Prince of the Apostles cries out to the world. His spirit, illuminated by a supernatural light that penetrates the depths of what is happening today, has an insight into the dark plots of the depths. He tells us that he is constantly preoccupied with them, and that he is alarmed by them. It is like the Saviour in the Garden of Olives, when his struggles, his sufferings and the unfaithfulness of humankind presented themselves to his mind, and he was seized with fear and affliction, “distressed and agitated” (ed. Mark 14:33)
Bishop Eugene’s Circular Letter to the people of Marseilles, 12 June 1847, EO III Circular n 3
REFLECTION
“Each one, in his suffering, can also become a sharer in the redemptive suffering of Christ.” Pope John Paul II
“God’s love calls us to move beyond fear, and it gives us the courage to continue seeking and working for the benefit of all. We ask God to give us the strength to work and to struggle for love of the common good and for those suffering the indignities of poverty in our communities, our nation, and our global family.” Pope Benedict XVI
“Dearest brothers and sisters who are so persecuted, I know how much you suffer, I know that you are stripped of everything. I am with you in the faith of the one who has conquered evil!” Pope Francis
