Eugene de Mazenod speaks to us

We will always be close to the people with whom we work, taking into account their values and aspirations.

Constitution 8

The Missionaries preached in Provençal, and their use of this language brought them closer to the humble and lesser-educated people. Eugene had founded his missionary family precisely to reach out to the most abandoned people by preaching in their language. The use of the Provencal language was a principle to which he insistently clung.

The official attitude of the Government after the Revolution was that French was the only language to be used so as to unify the country. The result was that the inhabitants of the remote villages who only knew Provençal were made to be even more abandoned. The Missionaries defied this in order more effectively to lead them to God.

An example took place in 1833 when the Mayor of La Ciotat had posted strongly-worded notices in the town condemning the Missionaries and their use of Provencal. Eugene responded:

We read there that the subject of the Mayor’s inconceivable diatribe is the language which I use in my instructions. I had thought until now that it was necessary to speak to the good farmers and fishermen in the language they understand best. The Mayor’s anger does not make me change my opinion.

BOUDENS, R., “Mgr. de Mazenod et le provençal” in Études Oblates 15 (1956), p. 6-7

In 1838, Eugene wrote in his diary about a pastoral visit he had made to a parish in his diocese:

All who accompanied me and attended me were struck, as I always am, by the sustained attention of those present, including the children, in fact by noting especially the children’s attentiveness.
This is a sure sign that I follow the only good method by speaking to them in their own language.

It also shows that we must put ourselves within the reach of people, not by narrating some idle stories, nor by translating some French speeches word for word, but by explaining one’s thought well. In this way we can give good instructions on the most sublime truths and do it with great benefit to the people. Do trust my experience.

Diary, September 4, 1838, EO XIX

We will always be close to the people with whom we work, taking into account their values and aspirations…
Awareness of our own shortcomings humbles us, yet God’s power makes us confident

Constitution 8

After visiting all the people in the village, the Missionaries spent the following weeks in the church being close to the people through their availability

 They will spend the whole morning in the church, and – except in case of necessity – no one will leave without permission of the one presiding
1818 Rule Part 1, Chapter 2, §2

Each morning the Missionaries were to be present in the church where the people knew that they were available for them. Once the confessions began in earnest then the Missionaries were available there in every possible moment. Their desire give themselves totally to the people was shown in that once the people began to come to confession, the Missionaries dedicated all the time necessary to helping each one.

Just as the Saviour patiently spent time with sinners to lead them to conversion, so too must His co-operator have the same patience and availability. Practically every account of the missions speaks about the endless hours the missionaries spent being available to people to listen to them in the confessional and in personal dialogue.

We will always be close to the people with whom we work, taking into account their values and aspirations…
Awareness of our own shortcomings humbles us, yet God’s power makes us confident as we strive to bring all people – especially the poor – to full consciousness of their dignity as human beings and as sons and daughters of God.

Constitution 8

 Through personal contact the people were invited to an encounter with the Savior, but the missionaries had to make sure that they themselves had prayed to be His cooperators and instruments to the people.
In that spirit of evangelical closeness, they visited the people of the smaller villages in their homes on the first days of the missions to establish contact with them and to ascertain whether there were any pastoral problems that needed to be dealt with.
Eugene established this principle in the first Rule of the Missionaries:

They will visit without distinction all the town’s inhabitants. The missionaries will do this with great modesty, much gentleness, affability, and consideration.
Before beginning the visit, the missionaries will go before the Blessed Sacrament to commend to our Lord Jesus Christ this important action that can greatly influence the mission’s success.

1818 Rule Part 1, Chapter 2, §2

We will always be close to the people with whom we work, taking into account their values and aspirations.

Constitution 8

Eugene transmitted his methodology of being close to the people to his newly-founded group of Missionaries who were founded to preach prolonged parish missions in the small villages. In the diary of one of their earliest missions in 1816, Eugene wrote:

After breakfast, the missionaries resumed their visits until midday.
These visits are not very entertaining but they are very important, for they bring the missionaries close to the people they have come to evangelize.
They let themselves be seen in all the warmth of a charity which makes itself all things to all men, in this way they win over the most distant among them; they are able to give encouragement, to spur people on, to meet head-on some resistance, and, as they make progress, they end up discovering and to begin the process of remedying disorders that have often escaped the watchful care even of a zealous pastor.

Diary of the Marignane Mission, 18 November 1816, EO XVI

We will always be close to the people with whom we work, taking into account their values and aspirations.

Constitution 8

One of Eugene’s major ministries after his ordination was to the youth of Aix. Looking back on this ministry, Eugene described how his closeness to them was the rationale of his pastoral success with them as they reacted positively to his initiatives:

… among these youth who looked on me as their father, I only came across souls full of recognition, hearts full of affection that responded perfectly to the tender charity that I felt for them. They loved me to the point that some mothers declared that they would have been jealous had not this sentiment shown the goodness of their children, but that in truth they loved me more than they loved them, their own mothers.

Eugene’s Diary, 31 March 1839, EO XX.

He dedicated every Thursday and Sunday to being with the youth, as well as being available to them when they wanted to speak with him at other times.

If I do not watch out these young people will take all my time. It seems they cannot live without me, and I can really perceive the good that the Lord does them through my ministry.

Letter to Charles Forbin-Janson, June 1814, EO XV, n 125.

We will always be close to the people with whom we work, taking into account their values and aspirations.

Constitution 8

For the past 200 years, the expression usually associated with the Oblates is: “They are always close to the people!” It is something that we are proud of and a characteristic that was insisted on by St Eugene himself. We recognize it in his self-description at the age of 26:

A person’s rank in society does not enter as a factor at all into the feeling that brings me to love someone who of a truth loves me.

The way in which he elaborated on this is illuminating as he shows that anyone who was suffering or needed him could count on his closeness:

The proof of this is the unbelievable affection I have for the servants who are truly fond of me; I hate being separated from them, it is a wrench for me to leave them, I take an interest in their welfare, and will not overlook anything to secure it, and I do not do this out of magnanimity or greatness of soul, motivations of that kind influence me only when it is a question of people who are cold, but out of feeling, tenderness, really the only word for it is friendship. You must not think on that account that I do not feel called to do anything for anybody except those who love me. Quite the contrary, anyone who is suffering, or needs me, can count on my help.

Eugene’s self-portrait for his spiritual director, October 1808, EO XIV, n. 30

This was abundantly illustrated in all his later life choices. For example, as a seminarian he chose to teach catechism to “the poorest in the parish, children of tavern keepers, in a word, a vermin-ridden lot.”

As a newly-ordained priest he opted to ask to dedicate himself to the poor and the youth of Aix, thus setting the pattern for all his lifelong ministry of closeness to people who normally were on the fringes of society.

We shall support lay people in the discernment and development of their own talents and charisms, encouraging them to undertake ministries and apostolic commitments and thus to shoulder the responsibilities which are properly theirs in the Christian community.

Rule 7 f

From the beginning the recipients of our ministry obviously were lay people. As our communities became permanently established, so too did our bonds with the people grow. From being recipients of our ministry people developed into cooperators in our ministry doing so in a variety of ways.

Over the years the cooperation became more clearly defined. Someone described this process as a graduation from receiving the crumbs of our spirituality and mission at table, to sitting at the table to share the fullness our charism, spirituality and mission.

Today we speak of the Oblate Charismatic Family, and just as a human family has many expressions and roles, so too does the expression and life of the Oblate charism in the laity change.

In 1842 Eugene acknowledged this cooperation by incorporating a married couple as “Honorary Oblates” who received the “merits of the sacrifices, prayers, fasts and generally in all good works” of the Congregation as a sign of gratitude for the help they had given to the Oblates (Letter to M. and Mme. Olivier Berthelet at Montreal,” September 25, 1842, EO 1 n 13).

Today we understand that everyone who lives by the Oblate charism is incorporated into the Oblate Charismatic Family according to their state of life.

We have as our goal to establish Christian communities and Churches deeply rooted in the local culture and fully responsible for their own development and growth. (Constitution 7)

While Eugene and the early missionaries did not have the background of modern studies in sociology, anthropology, inculturation etc, they nevertheless had a profound love for the people they were sent to. They tried to adapt their message using local customs. From the beginning Eugene founded his Missionary family specifically to preach in the local Provencal language. He went along with local customs even if he himself was not always  convinced of them, but he realized their importance for the people.

Over the years many Oblates, as part of their missionary work, have produced grammars and dictionaries for various Indigenous languages. They were pioneers in studying and documenting these languages, often putting the spoken word into writing, compiling dictionaries, and translations of religious texts.

Father Lacombe’s ladder of salvation is just one example of conveying his message through the expressions of the local culture (see:https://www.marquette.edu/library/archives/News/spotlight/01-2009.php).

Today the newest challenge is to evangelize by entering into the “local culture” of social media and artificial intelligence.

We have as our goal to establish Christian communities and Churches deeply rooted in the local culture and fully responsible for their own development and growth.

(Constitution 7)

During the missionary expansion in Eugene’s time, hardly anyone understood this principle. The missionaries were sent to countries that had already been colonized, and came with their European cultural outlook through which they worked for the conversion of people – with no training or tools to understand and appreciate the depth and richness of the local indigenous culture.

Eugene suffered when he thought of countless people around the world who did not know Jesus Christ and he responded through his missionary sons.

Therefore I am waiting impatiently for some information about your establishment among the natives. That is really your mission. A Vicar Apostolic would not have to be sent to look after a few scattered Catholics, and I for my part would not have accepted the mission if that were all it involved. It is the conversion of those who do not believe that we must keep in mind. All our efforts must be directed to that end. If we kept no hope of reaching that goal, then we ought to give up the mission.

Letter to Bishop Allard, Vicar Apostolic of Natal, 28 October 1859, EO IV (Africa), n 28.

The missionaries came with a heart filled with love for Jesus Christ and with the desire to bring the people they came to serve to know the beauty of that love that brought salvation. They gave their lives with sacrificial heroism to the people. Let us never forget their good intentions and the lived reality of their oblation.

Nearly a century later, a new awareness has developed. It is this that is reflected in Constitution 7: our ecclesial communities must be deeply rooted in the magisterium and sacramental life of the Church while searching honestly as to how these truths find their expression and life in the culture of the people with whom we are ministering.

Our mission puts us on constant call to respond to the most urgent needs of the Church through various forms of witness and ministry, but especially through proclaiming the Word of God which finds its fulfilment in the celebration of the sacraments and in service to others.

Constitution 7

When we meditate on Jesus as the Way, the Truth and the Life, we invariably are led to examine the quality of our life-options, our faithfulness to the truth and to what is life-giving. It is this reflection, in the light of the Word of God, that leads us to the sacrament of reconciliation.

Eugene’s preaching and that of the early Oblate missionaries was an invitation to a prolonged intimate encounter with the Savior acting through the priest as spiritual guide and instrument of forgiveness and new life. The confessional was to be the place of transparent encounter between a person in their brokenness and the healing mercy of God. One of Eugene’s earliest sermons gives this message using the imagery of a sinner being stuck in a muddy swamp that makes release seem impossible:

In the same way the preacher of the Gospel, is saddened at the sight of sinners sinking in the dreadful swamp of their evil deeds, bogged down with no desire of getting out. They futilely try all that their gentle charity inspires them to do to have them return onto the way.

Finally seeing their obstinate determination to be lost, the preachers make the most frightening truths re-echo in their ears. They arm themselves with the whip of the holy Word, and increase their blows until at last with a huge effort these sinners get out of the mud and free themselves.

Then it is with open arms that the ministers of Jesus Christ press them close to their hearts and take delight in pouring ointment on all their wounds to ease them.

(Instruction at the Madeleine, preached in Provencal, on the fourth Sunday of Lent 1813, EO XV n 115.)

Today, as our reflection on the Word of God becomes a mirror to see ourselves, it also becomes an invitation to ask for forgiveness and to begin again with God’s strengthening sacramental grace. As a priest of many decades, I have been privileged to witness the transformative power of this sacrament in countless persons. It is a means of encounter with God that is always available and yet so easy to ignore.