Eugene de Mazenod speaks to us

Bishop Eugene finished presenting the people of his diocese with Pope Pius IX’s letter to the universal Church asking for help for the famine in Ireland. It gives an interesting glimpse into Eugene’s understanding of the Pope. He begins by paraphrasing St Paul’s text, “I am under daily pressure because of my concern for all the churches” (2 Corinthians 11:28):

Finally, our dearest people, in publishing the text of Pius IX, we cannot help adding emphasis to the final words he says to each individual Pastor as the one who has the responsibility for all the churches.

Eugene focuses on the suffering connected with this responsibility:

Chosen by Heaven to represent the Supreme Shepherd of souls throughout the world, he sees the Church militant, obliged to endure unceasingly terrible attacks and to withstand harsh struggles.

He feels all the anguish of the Bride of Jesus Christ, whose heart is stricken by all the blows directed against her and torn by all the wounds she receives.

Bishop Eugene’s Circular Letter to the people of Marseilles, 12 June 1847, EO III Circular n 3

REFLECTION

Speaking of the sufferings of the Church, who is the Bride of Christ, Eugene’s earlier language of the Preface of 1818 is echoed: “The Church… has in our days been cruelly ravaged. The beloved spouse of God’s only begotten Son is torn with anguish…”

As a seminarian in Paris, Eugene had directly experienced Napoleon’s religious oppression, the arrest of the Pope and the suffering of the Church. This experience had turned Eugene into a faithful and loyal supporter of the Pope at all times (“Ultramontaine”). He and Pope Pius IX were to develop a strong personal relationship.

The Church continues to be “cruelly ravaged” today and in unity with Pope Francis how do we respond to the suffering of our Church, the Body of Christ, who “endures unceasingly terrible attacks and withstands harsh struggles.”

Three months after Bishop Eugene’s successful appeal to the people of his diocese for financial aid for those suffering in Ireland, Pope Pius IX issued an Encyclical Letter to all the countries of the world on the same topic.

Not long ago, we received an Encyclical Letter from our Holy Father the Pope, inviting all the Bishops of the Christian world to make an appeal to their flocks in favor of the unfortunate people of Ireland. We were still unaware of the Sovereign Pontiff’s intention when, moved by consideration of the magnitude of the evil afflicting our brethren, we anticipated the charitable invitation of the common Father of the faithful. Our words to you have not been without result;

The people of Marseilles had been very generous and were the first to respond.

Your hearts have understood and you have responded with an eagerness which, in addition to so many other good things you have done, has manifested in the presence of the entire Church the eminently Catholic spirit which animates you. Your alms for the Irish have merited your being cited as an example to the rest of France… Ireland has also been particularly consoled, my dear brethren, by your helpful sympathy.

Having already been generous financially, Eugene invites them to respond in a different way: by converting their concern into support in prayer.

We have come today to present to you the Apostolic Encyclical. It is no longer precisely a request for your generosity; we are communicating it to you in order to request another kind of almsgiving, spiritual almsgiving. You must understand the Holy Father’s wish that we order public prayers to obtain from heaven the ending of the double scourge of famine and fever, which is desolating a region so dear to the Catholic Church, and to preserve other countries from the same calamities.

Bishop Eugene’s Circular Letter to the people of Marseilles, 12 June 1847, EO III Circular n 3

REFLECTION

“The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.” (Mahatma Gandhi)

Two months after Bishop Eugene’s appeal to his diocese for aid for Ireland, he was able to send the equivalent in today’s currency of £13,300 British Pounds (USD 17 000) to Ireland.  He wrote to one of the Irish bishops:

Moved as I ought to be by the evils afflicting Ireland, I felt that the faithful of my diocese could not remain indifferent to them, and that they owed at least a gesture of charity to their unfortunate brethren. I appealed to their good will in a published letter to this effect. Although we are in a city where a multitude of important charities and charitable establishments have no other resources than the voluntary donations of a charity that is constantly being called upon for this, nevertheless, a sympathy inspired by the Catholic spirit has manifested itself quite generally for the object of my request. The collection made in churches where the poor man’s penny was mixed with the rich man’s offering produced a sum of around twenty thousand francs of our currency.

… It is a privilege to be able to associate myself with your charity, which soothes so many pains and wipes away so many tears. The great trials to which your unfortunate homeland is subjected make me regret, however, that I cannot contribute a greater share to its relief.

Letter to the Bishop of Tuam, Ireland, 14 April 1847, EO III n 15

REFLECTION

“People lose all the material things they leave behind them in this world but they carry with them the reward of their charity and the alms they give.
For these they will receive from the Lord the reward and recompense they deserve.” (St Francis of Assisi)

Concluding his appeal for help for the suffering Irish, Eugene stresses that all are called to help not only for humanitarian reasons, but more important because, as members of the Body of Jesus Christ, when one part suffers it affects all the members.

Let us show them that none can suffer without our recognizing Jesus Christ himself in those who suffer, without anyone imbued with his spirit of charity not being able to say with Saint Paul: Who amongst you is in sorrow without I myself being sorrowful too [ed. 2 Corinthians 2:29] Why then distinguish one nation from another in the Catholic Church?

There is no distinction, says the Apostle, of Jew and Greek; they all have the same Lord who is bountiful towards those who invoke him [ed Romans 10:12].  You have all been clothed with Jesus Christ, the same Apostle says energetically elsewhere, there is not amongst you Jew or Greek, slave or free person… You are all one in Jesus Christ [ed. Galatians 3:28].

… Be moved then, my dear brethren, by the holy inspirations of your compassionate character and your spirit of charity on behalf of this people. You will be abundantly recompensed even in this life.

Bishop Eugene’s Circular Letter to the people of Marseilles, 24 February 1847, EO III Circular n 2

REFLECTION

“I see Jesus in every human being. I say to myself, this is hungry Jesus, I must feed him. This is sick Jesus. This one has leprosy or gangrene; I must wash him and tend to him. I serve because I love Jesus.”  (Mother Teresa)

As he writes to his diocese about the Irish Catholics suffering from famine, we find echoes of Bishop Eugene’s conversion experience at the foot of the Cross and his realization that he had been redeemed by the blood of the Savior.

Let it not be said they belong to an empire other than ours. That would be completely unworthy of Christian charity for we are all, as long as men dwell on earth, children of our Father in heaven and neighbours to each other; and moreover, the Irish belong like us to the great Catholic family.

Not only is the blood of the same human family common to us but the blood of our Redeemer in which we share as recipients of the same grace and the same sacraments.

This profound conviction that the blood of the Redeemer is common to all formed the foundation of Eugene’s understanding of the Church primarily as the Body of Christ:

Let us teach those who are ignorant thereof that in all the regions of the universe, the Catholic Church forms an indivisible body of which Jesus Christ is the head and we are the members.

… Yes, my dear brethren, in the presence of the innumerable sufferings of the Irish, we do not have to ask them to what country they belong; any narrow thought of nationality must be stifled to allow the great and generous spirit of Catholic charity to prevail; the enormity of the excess of the evil is a claim on all nations. It also seems to us that the whole of Christianity should hasten to imitate the example that has already been given to it by the Pope and send effective aid to Ireland for it is a question, after all, of a numerous people dying in the grip of the frightful horrors of famine; it is the blood of a multitude of brothers and sisters which cries to us all

Bishop Eugene’s Circular Letter to the people of Marseilles, 24 February 1847, EO III Circular n 2

REFLECTION

From the time of his life-changing experience of Jesus as his Savior, Eugene regarded each Christian as having been redeemed by Jesus Christ and thus having the same blood of the Savior flowing through their veins.

“Through the eyes of our crucified Saviour we see the world which he redeemed with his blood, desiring that those in whom he continues to suffer will know also the power of his resurrection” (OMI Constitution 4)

Having shared with the people of Marseilles some examples of the pitiful plight of the Catholics in Ireland, Bishop Eugene calls on them to help alleviate the effects of the potato famine in Ireland – especially because it is affecting a people with a long and heroic history of faith.

Are they to be abandoned today? Can their cries of distress, resounding in our continent from across the sea, find us insensitive?

… we who have been preserved, at Marseilles especially, from the afflictions sent this year to other countries, let us try to merit the continuation of the prosperity of our city by lending a helpful hand to a people whose woes, in their immensity, almost surpass the resources of a great state.

Let us try to prevent, as far as we can, a numerous people, a people of confessors and martyrs, from being exterminated by famine.

Then to counteract the excuse that because there was plenty of poverty to be alleviated in Marseilles, why be concerned about poverty in another country:

Let it not be said they belong to an empire other than ours. That would be completely unworthy of Christian charity for we are all, as long as people dwell on earth, children of our Father in heaven and neighbours to each other…

Bishop Eugene’s Circular Letter to the people of Marseilles, 24 February 1847, EO III Circular n 2

REFLECTION

It was said of St Eugene that he had a heart as large as the world. Here we see one example of his concern for the poor and most abandoned in every part of the world, and his desire that his Oblate Family and the members of his diocese in Marseilles have a similar expansive view of Christian charity.

“It is at times such as this that we show our true spirit of giving and of brotherhood of revealing the good Samaritan in all of us.”  (Jo Bonner)

Having presented the people of his diocese with the suffering of the Irish Catholics for their faith, Bishop Eugene now speaks about the terrible sufferings caused by the Potato Famine which had started two years earlier, in 1845. It was to last for 7 years and in this period over a million Irish died of starvation and over a million became poor refugees in other parts of the world.

Eugene appealed to the people of his diocese for material help by giving them heart-breaking examples of the misery being experienced by their fellow-Catholics.

Well, my brethren, this Ireland, which powerful reasons endear to us who love the faith, is undergoing today at the hand of God (who wishes, no doubt, to hasten thereby her deliverance) one of the most cruel trials of her existence, exhausted as she is by so many other cruel trials. The public press, sombre enough in its accounts, only gives news that falls far short of the truth about her real distress. Without communicating to you all the details that have reached us, we will reproduce some of the things said about this country in the grip of a famine and sickness which are daily decimating an ever larger part of her unfortunate inhabitants. One item under date of January 26th last says: “The strongest man could not hold out; the famine shows itself on all faces and while the people are rapidly dying, there is an undisturbed quietness.” It is further said that the government has launched public works which can employ many people; but because of the dearness of groceries, the salary of a worker scarcely suffices for the nourishment of two persons, whence it often happens, through having to divide his miserable share, he lacks strength to continue to work and is condemned to languish miserably in a state of extenuation. One sees entire families often of eleven members stricken with fever; hospitals are full of sick persons; they cannot receive all those who come; they put as many as four in the same bed and they die in great numbers without a sound. Another letter of January 27th has this conclusion: “You cannot form an adequate idea of the frightful scenes of heart-breaking misery in the midst of which we live; in the whole of Ireland famine and fever wreak their terrible ravages.” The towns are reported to offer the spectacle of thousands of starving people gulping at street corners a soup distributed to them by charity and which, for the moment, prevents them from dying. As for the countryside, they cite as an example of the afflicting things that are happening, the following report of a doctor: “In a hut twelve feet long by eight wide, four human beings were victims of the epidemic, abandoned by everyone. One had been dead for several days and the others, consumed by a burning fever, had no bed other than a damp floor and no covering other than a humid blanket. The sickness raged so much and the corpse was so decomposed that the neighbours did not dare approach the hut.” Although the doctor had only one hand, he had to put the corpse in a coffin himself and carry it away for burial. The priests are also obliged to render this pious duty. From the countryside, the people flock into the towns where misery pursues them. The famine has made such progress everywhere “that it has exhausted a source of charity hitherto inexhaustible, that of the poor for the poor, which is familiar in Ireland and unexampled in the same degree in other countries, being so heroic and utterly prodigious.”

…We confine ourselves, dear brethren, to this sketch of the pitiful tableau; it is too striking to let your hearts resist the thought of forgetting a while our own troubles in order to bring some relief to those of our brothers in Ireland.

Bishop Eugene’s Circular Letter to the people of Marseilles, 24 February 1847, EO III Circular n 2

REFLECTION

Today there continue to be “Potato Famines” throughout the world. Eugene’s invitation to forget our own troubles in order to bring relief wherever possible, continues to resound.

“So much of the world’s suffering results from the sinful action or inaction of ourselves and others. For example, people look at a famine and wonder where God is, but the world produces enough food for each person to have 3,000 calories a day. It’s our own irresponsibility and self-centeredness that prevents people from getting fed.”  (Lee Strobel)

While rejoicing with the results of the prayers of the people of Marseilles for England, Bishop Eugene urges them to take a further step and put their prayers into action for the suffering people of Ireland, who had been suffering for a long time under the effects of the Penal Law as a result of their faith

However, our charity must not be shown only in prayers addressed to Heaven; we come to ask you today to add corporal to your spiritual help. Adjacent to England and under the same empire lives a nation which, with its long suffering and unshakeable firmness in the true religion, has become, one can say, a spectacle to the world, “to angels and to men” [ed 1 Corinthians 4: 9]. 

What the Catholic Church was during the first period of her existence when, in the face of Roman power she confessed in torments the faith of Jesus Christ, Ireland has been in latter times during an equal period. She has been destined to show all that a nation can be in terms of generosity, patience and resignation in a most sorrowful situation. But in the designs of God, the Irish people has not only been an admirable example. Her poverty and suffering, which have been the lot of her fidelity, ought to be all the more appreciable inasmuch as it is at this price that she has been a providential instrument for the propagation of the Faith. Her tears, sometimes mingled with her blood, have given birth to truth.

As a result of their persecution, many Irish had emigrated and wherever they went they had sowed the seeds of their Catholic religion and borne fruit.

To the extent that the population of her island increased extraordinarily, like the children of Israel in Egypt, an emigration commanded by necessity has ceaselessly born it to all the places of the immense possessions of Great Britain, as well as to North America, and thus has laid almost everywhere the first foundations of a Catholic Christianity as well as a leaven by which grace is fermenting the surrounding mass of populations foreign to the true Church.

Bishop Eugene’s Circular Letter to the people of Marseilles, 24 February 1847, EO III Circular n 2

REFLECTION

So many of us have received the roots of our faith through the Irish laity, religious and priests who brought it to our countries and ancestors.

“The blood of the martyrs is the seed of the Church.” (Tertullian)

We must never forget that the letters of St Eugene were written around 200 years ago, in a world with sensitivities very different from our own today. That was the time of “extra ecclesiam nulla salus” (outside of the Roman Catholic Church there was no salvation) – a theological attitude that was revised by Vatican II with the concept of ecumenism. Eugene viewed the separation in England with sadness because Catholics had been forced by Henry VIII to leave the Church. Furthermore, the Catholics who had remained faithful had had to suffer under strict anti-papist laws and segregational prejudices. The “Catholic Emancipation” in 1829 and the Oxford Movement promoted many conversions to Catholicism. This was the reason for Eugene sending the Oblates to the British Isles. In 1845 he had written a pastoral letter to his diocese to pray for the success of this return to the Catholic Church.

Nearly two years ago, at the invitation of an influential bishop in England, we asked you for the help of your prayers on behalf of our brothers overseas, so that grace might accelerate the progress of the true religion in this British Empire, visited from above in recent times by a brighter and more abundant light.

Eugene now thanks his people because their prayers are bearing fruit.

We have been touched to see with what truly Catholic zeal and ardent charity you have joined with us to obtain that the brethren, whom error had taken away from us, be restored to the community of the same spiritual family, in the bosom of the same fold, under the same shepherd. You have not raised your supplications to heaven in vain. The Lord has heard you from on high, and every day the Church rejoices to see the return to her of beloved children she has been mourning for three centuries.

The Oxford Movement appealed to the intellectuals of England to explore their faith and its expression in a deeper way and this is what Eugene refers to:

In the brightness that alone descends from the Father of light, those who belong to what they call the intellectuals of science and virtue recognize the direction that was hidden to them by hereditary prejudice, enter it generously, break away from opposing interests, and appeal to other intelligent persons who seek the light with sincere love in ever great numbers to embrace the truth which henceforth is in their possession.

May God’s work continue in this interior spiritual process until it is fully accomplished! May the day soon come when a nation which occupies such a great place in the world will join hands with us to embrace, in a common zeal, islands and continents, and bring them back to the unity of the same faith, thanks to the powerful influence of both countries! Continue to pray, our dearest brothers, that this future prospect, this magnificent hope may not be long in coming, and that the reign of God may come on all the earth.

Bishop Eugene’s Circular Letter to the people of Marseilles, 24 February 1847, EO III Circular n 2

REFLECTION

Two centuries later, Pope John Paul II encouraged Christians:

“The Catholic Church embraces with hope the commitment to ecumenism as a duty of the Christian conscience enlightened by faith and guided by love, Jesus himself, at the hour of his Passion, prayed ‘that they may all be one’ (Jn 17:21). This unity, which the Lord has bestowed on his Church and in which he wishes to embrace all people, is not something added on, but stands at the very heart of Christ’s mission. Nor is it some secondary attribute of the community of his disciples. Rather, it belongs to the very essence of this community.”- Pope John Paul II, (Ut Unum Sint)

Mass at la Mission de France, preceded by the reception of a Protestant and by the Confirmation of a certain number of adults. The chapel was filled with 700 men, the greatest number belonging to the infuential class of Marseilles society and who all took Communion from my hand. Nothing is comparable to the imposing sight of this fervent assembly and to the recollection which was continuously maintained during this rather long ceremony.

Eugene then gives us an insight into his mystical experience of being in the presence of God and being God’s sacramental minister:

The presence of the Holy Spirit descended upon the souls of the Confirmands was perceptibly communicated to all the whole assembly; for my part, I sensed its gentle influence and when I thought, while distributing Holy Communion to these numerous faithful, that I was the pastor of this flock which I was entrusted with shepherding and that it was the body of Jesus Christ which I was giving them as nourishment, it was impossible for me to contain my feelings and tears flowed from my eyes, so much was my heart overflowing with a fullness of joy and of happiness.

By turns I adored, I gave thanks, I prayed to our divine Savior. The three quarters of an hour, during which the Communion continued, passed like an instant.

Eugene de Mazenod’s Diary, 18 April 1847, EO XXI

REFLECTION

Here we have a privileged glimpse into Eugene’s loving relationship with the Savior who had conquered his heart some 40 years earlier and made him his loving co-operator.

An invitation to us to refocus on our own relationship with God and to “adore, give thanks and pray” to the Savior who constantly holds out his open arms to us and becomes one with us in his Eucharist.

“When you have received Him, stir up your heart to do Him homage; speak to Him about your spiritual life, gazing upon Him in your soul where He is present for your happiness; welcome Him as warmly as possible, and behave outwardly in such a way that your actions may give proof to all of His Presence.”   (Saint Francis de Sales)