Eugene de Mazenod speaks to us

One of the beautiful spiritual practices of Eugene was the way in which he united himself with the members of his missionary family in the Eucharistic presence of Jesus. In this way he experienced a unity with each of them, no matter how far away in distant continents. Here he wrote to Fr. Guigues about wanting to be as closely united as possible, across the Atlantic, and the moment of his consecration:

I would at least wish to know the day decided for your consecration so as to unite myself intimately to the sublime ceremony by offering the Holy Mass at the same moment for you. It is not that I forget you a single day.

Yesterday again, while carrying the Blessed Sacrament in a general procession, I conversed openheartedly with our beloved Lord. I also spoke to Him unreservedly of all our missionaries who are so often exposed to losing their lives in His service. I had just received the letter wherein you speak of the shipwreck of our Fathers who were miraculously saved. I returned to the house more consoled, more strengthened, more grateful than ever; let us redouble our confidence; it is God Himself who leads us.

Letter to Fr. Bruno Guigues in Canada, 7 June 1847, EO I n 84

REFLECTION

This practise has come to us today as “oraison” which Eugene described as “the audience that our divine Master gives us when we come to pay him our respects at oraison which is made in his presence before his holy tabernacle. I recall it to your mind, my dear child, so that you meet with me at this rendezvous. This is the only way of reducing distances, to be at the same moment in our Lord’s presence, it is so to speak like being side by side. We do not see each other, but we sense each other’s presence, hear each other, lose ourselves in one and the same central point.”

Eugene concluded the correspondence on the contentious issue of the appointment of Fr. Guigues to establish a diocese in Bytown with fatherly words of encouragement. He begins by recalling how he had known him since his childhood:

[The Church and the Congregation] should derive great advantages from this measure were the one elected to be as I have known him, that is to say, eminently attached to the family which gave him birth, which has nurtured him in her bosom since childhood, which loves and esteems him as one of her most distinguished members, which counts on him… as she counts on the most devoted of her children. If I had not had unlimited confidence in you, I would certainly not have consented to allow you to be placed in a position which would furnish to weak and ordinary members plausible pretexts for some form of forsaking. But it being you, the thought would never have come to me and I repulsed it as a horrible injustice when it was insinuated in the eccentricities of a depressing correspondence.

In this circumstance, it is God who has done everything. In your soul you have enough resourcefulness to make up what may be lacking at the moment. I see in your promotion a benevolent disposition of Providence towards our Congregation which is at present exposed to some vexations on the part of some bishops in Canada.

Resign yourself then, my dear son, to the designs of Providence and think of nothing more than to prepare yourself in a holy manner to receive the fullness of priesthood by the imposition of hands of the happy bishop of whom I envy the privilege which might have been reserved to me, were we not separated from one another by 2000 leagues.

Letter to Fr. Bruno Guigues in Canada, 7 June 1847, EO I n 84

REFLECTION

We see in this letter Eugene’s heart of a father and his desire that his missionaries be a united family. Bruno Guigues had proved himself a responsible and devoted member of this family and the future would show that this would never change. I believe that Eugene continues to look on all the members of his Mazenodian Family, vowed and lay, with the same paternal affection and intercession for our welfare.

“The greatest gift of family life is to be intimately acquainted with people you might never even introduce yourself to, had life not done it for you.” – Kendall Hailey

The proposed appointment of Fr Bruno Guigues to the episcopacy caused agitation among some of the Canadian Oblates who appreciated his gifts and administrative abilities and did not want to lose his active presence in his role as the Oblate superior. This could not have been very pleasant for Guigues, and so Eugene wrote to support him.

My very dear friend, although tortured by the innumerable letters which the good Father Allard writes to ask me to prevent your episcopate and that for very honest but exaggerated reasons, I cannot repent of having given my consent to your election.

I could have been troubled by the representations provoked by the love of our Fathers for the Congregation and for you, but never have I repented of having cooperated in something that I have believed, before God, to be good, opportune, advantageous for the Church and very honourable for our Congregation which could suffer no detriment but which, on the contrary, should derive great advantages from this measure…

Letter to Fr. Bruno Guigues in Canada, 7 June 1847, EO I n 84

REFLECTION

Having convictions can be defined as being so thoroughly convinced that Christ and His Word are both objectively true and relationally meaningful that you act on your beliefs regardless of the consequences.

– Josh McDowell

After chiding Fr Allard for exaggerating in his critical expressions, Eugene gives him fatherly advice.

What then must be done? Let us believe we were mistaken and put all our efforts into deriving all possible benefit from the position in which the good God places us. One should then regret having pronounced oneself too strongly in a sense contrary to that which divine Providence has chosen. Instead of murmuring, let each be concerned with his duty and confide himself to the goodness of God who never abandons us when we are what we should be.

Eugene constantly refers to the spirit of oblation, of giving ourselves to being God’s instruments by doing God’s will.

I like to repeat that we must comply with joy, happiness and the most entire surrender to the most holy will of God and cooperate with all our power in the accomplishing of His designs which can only be for the greater glory of His holy name and our own good, that is, the good of us who are his submissive and devoted children. Let no one draw back from this attitude and henceforth let all misgivings cease, all murmurs, all statements quite contrary, to these incontestable principles.

As the father of the Oblate Family, Eugene concludes as he often did when writing to his sons:

Adieu, my dear Father Allard. Keep in mind my observations which even if they must be severe, weaken in no wise the esteem and affection that God gives me for all my children and for you in particular whom I bless with all my heart and tenderly embrace.

Letter to Fr. Jean-Francois Allard in Canada, 8 and 9 July 1847, EO I n 85

REFLECTION

“The supreme rule regarding fraternal correction is love: to want the good of our brothers and sisters”  (Pope Francis)

Father Allard, in Canada, had been very critical of the possible appointment of Fr Guigues to Bytown and had expressed his opposition very strongly. Eugene could not let this pass without comment and advice.

It is quite a long time, my dear Father Allard, since I last wrote to you. I wished by my silence to suppress a painful discussion. You were demanding with too much pressure and exigency the impossible. In this lowly world, my dear friend, one must not be too exclusive in one’s opinions when not knowing how to resign oneself to things that are not going in the direction one wishes.

We must recognize that above our feeble conceptions there is a sovereignly wise Providence who conducts all things by ways unperceived and often incomprehensible to the ends He proposes and when His most holy will is manifested to us by events, it is our duty to submit ourselves without fretting and to abandon entirely our own ideas which then cease to be legitimate and permissible.

Letter to Fr. Jean-Francois Allard in Canada, 8 and 9 July 1847, EO I n 85

REFLECTION

The decision had been made with a great deal of discussion, discernment and prayer. Eugene’s advice to Father Allard is pertinent to us too when we do not agree with a decision that has been made by rightful authority in the Church after due process.

“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.” (The Oblate Rule of Life Constitution 25)

It was Eugene’s confidence in Divine Providence that made him survive the disapproval of the Canadian Oblates at the nomination of Fr Guigues to the new episcopal see of Bytown. He described each letter that he received from them as a dagger-thrust into his heart.

Ah, Monseigneur, who can describe the sorrow and anguish to which my boundless confidence in your views has subjected me. Not a letter have I received from Longueuil which has not thrust the dagger deeper into my heart.

Yet, Eugene understood their concern and sympathised with their fears:

… All is lost, they say, in Canada because of this step to which, according to them, I have had the weakness to acquiesce – all is lost, they mean, for our Congregation… Yet I sympathize with their sorrow. It takes its source in the confidence which they have in their superior. They would not have had misgivings if the choice had fallen on anyone else less necessary to the Congregation in Canada.

Despite all this, Eugene’s faith in God’s guidance never faltered

For my part, I declare to you that the more I think of it, the more I am reassured, seeing in this disposition of Providence the will of God which will not permit our family to suffer from a measure we have only accepted in order to obey that which we have believed is decreed for her.

Letter to Bishop Bourget of Montreal, 4 June 1847, EO I n 83

REFLECTION

“We are entirely in the care of Divine Providence, and it is very sweet to remain so in peace. The Cross is never lacking; may it be our consolation.”

Saint Rose Philippine Duchesne (French missionary to the USA and a contemporary of St Eugene)

Eugene’s closeness to God was such that he placed his major administrative decisions into God’s guiding hands. This is clearly shown when he writes to Fr Guigues about his episcopal appointment to Bytown:

I have placed the matter in God’s hands, wishing only to do his holy will. I am perfectly at rest. I have done my duty throughout in this affair. God knows it and the whole Congregation will attain this conviction when she will see the results.

When the time comes you will have to prove that our Fathers were mistaken in their anxieties concerning your episcopate, worries inspired by their attachment to the Congregation and to you.

I will only have one regret, that of not being able to impose my hands upon you myself, but 1500 leagues are an insurmountable obstacle.

Letter to Fr. Bruno Guigues in Canada, 24 January 1847, EO I n 80

REFLECTION

St Vincent de Paul was another influential saint for Eugene. He too was convinced of the power of entrusting ourselves and our decisions to God’s providential care.

“Divine Providence is never wanting in things undertaken at Its command. Even though the whole world should rise up and destroy us, nothing could happen but what is pleasing to God. The less there is of a person in affairs, the more there is of God.” (St Vincent de Paul)

A month later, after intense prayer and consultations, Eugene came to a peaceful conclusion to stop worrying about the nomination of Fr Guigues to be the first bishop of Bytown, and to leave it all in God’s hands. Writing to Bishop of Bourget of Montreal, who had been the episcopal and spiritual mentor of the Oblates since their arrival in Canada

You know the confidence I have in the clarity of your views and how I have always counted on your fatherly goodness for the Congregation you have called into your diocese and adopted as a child of your predilection. For my part, I certainly wish only the greater glory of God and the salvation of souls. I founded our little Congregation only for this twofold end.

Bishop Bourget had been in Rome and had prayed at the tomb of St Peter about this issue:

You have considered all things before God. You have gone to seek inspiration at the same holy tomb on which I placed in 1825 the Rule of the new family which God inspired me to give to the Church. This obtained for me the miraculous protection of the Prince of the Apostles who spoke by his successor Leo in a manner as to astonish all those who were witnesses thereof.

I abandon myself therefore to you in this most delicate matter. What you shall do will be well done. With such good intentions, the good God will not abandon us.

Letter to Bishop Bourget of Montreal, 20 January 1847, EO I n 76

REFLECTION

This text shows how the words and example of Saint Francis de Sales played an important role in Eugene’s life and decision-making. St Francis wrote:

“There are many who say to the Lord, ‘I give myself wholly to You, without any reserve,’ but there are few who embrace the practice of this abandonment, which consists in receiving with a certain indifference every sort of event, as it happens in conformity with Divine Providence, as well afflictions as consolations, contempt and reproaches as honor and glory.”

In his concern for the welfare of his Oblates in North America and their fear of losing the highly effective leadership of Bruno Guigues, Eugene pleads with the Bishop of Montreal to reconsider the situation of requesting the Pope to nominate Guigues as Bishop of Bytown.

Place then this great affair at the foot of the Cross, weigh against it the destiny of the Congregation of which you are the second Father. Regard, if so you must, as non-existent the authorization I gave almost under duress. No longer can I be reassured in the face of so much insistence that I envisage the deadly consequences, the irreparable misfortunes which would follow in the wake of the action it is wished should be taken.

Once again, think it over once more before God and do not put your hand to the destruction of a great good which you have only obtained with much trouble and many cares.

Letter to Bishop Bourget of Montreal, 23 December 1846, EO I n 72

REFLECTION

“Place then this great affair at the foot of the Cross” was the immediate go-to reaction of Eugene ever since his conversion at the foot of the Cross some 40 years earlier. Seeing the world through the eyes of the Crucified Christ became his automatic view.

As we follow his charism and the spirituality he left us, may we always put our affairs at the foot of the Cross with the same confidence.

A few weeks later, a troubled Eugene wrote to Bishop Bourget of Montreal, revoking his permission to proceed with the application to the Vatican for Fr Guigues to be appointed bishop. It was the result of a letter from the Oblates in Canada:

I have just received from Father Allard a letter which plunges me into the greatest anguish. I fear, in consequence of the forebodings instilled in me by this Father’s letter, which is more strongly worded than the one I had previously received, that we may strike a fatal blow at all our establishments in Canada by the promotion of Father Guigues to the episcopate… I would wish to be still in time to withdraw it since the consequences of this nomination are to be so disastrous – such at least is the judgement of those upon the scene.

Eugene gives the reason for his concern for the good of the mission of the Oblates in North America:

You can judge, Monseigneur, what must be my anxiety. If such things are to be the result of the choice of Father Guigues, there is no room for hesitation. We must renounce it for I ought not to hide from you that I am absolutely unable to send from Europe anyone capable of replacing him in the functions with which I have entrusted him. No one is better able than you, Monseigneur, to appreciate the position of the Congregation in Canada. You know too well the trials and tribulations which preceded the arrival of Father Guigues in Canada since it took all your charity, all your paternal kindness to ward off all the difficulties.

Letter to Bishop Bourget of Montreal, 23 December 1846, EO I n 72

REFLECTION

The right thing to do and the hard thing to do are usually the same.”

 Steve Maraboli