Eugene de Mazenod speaks to us

Letter from Brother Blanchet. He also requests of me to go to the foreign missions.

Diary of Eugene de Mazenod, 13 January 1847, EO XXI

Twenty-nine-year-old, Georges Blanchet was one of the first Oblate Brothers to be sent to the United States in 1847. Twenty five years later, at the insistence of the local Bishop, he was ordained to the priesthood in British Columbia. He died, aged 88, and a river and a lake in British Columbia were named after him.

REFLECTION

“Missionary zeal does not grow out of intellectual beliefs, nor out of theological arguments, but out of love.”   (Roland Allen)

God of Heaven and Earth,

You have fed me your word

And sent me forth to love and serve.

A missionary, you have called me to be. Even in my smallness and sin

You chose me to sing the song of your love, The hymn of your mercy,

The anthem of your justice.

Catholic Relief Services

On 17 February the Mazenodian Family marks the day when in 1826 Pope Leo XII, after a process of discernment, recognized that the group brought into existence by Eugene de Mazenod was a creation of God. Eugene understood the

steady determination of the Holy Father, whom nothing has been able to prevent from the first thought with which the Holy Spirit inspired him on the first day that I knelt at his feet and presented to him the plan of this enterprise which now we can call divine…

Letter to all the Oblates, 18 February 1826, EO VII, n. 226

The Pope recognized that it is a charism of the Holy Spirit. So it is an act of God that we celebrate!

For ten years this small group of men had survived by their founding vision, surviving hardships, persecution, defections and near-extermination, and yet never giving up. They believed that their vocation came from God, that their ideal was God-inspired and that their mission to the most-abandoned was God-given. The discernment of the Church confirmed this and injected new life and vigor into them. It was not meant to degenerate into a moment of back-slapping backward-looking community festivity. It was an injection of divine life that propelled the Oblates.

REFLECTION

May this 17 February be a moment of grace to rediscover the value of our God-given life as calling us into courageous new horizons

May it be a moment to give thanks for the gift of over 200 years of dedicated service of bring the Gospel to the most abandoned.

May it be a grace-filled moment to re-value, at our local levels, a Mazenodian family, where every way of life receives and is equally important in belonging and cooperating in God’s gift of the charism.

Eugene shared the wonderful news from Rome with his Oblate family in France:

My dear brothers, on February 17, 1826, yesterday evening, the Sovereign Pontiff Leo XII confirmed the decision of the congregation of Cardinals and specifically approved the Institute, the Rules and Constitutions of the Missionary Oblates of the Most Holy and Immaculate Virgin Mary, and accompanied this solemn act of his pontifical power, with most admiring words for those who happily form this Society from which the head of the Church indeed expects the greatest good.

The conclusion to be drawn from this, my dear friends and good brothers, is: we must work, with renewed ardour and still more total devotedness, to bring to God all the glory that stems from our efforts and, to the needy souls of our neighbours, salvation in all possible ways…  In the name of God, let us be saints.

Letter to the Oblates, 18 February 1826, EO VII, n. 226

REFLECTION

O God, we are filled with gratitude for your call to participate in the life and charism of the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate. This vocation, first inspired in Saint Eugene de Mazenod, is a gift for the life of the Church.

By this charism we have a special relationship with Jesus the Saviour, whose Cross reveals your unconditional love for all humanity, especially for the poor and most abandoned. Through the Mazenodian charism we also are brought into close communion with the poor, and we discover that we are evangelized by those to whom we have been sent.

We thank you for the grace of our vocation, praying that we live it in faithfulness and joy through the intercession of Mary Immaculate and in Christ Jesus our Lord. Amen.

A reminder to join us as we explore what it means to live the gift of God as part of a charism family.

The lecture will be broadcast live and also recorded for those in different time zones. In order to participate (and to see the recording later) you are asked to register so that a link can be sent to you: https://ost.edu/event/enlarging-the-tent/

News of the successful Oblate missions in England and Canada inspired young Oblates to want to join them.

Eugene wrote in his diary:

Letter from Brother Cauvin. He is requesting me with great insistence to send him to the foreign missions.

Diary of Eugene de Mazenod, 13 January 1847, EO XXI

Twenty-two-year-old, Eugene Cauvin, was sent to Canada the following year

REFLECTION

“God, send me anywhere, only go with me.

Lay any burden on me, only sustain me.

And sever any tie in my heart except the tie that binds my heart to Yours.”

David Livingstone

Reflecting on the zealous achievements of his missionary family, Eugene exclaimed:

What is remarkable is that these marvels are accomplished by our men who attribute to Mary Immaculate all these great things

Letter to Fr Hippolyte Courtès in Aix en Provence, 11 January 1847, EO X n 920

REFLECTION

“Mary Immaculate… received Christ in order to share him with the world, whose hope he is. In her, we recognize the model of the Church’s faith and of our own” (OMI Constitution 10)

Mary, teacher of faith, who by your obedience to the Word of God cooperated in a remarkable way with the work of redemption, help us to listen to the Word and to put it into practice today.

Only six years after having sent Oblate missionaries to countries outside of France, Eugene de Mazenod was constantly delighted when he received news of their successes.

I am receiving letters from England which fill me with consolation. Daily our Fathers receive new conversions… Everyone, even our subdeacon Noble, is bringing souls back to the fold by giving instructions.

Letter to Fr Hippolyte Courtès in Aix en Provence, 11 January 1847, EO X n 920

REFLECTION

“The best teachers are those who pass on their zeal and enthusiasm as a legacy to their students.” (Robert Meehan)

Dear God, thank you for the teachers you have sent into my life – especially those who taught me about you. May their example bear fruit through the quality of my life.

A month after Pierre Fisette had left the Oblates and had gone to the Carthusian monastery, Eugene wrote to his former provincial in Canada:

The day before yesterday I received a letter from the Prior informing me that he is no longer there. Today I receive one from him giving the motive of his flight. So accustomed to be treated kindly by us, he could not endure the rudeness of this Prior who, on seeing him a second time, said: What! You are still here! I thought you had gone! He turned on his heel and left for good.

Pierre, still convinced of his vocation to contemplative life moves to the Trappists. Again, Eugene wrote him a letter of recommendation.

This poor child writes to say that he is on his way to the Trappists of Aiguebelles. May God accompany him since these journeys are not without great danger for him. I am immediately going to write a letter of recommendation to the Father Abbot.

Letter to Fr Bruno Guigues in Canada, 27 September 1847, EO I n 89

Father Fisette had finally found his vocation and persevered in the Trappists eventually being sent to establish the Trappist monastery of Staouéli in Algeria where he died in 1878

REFLECTION

God of silence and God of all sound, help me to listen.

Help me to do the deep listening to the sounds of my soul,

waiting to hear your soft voice calling me deeper into you.

Give me attentive ears that begin to separate the noise from the sounds that are you;

you who have been speaking to me and through me my whole life, for so long that you can seem like background noise.

Today help me hear you anew.

Author Unknown (https://www.xavier.edu/jesuitresource/online-resources/prayer-index/discernment)

The young Canadian Oblate, Father Pierre Fisette, did not settle into his ministry in Corsica because he discerned a vocation to the contemplative life.

Eugene wrote in his diary:

A day of deep heartache. Father Fisette came to spend the day with me. It will perhaps be the last time that we will see each other. This pitiful and dear priest has taken leave of me to go off to the Carthusian monastery.

Despite experiencing the loving care of the Oblates, he was prepared to make the sacrifice of leaving it in order to follow where he believed his heart called him to.

When it became evident and I was convinced that he needed other means of salvation, I consented to his pressing and repeated entreaties and I wrote a letter of recommendation for Father Prior. It is impossible not to like such a charming fellow. In addition, our separation has been very painful because, for his part, Father Fisette had become extremely attached to the Congregation and to me in particular, as well as to Father Guigues and all of our priests that he got to know.

Eugene de Mazenod’s diary, 26 August 1847, EO XXI

REFLECTION

“Faith is taking the first step even when you don’t see the whole staircase.” (Martin Luther King, Jr.)

Almighty God, author of my life, help me learn to read what you have written on my heart.

Give me discerning eyes and an untiring spirit to look within me in order to understand how to reach outside of me.

And once I have begun to read you aright, give me the generosity to help others to read you, to sound you out one letter, one word of radical giving at a time.

 Author Unknown (https://www.xavier.edu/jesuitresource/online-resources/prayer-index/discernment)