Eugene’s strong sense of fatherhood regarding his Oblate family is evident in this letter to the Bishop of Montreal. With the Atlantic Ocean separating him from his Oblates, he is happy that Bishop Bourget regards them as his family too. This has wider implications, because Eugene’s religious family belongs primarily to God and to the Church and not to the Founder.
Day by day there deepens in me a lively sense of gratitude that comes from learning of your continual kindnesses towards the family which you have taken to your great heart and which, for her part, is entirely devoted to you. You rightfully regard her as belonging to yourself. She is as much yours as mine; God’s family too and that of the Church.
Convinced that the Bishop of Montreal was concerned only for the good of the Missionaries, Eugene accepts the wisdom of his decision to establish the Oblates in Bytown.
I can but approve, therefore, whatever you decide as best for her to do for the greater glory of the Master whom we all so happily serve. None is better able than you to judge what is advantageous to undertake, Pontiff that you are in the Church of Jesus Christ and consequently having your share of the solicitude, not only for your own flock, but for all the Churches. So it is in all tranquility that I adopt what you propose for the good of the diocese of Kingston both for the ministry of the lumber camps and the conversion of the Indigenous peoples. I cannot express the consolation that I experienced from your letter. You show me a field that is fertile, ready to cultivate. Could I allow myself to refuse to go and work there?
Right away I wrote to Father Honorat to tell him how much I thanked the Lord for having inspired you with this idea. I designated to him Father Telmon and Father Lagier whom he should accompany with a brother to found this establishment which is so interesting.
Letter to Bishop Bourget, Bishop of Montreal, 15 February 1844, EO I n 31
You certainly need to be enterprising if you are called to the conquest of souls. I was furious at finding myself 2000 leagues [ed. about 6000 miles] from you and unable to make my voice reach you in less than two months. And yet your letter of February 2 arrived today, March 1.
Eugene, who was a man of immediate action, struggled to live with the fact that the only means of communication he had with his missionaries in Canada took two months to happen – the length of time for a letter to cross the ocean. He was partulcalry worried here because he had given permission for the Oblates to take on the mission in Bytown, and was worried that the length of time for the post to reach them may have jeopardized the project.
God grant that you may have at last received mine which not only approved this great project but applauded it with delight. This was not something tentative to be tried. You had to go there with the firm resolve to overcome all obstacles, go there to stay, take root there! How could you hesitate? What more beautiful mission than this! Ministry in the lumber camps, missions to the Indigenous, establishment in a city which is wholly of the future. But it is the beautiful dream coming true and you would have let it escape! The thought makes me shiver! Take all your courage in your hands once more and establish yourself there properly. Urge each one to do his duty. It is only thus you will bring upon yourselves the blessing of God…
Letter to Father Jean Baptiste Honorat, 1 March 1844, EO I n 32.
A month after his previous letter accepting a new Oblate mission in Bytown (Ottawa), Eugene’s enthusiasm continued to be expressed.
If ever anything compelled belief, it was what you proved so convincingly and what the Bishop of Montreal properly represented as ideal and beautiful for missionaries who live only for the glory of God and the salvation of souls. So I welcomed with ecstasy this happy news
The Oblate Family in France lived the achievements of their brothers in the foreign missions as if they were their own – it was as a Mazenodian Family that they participated from a distance. Eugene thus always shared the letters from these Missionaries with all the members of his religious family.
and, to sustain the zeal and renew the courage of those who had shown readiness to dedicate themselves to the missions of the new world, I hastened to send copies of the kind and excellent letter of the Bishop of Montreal to each of our houses.
They were overjoyed and rightly regarded this new mission as a sign of the protection of God and a means of doing immense good whether to the Indigenous or to the Christians forsaken in the forests for so long a period of time. I wrote you in this vein, persuaded that I had only to ratify what, I gathered from you, must have already begun.
Letter to Jean Baptiste Honorat, in Canada,7 February 1844, EO I n 30
Having come into existence with the particular charism of evangelizing the most-abandoned, the Oblates in Canada soon identified two groups in need of evangelization: those working in the isolated lumber camps and the tribes of indigenous people. They were accessible from Bytown, which was the name for the city we know today as Ottawa.
Ah yes, I willingly consent that our Congregation take on the ministry of the lumber camps and the conversion of the Indigenous! So the establishment at Bytown suits my ideas perfectly.
I am in complete agreement with the views of your holy bishop who shows himself so generous…
If, other than the general approbation to evangelize in his whole diocese, he gives you a special jurisdiction in the town of Bytown and this mission can be considered as a sort of pastorship, you would need an express permission on my part which I grant you, should the occasion arise. From what you tell me, I regard this establishment as very important in the perspective which it presents of the good to be accomplished.
To understand this request for “an express permission”, we need to remember that the Oblates were not founded to be parish priests. This was the special vocation of the diocesan clergy. Eugene saw us as cooperating with these pastors in order to reach out to those in their parish who were not being touched by the pastoral ministry. These are the most-abandoned for Eugene. It was only when there were no diocesan clergy available that Eugene permitted the Missionaries to become pastors of parishes.
During the time you have been in Canada, it seems to me you will have all been able to learn enough English to bring you into communication with those who speak only this language.
Again we remember that the Oblates were founded in order to preach to the people of Provence in their own language – thus learning the language of the most-abandoned is an essential aspect of evangelization. “Language” refers to more than vocabulary – it includes all aspects of the life and expression of people.
I recommend to all great love of Our Lord, Jesus Christ, great devotion to our holy Mother and St Joseph, and devotedness for the Church.
Letter to Father Jean Baptiste Honorat, in Canada, 4 January 1844, EO I n 29
Eugene always had a strong sense of being the spiritual father of each Oblate in the Congregation God had founded through him. In this letter he expresses this feeling as he write to Brother Chauvet, a scholastic who was preparing himself for priestly ordination.
Your letter, my dear Brother Chauvet, gave me great pleasure… now there remains only to establish the time of the various Orders you are to receive. I think you would do well to come for a short visit on the Ember Days of next Lent so that I may give you the subdiaconate. This will be a preparation to receive the diaconate at the Ember Days of Sitientes and then we will decide on the date for the priesthood, which will complete the graces that the good Lord reserves for you within the bosom of the Congregation to which he called you above all to bring you to this end, one that is so happy for you and so useful to the Church and to souls
Added to the joy of having a future priest within the Oblate Family, Bishop Eugene, as the ordaining bishop, claimed a special relationship with all those who received the sacrament from him.
As for myself. the Lord reserved the consolation of communicating these gifts to you and, by the imposition of my hands, to identify in some manner your soul to mine and to bind together in a more perfect way the bonds which already unite you to me. I think of this with great satisfaction; I hope that you share these sentiments and that already you pray for me more often and with greater fervor, so that by becoming more saintly, I can add onto the “opus operato” a more abundant “opus operands” in the sacrament I will soon confer upon you.
Through the imposition of hands, Eugene as Superior General and Bishop considered himself doubly a father.
Goodbye, my dear son. Oh! You already belong to me. I congratulate myself that I am doubly your affectionate father.
Letter to Brother Cyr Chauvet, 29 December 1843, EO X n 828
Christmas in the Cathedral of Marseilles filled Bishop Eugene with awe and gratitude at God’s closeness to him. He confided in his personal journal.
Christmas eve occurring on a Sunday, I officiated pontifically at first Vespers. Several hours later, I returned to the church for evening office. Oh! truly wonderful and holy night. With what joy a person spends it amidst this huge company of faithful in singing psalms and in conversing about the grand mystery whose commemoration is being celebrated. What an excellent preparation at this so properly solemn Mass during which we are given to adore on the altar the same Savior who was born at this very hour in the stable of Bethlehem.
Eugene remembered as well that it was the anniversary of his First Mass thirty-two years earlier.
For me it was another very precious anniversary, the one wherein I had the fortune of celebrating Mass for the first time. All these thoughts were present to me without being confused, on the contrary; they filled me so much that I told myself that I would consider myself fortunate to do nothing else on earth but sing the praises of the Lord in the house of God, to unceasingly repeat what we are doing during this night; that it would be good finally to die during this exercise so consoling for the soul and so in keeping with our end. I came to take several hours of rest, preoccupied with these thoughts, and since my awakening, so to speak, I have been called to again solemnize the grand feast which was continuing.
Eugene de Mazenod’s Diary, 25 December 1843, EO XXI
Continuing to read Eugene’s letter to the Novice Master and to the novices, we come across news from Canada of several diocesan priests coming to join the Oblate Congregation. Very soon the missionaries would be in a position to begin the evangelization of the indigenous people.
Father [Eusebe] Durocher made his profession on October 15, in the presence of twoBishops and of so many other persons that the ceremony had to be held in the parish church. The Bishop of Juliopolis said the Mass and preached. The Bishop of Montreal was present. It goes without saying that the superior received the vows and blessed the cross and scapular. All were delighted and touched by the beauty of the ceremony. This is a third professed priest.
The brother of the new Oblate [ Flavien Durocher] was received as a novice on St. Michael’s eve. He is another Sulpician. This Father has always had the reputation of being a saint and a learned man. He was especially well thought of in the community in which he had been a member of the council for fourteen years and was director of the Algonquins of Two Mountain Lake. This tells you that he is a master of that language, to such an extent that he has written a grammar and a dictionary and speaks the language better than the Indians themselves.
In a few days from now, following the intentions of the Bishop, Brothers Loverlochère and Bourassa are going to start learning Algonquin. The last word has not been said about vocations…
I thought that this passage from the letter I have just received would please you and interest the novitiate as much as it has overjoyed our Oblates. You see how the good Lord is blessing us. Let us have courage. and not allow ourselves to be intimidated by the least impediments.
Goodbye, my dear man, I greet you affectionately and bless all your novices and the whole community. I embrace you wholeheartedly.
Letter to Father Ambroise Vincens, 10 December 1843, EO X n 825
Until the time of his death, one of Eugene’s greatest joys was to receive letters from the Oblates in the foreign missions. He would immediately have them read in the houses of formation so as to whet the appetite of the novices and scholastics for the foreign missions. In this extract he writes to Father Vincens, the Novice Master, to give him news of the Oblates in Canada.
Finally, I have learned that our travelers have arrived in Canada. They had left on September 1 and, since we had come to December without my having received any news. I was truly anxious. A letter has arrived to reassure me: they arrived at Longueuil forty-two days after their departure from Le Havre. The travelers were Father Telmon, returning from the General Chapter, and three new members of the mission, Father Allard and Deacons Loverlochère and Brunet.
The crossing was rather long, but rather good. The community there is very happy indeed. Father Allard has pleased everybody; he is himself quite pleased in this house which is doing very well.. Our two deacons are also very happy. “Oh, what an interesting community,” they write to me. “Be consoled. Here we have not only numbers and contentment, but also piety and religious fervor as they should be in the most fervent of our communities.”
Letter to Father Ambroise Vincens, 10 December 1843, EO X n 825
Father Dassy had written a book and had consulted Eugene about whether to use the Oblate crest in the printed version. The response gives an idea of the fluidity of our name. It always had “Oblate” and “Mary Immaculate” in the title but it was expressed in different ways. See the article “Oblates of Mary Immaculate” in https://www.omiworld.org/lemma/oblates-of-mary-immaculate/
I do not think it necessary to put our coat of arms on the book’s frontispiece. I see it sufficient to indicate the author by your position as priest at Notre-Dame de L’Osier as you style yourself; but at the bottom of the dedicatory letter you should put your full and complete name, with your true and complete title of Oblate of the Immaculate Conception written out in full: in Latin you should put: E Congregatione Oblatorum B. V. Maria sine labe conceptae, for that is the title given us by the Apostolic Letters of our Institution. This beautiful title has but one defect, it is a bit too long. It is impossible to use in French: “of the Congregation of the Blessed Virgin Mary conceived without the stain of Original Sin.” It should be shortened into of the Immaculate Conception, an expression which the Church has adopted to state the great privilege of our Mother, Queen and Patroness, an expression which is, besides, the heading of our Constitutions.
Letter to Father Louis Toussaint Dassy, 8 November 1843, EO X n 822
Today our title is “Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate” – a name we carry with honor and pride as our “Passport to heaven”, as Eugene had written in 1825:
Oblates of the Immaculate Mary. But this is a passport to heaven! How have we not thought of it sooner?
Letter to Henri Tempier, 22 December 1825, EO VI n 213
Eugene “seems to become aware of the fact that, even if he had always loved Mary, he had not yet understood the essential role she played in the plan of Redemption. In searching for the patron who best expressed the goal of his Congregation – that is a person walking in the footsteps of Christ, committed to the apostolate of service and to the instruction of the poor – he had not thought of Mary. While in Rome, he understood who Mary really was. The title of the Congregation was thus born from a discovery that, in order to respond in an authentic way to the urgent needs of the Church, its members should identify with Mary Immaculate “to offer themselves” to the service of God’s plan of salvation like she did.” Casimir Lubowicki, “Mary” in the Dictionary of Oblate Values, https://www.omiworld.org/lemma/mary/
Eighteen years earlier, in 1825, Eugene had gone to Rome to try to obtain official recognition and approbation of the Oblate Congregation. It was at the time when the Vatican was not approving any new religious congregations. Eugene now recalled how was kneeling next to the Pope and enthusiastically describing all the marvels that God was working through the Missionaries in Provence. At a certain moment during the narration, the Pope closed his eyes in prayer, during which ” the Lord moved the spirit and the heart” of the Pope. Eugene recounts what happened.
Your Eminence, it would take too long to narrate how the Lord moved the spirit and the heart of the Sovereign Pontiff to grant me what he had thus far refused to others. Suffice it to say that the Holy Father did not merely make his will known to the Archpriest Adinolfi, at that time replacing the Secretary of the Sacred Congregation of Bishops and Religious, by telling him “We wish to approve it”, but he himself selected the Eminent Cardinals who were to examine the Constitutions.
These Cardinals unanimously expressed their favourable opinion on February 15, 1826 and asked the Holy Father to approve them by Apostolic Letter. The Holy Father placed his seal of approval on the Congregation as well as its Rules and Constitutions on February 17 and ordered the Apostolic Letters to be sent under the form of brief. As I indicated earlier, these letters were sent on March 21, 1826.
Letter to Cardinal Fransoni, Prefect of the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith, 6 November 1843, EO V n 3
The Pope had discerned that the Oblate Congregation came from God and was brought about through the work of the Holy Spirit and was not the invention of Eugene. Today we recognize this as a charism: the Mazenodian charism as a gift to the Church in her mission of evangelization. This is the heritage of every member of the Mazenodian Family.
