{"id":1353,"date":"2012-03-16T05:00:51","date_gmt":"2012-03-16T03:00:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.eugenedemazenod.net\/?p=1353"},"modified":"2012-03-15T07:44:22","modified_gmt":"2012-03-15T05:44:22","slug":"nota-bene-dressing-his-missionaries-from-head-to-foot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eugenedemazenod.net\/?p=1353","title":{"rendered":"NOTA BENE: DRESSING HIS MISSIONARIES FROM HEAD TO TOE"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
“It is only after having dressed his missionaries from head to foot in this solid armor of virtue that Bishop de Mazenod allows himself to say to them: then, full of confidence ….”<\/h5>\n<\/blockquote>\n

YENVEUX, A. Les saintes R\u00e8gles de la Congr\u00e9gation des Missionnaires Oblats de Marie Immacul\u00e9e d\u2019apr\u00e8s les \u00e9crits, les le\u00e7ons et l\u2019esprit de Mgr. C.J.E. de Mazenod,
\nParis, 1903, vol. 1, p. 17<\/em><\/p>\n

To answer the question as to what the Missionary must do in order to become an apostolic man \u2013 a co-operator of the Savior, Eugene spells out the “virtues and examples of our Savior Jesus Christ” that they must “strive to imitate:”<\/p>\n

\n
We must work seriously to become saints, walk courageously in the footsteps of so many apostles who have left us such fine examples of virtue in the exercise of a ministry to which, like them, we are called;<\/strong><\/h5>\n
renounce ourselves totally,
\nmaintain in view exclusively the glory of God, the building of the Church, the salvation of souls;
\nrenew ourselves constantly in the spirit of our vocation;
\nlive in a habitual state of self-denial and
\nin an unremitting determination to achieve perfection,
\nworking unstintingly to become humble,
\ngentle,
\nobedient,
\nlovers of poverty,
\nrepentant,
\nmortified,
\ndetached from the world and our families,
\nbrimming with zeal,
\nready to sacrifice our goods, our talents, our rest, our persons and our lives for the love of Jesus Christ, the service of the Church and the sanctification of our neighbor.<\/strong><\/h5>\n<\/blockquote>\n

One of Eugene\u2019s early biographers, Alfred Yenveux, describes this passage as being dressed “from head to foot in this solid armor of virtue” \u2013 in the impenetrable metal coat of armor worn by soldiers. Eugene concludes with a call to oblation, using the military vocabulary of St Ignatius\u2019 Spiritual Exercises, with which he was very familiar:<\/p>\n

\n
Then, filled with confidence in God, we must enter the lists and fight unto death for the greater glory of God.<\/strong><\/h5>\n<\/blockquote>\n

1818 Rule, Part One, Chapter One, \u00a73. Nota Bene.<\/em>
\nMissions, 78 (1951) p. 16<\/em><\/p>\n

The vocabulary of this list of virtues was in keeping with the current teaching he had received at the seminary. Perhaps if he were writing today, I believe that Eugene\u2019s vocabulary would have been closer to the following list of virtues, because this is the spirit of the above list:<\/p>\n

\n
Being poor in spirit\u2026 gentle\u2026 mourning\u2026 hungering and thirsting for justice\u2026 being merciful\u2026 pure in heart\u2026\u00a0 peacemakers\u2026 persecuted in the cause of uprightness\u2026”\u00a0 Matthew 5:3-12<\/h5>\n<\/blockquote>\n

“Once again we understand the importance of staying with Jesus, not so much to imitate certain words or to pick some phrases, but to identify oneself with his way of life, his way of acting, so as to witness to it and to repeat it in the same way. That is how Jesus prepared his own and how he continues to prepare all those in the Church who are called to stay permanently with the Lord.”\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em>C.M. Martini<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“It is only after having dressed his missionaries from head to foot in this solid armor of virtue that Bishop de Mazenod allows himself to say to them: then, full of confidence ….” YENVEUX, A. Les saintes R\u00e8gles de la … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[43,15,63,50,21,22],"class_list":["post-1353","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rule","tag-all-for-god","tag-apostles","tag-be-inorder-to-do","tag-jesus-as-model","tag-omi-rule","tag-preface-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eugenedemazenod.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1353","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eugenedemazenod.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eugenedemazenod.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eugenedemazenod.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eugenedemazenod.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1353"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.eugenedemazenod.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1353\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eugenedemazenod.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1353"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eugenedemazenod.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1353"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eugenedemazenod.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1353"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}