This extract from the Roman Diary of Eugene seemingly has no importance:<\/p>\n
\nI ended the day with a visit to the church of the Holy Apostles for the last day of the novena for the Immaculate Conception. Ordinarily the Pope gives the blessing but the Cardinal Dean replaced him.<\/strong><\/h5>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Roman Diary, 7 December 1825, EO XVII<\/em><\/p>\n
Yet, hidden in this simple sentence is a reality and an intuition that was to change our Oblate image. The novena in preparation for the feast of the Immaculate Conception was taking place in Rome with great solemnity at the Church of the Holy Apostles, near where Eugene was staying. It was during the period of this celebration that he decided to change the name of his Congregation. Yvon Beaudoin writes:<\/p>\n
From 1818 to 1825, the Congregation bore the name Missionaries of Provence. After the founding in March of 1825 of the house in N\u00eemes, a house outside of Provence, the missionaries called themselves Oblates of Saint Charles. In Rome, during the octave of the feast of the Immaculate Conception that was celebrated with solemnity, the Founder decided to call his missionaries the Oblates of Mary Immaculate.<\/em><\/p>\n
“It was an inspiration,” wrote Father Rey, “which passed from his heart to his head. From the beginning, he used to call oblates those who had finished their novitiate and made their vows in religion. From now on, they will be Oblates of the most holy and immaculate virgin Mary and more briefly the Oblates of Mary Immaculate. But they would bear this name only when the vicar of Jesus Christ would have brought them to birth, or by the fact that he adopted this religious family, he would confer upon them a kind of baptism by assigning it a place among the congregations recognized by the Church.” (REY, I, p. 358-359)<\/em><\/p>\n
Father de Mazenod immediately incorporated this name into his petition to the Pope which he finished <\/em>[ed. the next day] December 8.<\/em><\/p>\n
Yvon Beaudoin, \u201cOblates of Mary Immaculate\u201d in the Historical Dictionary I, http:\/\/www.omiworld.org\/dictionary.asp?v=5&vol=1&let=O&ID=885<\/a><\/p>\n
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\u201cIntuition is a spiritual faculty and does not explain, but simply points the way.\u201d Florence Scovel Shinn<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This extract from the Roman Diary of Eugene seemingly has no importance: I ended the day with a visit to the church of the Holy Apostles for the last day of the novena for the Immaculate Conception. Ordinarily the Pope … Continue reading