{"id":2735,"date":"2015-01-07T05:00:03","date_gmt":"2015-01-07T03:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.eugenedemazenod.net\/?p=2735"},"modified":"2014-12-22T10:22:09","modified_gmt":"2014-12-22T08:22:09","slug":"focusing-energy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eugenedemazenod.net\/?p=2735","title":{"rendered":"FOCUSING ENERGY"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
Young Father Marius Suzanne was recuperating from a serious illness at Notre Dame du Laus. He occupied his time by writing a book on apologetics. Eugene invited him to be more focused on the aim of his missionary life.<\/p>\n
\n
I think, my dear friend, that you would be a little less tired if you put a little less enthusiasm into the work you have imposed on yourself; it appears to me that you are going at it quite excessively,<\/strong><\/h5>\n
and I know of nothing in the world which deserves to absorb the time and thoughts of a reasonable man other than the question of salvation and what ought to contribute directly and efficaciously to the conversion of souls, such as the ministry of our missions.<\/strong><\/h5>\n
Why push yourself so much to the detriment of the health whose complete restoration you are delaying with these excesses?<\/strong><\/h5>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Letter to Marius Suzanne, 25 August 1827, EO VII n 276<\/em><\/p>\n

Apart from Eugene\u2019s constant preoccupation with the health of his Oblates, this letter is clear in its insistence that the focus of a missionary\u2019s time and energy must be the question of salvation and how best to succeed at the conversion of those he ministers to.<\/p>\n

From here a question emerges for us today on our use of time and energy: are we ceaselessly driven from activity to activity, or are we focused on how and to what purpose we use our time and energy?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cWe always have time enough, if only we will \u00a0use it right.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Young Father Marius Suzanne was recuperating from a serious illness at Notre Dame du Laus. He occupied his time by writing a book on apologetics. Eugene invited him to be more focused on the aim of his missionary life. I … 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":[39],"tags":[114],"class_list":["post-2735","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-letters","tag-mission"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eugenedemazenod.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2735","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=2735"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.eugenedemazenod.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2735\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eugenedemazenod.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eugenedemazenod.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eugenedemazenod.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}