{"id":2736,"date":"2015-01-08T05:00:10","date_gmt":"2015-01-08T03:00:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.eugenedemazenod.net\/?p=2736"},"modified":"2014-12-26T10:08:57","modified_gmt":"2014-12-26T08:08:57","slug":"one-does-not-convert-with-books","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eugenedemazenod.net\/?p=2736","title":{"rendered":"ONE DOES NOT CONVERT WITH BOOKS"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
Marius Suzanne was writing a book on apologetics, entitled, \u201cThe Profession of Faith of a Priest of Provence.\u201d Due to his illness it was never published. While not discouraging him, Eugene, a preacher at heart, was skeptical as to how many people who had given up the practice of their faith would be brought back through the written word of an unknown young author.<\/p>\n
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The work you have undertaken, even were it to become as perfect as you hope, will be read by few persons, should a printer happen to take it upon himself to print it; and how many will it bring back to the truth? Very few, infinitely few, almost none. All has been said, and short of being one of these rare men raised up by God, like a de Maistre or a Lamennais, one does not convert with books.<\/strong><\/h5>\n
Those who have resisted the proofs of religion developed with so much talent by those who have gone before us and whereof, after all, the arguments are only being repeated, will resist with still more arrogance authors whom they regard at best as their equals, if they do not put them, in their minds, far beneath themselves. By this I do not want to say that you should not be writing: I only claim that you should be less hasty about it. A little sooner, a little later, one achieves soon enough the good that is to be done by such writings.<\/strong><\/h5>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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

Thank goodness that since Eugene\u2019s time, not everyone has heeded this advice, and many have been brought closer to God, or even come to the gift of faith, through the writings of many Oblates.<\/p>\n

Alarmed by the energy that Father Suzanne was putting into his writing, Eugene\u2019s aim was to calm him down, not to stifle him. Today as we reflect on these lines, I see an invitation to reflect on my own reading: is whatever I am reading leading me to a healthier quality of life?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u201cWords – so innocent and powerless as they are, as standing in a dictionary, how potent for good and evil they become in the hands of one who knows how to combine them.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 Nathaniel Hawthorne<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Marius Suzanne was writing a book on apologetics, entitled, \u201cThe Profession of Faith of a Priest of Provence.\u201d Due to his illness it was never published. While not discouraging him, Eugene, a preacher at heart, was skeptical as to how … 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":[114,56],"class_list":["post-2736","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-letters","tag-mission","tag-preaching"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eugenedemazenod.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2736","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=2736"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.eugenedemazenod.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2736\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eugenedemazenod.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2736"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eugenedemazenod.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2736"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eugenedemazenod.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2736"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}