{"id":3019,"date":"2016-02-09T05:00:02","date_gmt":"2016-02-09T03:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.eugenedemazenod.net\/?p=3019"},"modified":"2016-02-08T06:18:32","modified_gmt":"2016-02-08T04:18:32","slug":"our-founding-vision-form-storm-norm-perform","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eugenedemazenod.net\/?p=3019","title":{"rendered":"OUR FOUNDING VISION: FORM, STORM, NORM, PERFORM"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n
Six animated missionaries came together exactly 200 years ago dreaming to do great things for the faith of the abandoned people of Provence. Eugene brought the new community into existence on a wave of enthusiasm. Human interaction, however, eventually begins to cause cracks in even the best of schemes, and the missionaries were all-too-human. So, how did Eugene cope with this in his newly formed group?<\/p>\n

Professionals speak today of the life of a group in terms of four words: form, storm, norm and perform. A new group \u201cforms\u201d \u2013 as we have been celebrating, on 25 January 1816. After a while some in the group begin to \u201cstorm\u201d when disagreements about the interpretation and practical implementation of the founding vision arise. This happened to us, just to give one example, with the expulsion of Fr. Icard within months of the foundation. At this stage it becomes essential for the group to \u201cnorm\u201d \u2013 to draw up commonly accepted regulations and guidelines in order to \u201cperform.\u201d<\/p>\n

From the very first day of our existence we find this fourfold process at work.<\/p>\n

\n
At this meeting we will draw up the Rule which we will have to follow.<\/strong><\/h5>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Letter to Henri Tempier, 13 December 1815, EO VI n.7<\/em><\/p>\n

Once we had been \u201cformed\u201d, the pattern of \u201cstorm, norm and perform\u201d has characterized our existence until today. It is essential to \u201cnorm\u201d in order to keep our founding vision alive and relevant.<\/p>\n

In our first Rule of Life, approved by the Church ten years later, Eugene enshrined this principle:<\/p>\n

\n
But it is not enough for them simply to be convinced of the sublime nature of the ministry to which they have been called. The example of the saints and reason itself make it amply clear that the success of such a holy undertaking as well as the maintenance of discipline in any society make certain rules of life absolutely necessary for unity of thought and action among the members. Such unity is a body’s strength, keeping up its fervour and insuring that it lasts<\/strong><\/h5>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Preface<\/em><\/p>\n

A pertinent reminder that when human nature inevitably leads any group of people to storm, then we need God\u2019s grace to allow the waters to calm and to allow us to learn from the storm so as to norm in order to perform \u2013 and then to start the process all over again when the next storm arrives. That is why, when on his deathbed, the 79 year-old Eugene looked back on his life experience and charged us, in the face of unavoidable storms: \u201cAmong yourselves charity, charity, charity at all times\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

\"house\"<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cHaving an exciting destination is like setting a needle in your compass. From then on, the compass knows only one point – its ideal. And it will faithfully guide you there through the darkest nights and fiercest storms<\/em>.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 Daniel Boone<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Six animated missionaries came together exactly 200 years ago dreaming to do great things for the faith of the abandoned people of Provence. Eugene brought the new community into existence on a wave of enthusiasm. Human interaction, however, eventually begins … 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,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3019","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-writings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eugenedemazenod.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3019","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=3019"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.eugenedemazenod.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3019\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eugenedemazenod.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3019"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eugenedemazenod.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3019"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eugenedemazenod.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3019"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}