We have seen how heavily the events of the previous four years had weighed on Eugene: death of loved ones, serious personal illness with a slow recuperation, the July 1830 Revolution and the attitudes and actions of an anti-religious government at national and local level. Once back in Marseilles, Eugene was Vicar General of the 84 year-old Bishop Fortun\u00e9 of the large and expanding diocese. At the same time, he was Superior General of the Oblates. Father Court\u00e8s must have reprimanded him for not having done something for the Oblates, to which Eugene replied:<\/p>\n
\n…You must not conclude from my silence that I am not getting on with the matter that you are concerned with, but when one has a string of meetings often going on for three hours at a time and all the subsequent business that arises, when one has to organize, negotiate, reply, carry out, conciliate so many different interests, to say nothing of ordinary administration which is necessarily very complex with our dense population, etc., one really has no time left to breathe, much less to write ….<\/strong><\/h5>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Letter to Hippolyte Court\u00e8s, 3 February 1832, EO VIII n 414<\/em><\/p>\n
What always emerges throughout all Eugene\u2019s writings is that no matter how busy he was, he never lost sight of his fundamental option to live only for God and to do everything for God and in God. It was his spirit of oblation that made it possible for him to give himself fully to whatever God\u2019s work asked of him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
We have seen how heavily the events of the previous four years had weighed on Eugene: death of loved ones, serious personal illness with a slow recuperation, the July 1830 Revolution and the attitudes and actions of an anti-religious government … Continue reading