{"id":4846,"date":"2021-08-16T02:00:29","date_gmt":"2021-08-16T00:00:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.eugenedemazenod.net\/?p=4846"},"modified":"2021-08-13T23:04:01","modified_gmt":"2021-08-13T21:04:01","slug":"in-spite-of-this-the-good-god-has-blessed-their-ministry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eugenedemazenod.net\/?p=4846","title":{"rendered":"IN SPITE OF THIS, THE GOOD GOD HAS BLESSED THEIR MINISTRY"},"content":{"rendered":"

The first six Oblate missionaries sent to Canada had arrived evidently unprepared for ministry in a new continent and culture. Their experience had been of the church in France and they had worked under the constant guidance of Eugene. Now it had all changed for them: a new country, a totally different cultural environment, and correspondence with Eugene that took months for delivery. It is clear that six far-from-perfect men would make mistakes. We have seen some of this in previous entries.<\/h3>\n

Eugene wrote in his Diary:<\/h3>\n

Letter from the bishop of Montr\u00e9al. I read it with emotion, admiration and gratitude. I am not able to transcribe it because it is not less than eight pages; but it is precious as a document and it gives an exact knowledge of the state of the community in Canada.<\/strong><\/em><\/h3>\n

He knows all its troubles and he judges them with an entirely paternal moderation. It results no less from his observations that our Fathers have conducted themselves with a rare imprudence from the beginning. They have shown themselves in all their imperfection, not only in the eyes of the bishop, who was inclined to excusing them, but also in the eyes of the clergy and even of the laity.<\/strong><\/em><\/h3>\n

Eugene could not hide his distress:<\/h3>\n

It\u2019s pitiful! Dashing in this way every hope, abusing my trust, not attaching any importance to my directions for overcoming themselves, for mutually supporting one another, for standing by those from the outside; instead of this, deceiving themselves and denigrating themselves not at all from the point of view of virtue, but on their character, their knowledge, etc.<\/strong><\/em><\/h3>\n

He, however, was not blind to the good work that they were achieving.<\/h3>\n

In spite of this, the good God has blessed their ministry “for the glory of his name” <\/strong><\/em>[Ed. Psalm 78:9] and by a continuation of the protection which he deigns to grant to our Congregation.<\/strong><\/em><\/h3>\n

Eugene de Mazenod\u2019s Diary, 20 March 1843, EO XXI<\/em><\/h3>\n

Yet another example in the history of our Mazenodian Family where God uses weak instruments to produce a Gospel harvest for others.<\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The first six Oblate missionaries sent to Canada had arrived evidently unprepared for ministry in a new continent and culture. Their experience had been of the church in France and they had worked under the constant guidance of Eugene. Now … 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-4846","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-writings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eugenedemazenod.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4846","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=4846"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.eugenedemazenod.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4846\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eugenedemazenod.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4846"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eugenedemazenod.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4846"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eugenedemazenod.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4846"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}