{"id":53,"date":"2010-06-03T19:27:53","date_gmt":"2010-06-03T17:27:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.eugenedemazenod.net\/?p=53"},"modified":"2012-03-04T12:13:42","modified_gmt":"2012-03-04T10:13:42","slug":"ordination-a-joyful-and-generous-oblation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eugenedemazenod.net\/?p=53","title":{"rendered":"ORDINATION: A JOYFUL AND GENEROUS OBLATION"},"content":{"rendered":"

Eugene reflects on the experience of his ordination to the sub-diaconate, particularly his thoughts during the Litany of the Saints. Although he is not yet an \u201cOblate\u201d, it is the language of joyful and generous oblation that dominates his descriptions of ministry \u2013 which he invites his mother to participate in.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
Yes, it is really true that when I was making my prostration lying flat on my face, as the whole Church earnestly entreated God to deign to send his Spirit with all his gifts upon us, I begged him for my part to bless you and convince you totally that in offering your son freely to the sovereign Master of the Universe, you would not be losing him but rather gaining him for all eternity. <\/span><\/strong><\/h5>\n
It would be impossible to try now to convey to you any idea of the joy the Lord poured into my soul that happy day. The kind of happiness one experiences at that moment is ineffable, and you must not think that this is perhaps because afterwards there are only vague and superficial traces left behind, on the contrary. <\/span><\/strong><\/h5>\n
This state in which the grace of ordination places you is stable and permanent, staying habitually in the soul, but as it is wholly divine, it cannot be put into words and all forms of expression fall short. There is a kind of spiritual plenitude, there are swift movements towards God, there are delights that flood the soul. What can I say? I repeat, there is a tremendous happiness that one experiences in a very vivid way, but which one cannot describe to oneself, let alone to others.\u00a0<\/span><\/strong><\/h5>\n
After such an experience, don\u2019t talk to me about the beauty of sacrifices, etc., etc. God in heaven, where is the sacrifice in giving practically nothing to get everything? So strong was this feeling on the day of my ordination that I asked God, by the intercession of the Blessed Virgin and all the Saints, who at that very moment were being invoked on our behalf, to deign graciously to pour out on me the fullness of his mercies and to let me make over to him my liberty and life, which were already his own on so many different counts. How true were the words that the Bishop addressed to us as he received our vows, that to serve God is to reign! …<\/span><\/strong><\/h5>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Letter to Madame de Mazenod, 6 January 1810, O.W. XIV n. 66<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Eugene reflects on the experience of his ordination to the sub-diaconate, particularly his thoughts during the Litany of the Saints. Although he is not yet an \u201cOblate\u201d, it is the language of joyful and generous oblation that dominates his descriptions … 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":[12,6],"class_list":["post-53","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-letters","tag-oblation","tag-priesthood"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eugenedemazenod.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53","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=53"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.eugenedemazenod.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eugenedemazenod.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=53"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eugenedemazenod.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=53"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eugenedemazenod.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=53"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}