{"id":5808,"date":"2024-07-17T01:00:23","date_gmt":"2024-07-16T23:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.eugenedemazenod.net\/?p=5808"},"modified":"2024-07-16T17:50:18","modified_gmt":"2024-07-16T15:50:18","slug":"being-close-to-the-people-means-learning-their-language","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eugenedemazenod.net\/?p=5808","title":{"rendered":"BEING CLOSE TO THE PEOPLE MEANS LEARNING THEIR LANGUAGE"},"content":{"rendered":"

Fr. Telmon was being sent to Pittsburgh USA, and was hesitating because of his poor knowledge of English. Eugene’s reaction was to be the same towards all the Oblates who were sent to mission: learn the local language of the people!<\/h3>\n

How is it that all our Fathers in Canada have not made it their duty and their pleasure to learn English? We have thirty Oblates at the seminary and there is not one who is not learning this language. You should hear all these young men conversing. They speak nothing but English in their recreation periods. What does Father Telmon mean by protesting on the grounds that he does not know English?<\/strong><\/em><\/h3>\n

This is a new mentality consonant with the republican spirit of our time. Formerly missionaries were sent all over the world; not one knew the language of the people he was going to evangelize. They set to with courage and they succeeded… So put your people to work at learning English.<\/strong><\/em><\/h3>\n

Letter to Bishop Guigues in Bytown, 25 July 1848, EO 1 n. 99<\/em><\/h3>\n

REFLECTION<\/strong><\/h3>\n

We Oblates pride ourselves that people always recognize us as being “close to the people” – the foundation of this is to learn their language. This, however, is more than linguistics. It is an invitation, which refers also to our own native language, to learn the lived “language” of the people: their values, their hopes and dreams, their sufferings, all that is important to them so as to be able to journey with them in Christ Jesus, and they with us.<\/h3>\n

<\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fr. Telmon was being sent to Pittsburgh USA, and was hesitating because of his poor knowledge of English. Eugene’s reaction was to be the same towards all the Oblates who were sent to mission: learn the local language of the … 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":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5808","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-writings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eugenedemazenod.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5808","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=5808"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.eugenedemazenod.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5808\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.eugenedemazenod.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5808"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eugenedemazenod.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5808"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.eugenedemazenod.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5808"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}