Eugene de Mazenod speaks to us

Our Lord grouped the Twelve around him to be his companions and to be sent out as his messengers (cf. Mk 3:14).
The call and the presence of the Lord among us today bind us together (Constitution 3)

Having gathered the first members of his missionary family Eugene wrote their first Rule of Life in 1818.

After reflecting on the damage caused to the Church by bad priests, he launched into an impassioned reflection of the vocation of the missionary. NOTA BENE, he wrote: take note!

Eugene aimed to counteract the ravage caused by bad priests by holding up the ideal of what the Oblate Missionary is:

What more sublime purpose than that of their Institute!
Their founder is Jesus Christ, the very Son of God;
their first fathers are the Apostles.
They are called to be the Saviour’s co-workers, the co-redeemers of mankind

 1818 Rule, Part One, Chapter One. The ends of the Institute, §3. Nota Bene. Missions, 78 (1951) p. 15

Here in a succinct manner is the kernel of the Missionary vocation for all who are inspired to live by Eugene’s dream.

What more sublime purpose than that of their Institute!

NOTA BENE – TAKE NOTE! He restates, in different words, the three foundation pillars of our vocation that he had written in our defining Article one.

NOTA BENE – TAKE NOTE! Their founder is Jesus Christ, the very Son of God

 The Congregation has its origin in the call of Jesus – he is the Founder. Each Missionary forms part of this body because of an awareness of a personal invitation from Jesus Christ.

NOTA BENE – TAKE NOTE! Their first fathers are the Apostles.

We are called into community. But not just as any community, but as a community that follows the example of the apostles. More than following, it is an insertion into the Gospel community of Jesus and the apostles and first disciples. It is a continuation of that community.

NOTA BENE – TAKE NOTE! They are called to be the Savior’s co-workers, the co-redeemers of mankind

The third pillar is the mission: that of leading people to the same experience of salvation that the Missionaries were living. Thus the short definition of the Missionary is: “co-operator of the Savior” – nothing less than a co-redeemer!

NOTA BENE. What more sublime purpose than that of their Institute!

If our Charismatic Family lives this reality in a convincing way, what a missionary light our vocation calls us to! If we really live these words in their fullness, what a difference we would make to the world…  NOTA BENE – TAKE NOTE!

The community of the Apostles with Jesus is the model of our life.
Our Lord grouped the Twelve around him to be his companions and to be sent out as his messengers (cf. Mk 3:14). (Constitution 3)

Henri Tempier’s reply to Eugene’s invitation was a source of great joy for Eugene. It shows the apostolic “one heart and one soul” that marked his relationship with Eugene:

“May the good God be blessed for having inspired you to prepare for the poor, for the inhabitants of our countryside, those who have the most need of instruction in our religion, a house of missionaries who will go and announce to them the truths of salvation.

I share your views completely, my dear brother… What you want most in those you choose as your collaborators is priests who will not get into a rut of routine and daily hum-drum… you want priests who will be ready to follow in the footsteps of the Apostles and work for the salvation of souls with no other reward here on earth but hardship and fatigue. I think that God’s grace has given me this desire. If not, then I wish with all my heart that I will have it, and working with you will make it all the easier to attain. You can, therefore, count entirely on me.”

Hneri Tempier to Eugene, 27 October, 1815 Cf. REY I, p. 183

A few years later, Eugene repeated his conviction that it is Jesus who calls us to imitate the apostles, a call that continues to this day for all of us in the Oblate Family:

Persuaded as I am that the good God has given you to us in answer to our prayers, that he called you like the Apostles with the most evident signs of a truly divine vocation to follow him and to serve him in the ministry which resembles most that which he prescribed for his apostles, with whose work he willed to associate you”

Letter to the scholastic Hippolyte Guibert, June 26, 1823, EO VI, n 109.

The community of the Apostles with Jesus is the model of our life. (Constitution 3)

Returning to Aix as a young priest, Eugene put into practice the apostolic model that he had learnt and lived at the Seminary of St. Sulpice.

I have said that my intention in dedicating myself to the ministry of the missions to work especially for the instruction and conversion of the most abandoned souls, was to follow the example of the Apostles in their life of devotedness and self-denial. I became convinced that, in order to obtain the same results from our preaching, we had to walk in their footsteps and as far as we could, practice the same virtues.

Eugene’s Memoires, quoted in Rambert, I p. 187

Three years after leaving the seminary, Father Eugene used the model that had become his vision when he invited Henri Tempier to join him in:

an establishment which will steadily furnish our countryside with fervent missionaries. These will ceaselessly engage in destroying the empire of the demon, at the same time as providing the example of a life worthy of the Church in the community which they will form.

If presently we are not more numerous, it means we wish to choose men who have the will and the courage to walk in the footsteps of the apostles. It is important to lay solid foundations.

Letter to Henri Tempier, 9 October 1815 EO. VI n 4

Whatever our way of life, each of us is invited to live our baptism walking in the footsteps of the apostles with Jesus.

The community of the Apostles with Jesus is the model of our life.
Our Lord grouped the Twelve around him to be his companions and to be sent out as his messengers (cf. Mk 3:14).
The call and the presence of the Lord among us today
bind us together in charity and obedience
to create anew in our own lives the Apostles’ unity with him
and their common mission in his Spirit.

Constitution 3

Why did Eugene insist on this so strongly?

From the first day when he entered the seminary in 1808 until he left it as a priest in 1812, he prayed several times each day in front of a painting of the apostles in the upper room with Mary.

Fr. Jean Olier was the founder of this seminary of St. Sulpice, about whom is written:

 “Adopting the view that the seminary was like the Cenacle where the Spirit of God would descend afresh to form apostolic men who would revitalize the knowledge and love of Jesus Christ, it was M. Olier’s desire that all the clerics would take on the sentiments and attitudes of the holy Apostles and that they would become perpetual students of the Apostles’ virtues. He had them depicted […] in the chapel’s main painting so that the seminary would have recourse to them as to full flowing channels of apostolic grace whose first fruits they had received for future ages, and so that they should honor them with a special devotion as being, after Jesus Christ, the foundations of the Church […]” (https://www.omiworld.org/lemma/apostles/#_Ftnt2)

As I reflect on how Eugene, in his formation, unquestionably imbibed this spirit, I pause to reflect on what image it was that inspired me and molded me, and continues to do so.

And yours?

Our bicentenary celebrations have constantly reminded us of the truth of Eugene’s words that our Constitution and Rules

are not a trivial unimportant thing, they are no longer simple regulations, merely pious directions; they are Rules approved by the Church after most minute examination. They have been judged holy and eminently suited to lead those who have embraced them to their goal.

Letter to Henri Tempier and all the Oblates, 18 February 1826, EO VII n 226

As we continue to explore our Rule of Life, step-by-step, it is through the eyes of St Eugene that we look at it. What does he say to us through it? How does he communicate his spirit and vision to us? What is he calling us to be and do as he accompanies us, the members of his beloved Charismatic Family? For what is he interceding for us in the presence of God and the saints?

Since last year (https://www.eugenedemazenod.net/?p=5978 to https://www.eugenedemazenod.net/?p=6203 ), we have been exploring our Rule of Life with St Eugene. We then interrupted our series to journey with Eugene in the events of 1825-1826. Now as we return to examine our Rule, we recap briefly.

I invite you to reflect one again on how each of us has been called by Jesus Christ

• • to share in his mission as his cooperators (C1)
  • to know him more deeply, to identify with him, to let him live in us (C2)
  • to see the world through the eyes of his Cross which leads those in need to the power of the resurrection (C4)
  • to proclaim him and his Kingdom to the poor and most abandoned (C5)
  • to recognize and love him in his body, the Church, and participate in its mission (C6)
  • to respond to the most urgent needs of the Church through various forms of witness and ministry (C7)
  • to always be close to the people with whom we work, taking into account their values and aspirations (C8)
  • to announce the liberating presence of Jesus Christ and the new world born in his resurrection (C9)

HOW TO DO ALL THIS?

Now as we continue our exploration we answer this question by looking at the two models offered to us in living our charism:

the apostles with Jesus (C3)
and
Mary Immaculate (C10)

Jesus said to them, “Come, have breakfast.” 
And none of the disciples dared to ask him, “Who are you?”
because they realized it was the Lord.
Jesus came over and took the bread and gave it to them,
and in like manner the fish.

John 21: 12-13

In John 21:1-14, the disciples had returned to their normal occupation of fishing and the Risen Jesus appeared to them in the midst their everyday activity. They did not recognize him at first, but it was love that opened their eyes.

ST EUGENE AND THE WORD

St Eugene had always loved the Risen Jesus present in his Word. In 1837, before becoming Bishop of Marseilles, he looked back on 55 years of lovingly listening to the Word of God:

I give you thanks, O Lord, for having made shine forth this light from the sacred deposit of your Holy Scriptures. As you show me the way I should follow, and give me the desire to follow it, you will also give me the powerful help of your grace.

 EUGENE

“Handed on to his Apostles by Jesus, this word has lost none of its power in the course of the ages. We have experienced the fact that because it issued from the mouth of him who is himself eternal life, it is always spirit and life.”

Eugene de Mazenod, Pastoral Letter 1844

 THE WALLS OF OUR UPPER ROOM

Then they said to each other, 
“Were not our hearts burning within us
while he spoke to us on the way and opened the Scriptures to us?”
Luke 24: 32

During Easter we are invited to spend time with Scripture. Like the disciples let us let him explain his Word to us and set our hearts on fire in our everyday existence.

EUGENE AND HIS DESIRE FOR HIS MISSIONARY FAMILY

Saint Eugene’s life was dedicated to explaining the Good News of salvation to those who were most in need. He and his missionaries wanted the hearts of all those who listened to burn within them. The invitation he wrote in the Rule of 1818 continues today:

Our one and only aim should be to instruct people… 
not only to break the bread of the Word for them but to chew it for them as well;
in a word, to ensure that when our discourses are over,
they are not tempted to heap foolish praise on what they have not understood,
but, instead, that they go back home edified, touched, instructed, able to repeat in their own family circle what they have learned from our mouth.

At times we feel like those disciples who wanted to shut themselves into their own isolation in Emmaus. Let’s open our eyes to recognize the presence of the Risen Jesus alongside us.  Let us spend some time with his Gospel. As we break the bread of the Word, he helps us to chew it – and our hearts will burn within us.

 EUGENE: I HAVE SEEN THE LORD

As a result of the French Revolution the people of the countryside of France were locked in their ignorance of their faith. Eugene de Mazenod had recognized the presence of the Risen Jesus in his life, and he dedicated his life to proclaiming “I have seen the Lord!” to those who were the most in need of coming to know the Risen Lord.

 THE OBLATE CHARISMATIC FAMILY: AN INVITATION TO SEE THE LORD

 Inviting others to enter into his life of proclamation, Eugene founded the Missionary Oblates, and insisted that their time be divided between “seeing the Lord” in prayer, reading and reflection and the proclamation, “I have seen the Lord!” whom they had encountered in this way:

 The Missionaries will divide their group in such a way that while some strive in community to acquire the virtues and knowledge proper to a good missionary, others are travelling in the rural areas proclaiming the Word of God.

 When their apostolic journeys are over, they will return to the community to rest from their labours by exercising a ministry that is less demanding

Request to the Capitular Vicars of Aix, 25 January 1816, EO XIII n.2

Then Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid. Go tell my brothers to go to Galilee, and there they will see me.”
Matthew 28: 10

The Risen Jesus tells the disciples to go back to Galilee: “They will see me there.” Galilee is where it all began for the disciples, it was the place where they met Jesus, and he entered into their lives.

Today, the Risen Lord tells each of us: “Go back to Galilee – go back to that time when you realized that I was present in your life.”

The Risen Jesus is inviting us to enter into the Galilee of our hearts and lives.

EUGENE TEACHES US

Saint Eugene frequently did this, and he called it recollection. He wanted all those who followed his way of discipleship to do the same, as he wrote in his Rule of 1818:

The whole life of the members of our Society ought to be a life of continual recollection (Art. 1).

To attain this, they will first of all make every effort to walk always in the presence of God, and frequently try to utter short but fervent  spontaneous prayers. (Art.2,)

Eugene and Jesus shared a deep bond of friendship – and a friend always wants to be in the presence of a loved one. His days are filled with moments of recollection – of short bursts of prayer and expressions of love.