If we take Good Friday 1807 as a highpoint in Eugene’s conversion journey and search for a direction in his life, then this is the first text after that event that shows that he believes himself called to “a more perfect state.” It shows that there is nothing instantaneous about conversion. Once we see the direction, it is still a struggle to stay with it. Eugene is 25 when he writes to his friend Emmanuel Gaultier de Claubry on December 23, 1807:
“And now, shall I speak of myself? Yes, but only to ask for your prayers, to give you the charge expressly to persevere in asking God to accomplish in my regard the adorable designs whose outcome I impede by my infidelities; that he might knock, prune, reduce me to desiring only what He wills, that He might overturn all the obstacles standing in the way of my arriving at a more perfect state to which I strongly believe I am called.
May he give me the grace of recognizing ever more clearly the vanities of this miserable earth, so that I see only those heavenly goods that the moth cannot corrupt. In a word may he make me worthy of the communion of saints and have me assume the place among them that he seems to have destined me for, but which it seems to me I am still far from deserving.”
(Oblate Writings XIV n.22)
I will share this material to the Missionary Oblates who offer this great Sacrament at the National Shrine of Our Lady of the Snows in Belleville, Illinois. We offer this great Sacrament before Mass daily,
It is Sunday and there is no discipline in my place of listening on Sunday mornings, just that I listen and allow myself to be touched. I seem always to be astounded at Eugene’s ability, or perhaps I should say willingness to be open and honest in his writings and sharings of who he was at his deepest levels. It started young with him and continued throughout his life. I look at his models and inspirations, who he looked to, and who he found friendship with in his heart. A life-long process of living and loving.
Our conversion, our life-long journey of transformation, as we allow God to peel away the layers we have been cloaked in. Initiated, always, by God, but what we too play a part in. It is never just one, but the both. No magic wand or magical words. It is becoming who we have been created to be.
I look back through my life, my conversion, my ongoing transformation, initiated by God, modelled and shaped by Eugene. “….that he might knock, prune, reduce me to desiring only what He wills….” My words, my prayers, but put differently for I would ask God to take my heart and shape it, break down and remove the hard casing in which it was housed, soften the edges and scrape out all that was within it, and then fill it with God himself, all so that it could become the heart of Jesus, asking God to take all that I am so that I might be one with him. I look at Eugene’s words and desires, and I look at mine. Nothing magical or instantaneous there. Such is the call of God to us all. And I thank God for giving us Eugene, Saint Eugene who was ‘larger than life’, with his heart ‘as big as the world’. An inspiration, a model to follow, a father to guide and teach us with a way to live and be.
I look at Eugene and the gift his has shared with us, and I look at Tom who we buried yesterday. I look at all the people Tom touched and loved, how he lived out his vocation as a man, as an Oblate of Mary Immaculate. Our Lady who took his hand to lead him home, where he was greeted I am sure by Eugene and by all his brothers who had gone before him. Joy and tenderness. I look at the transformation that took place as Tom approached death and what he taught and gave me and all of us who had the opportunity to know him. Like Eugene, Thomas, servant of God.