My morning has been employed in having young ladies of the French convent of Saint Denis make their first communion; think of my sorrow when I had to speak to these young people of the age of our poor Caroline and dressed as I had seen her last year about this time on the day of her first communion and even after her death. Certainly my feelings and consequently my grief are not short-lived!
Letter to Henri Tempier, 9 April 1826, EO VII n 235
Eugene recalls his painful ministry to his niece Caroline de Boisgelin, who had died at the age twelve of less than a year before.
Refer to the entries https://www.eugenedemazenod.net/?p=2182 and following where these evnets are described. In his diary, Eugene gives an intimate view of his feelings as he recalls the event.
The superior of the religious women at Saint Denis convent, had asked me to go and say Mass in their church, so that several students of her boarding school could make their first communion. I responded to her invitation; even though on the one hand I performed this ministry with consolation, on the other hand my heart was cruelly torn, seeing before my eyes those children the same age as our poor Caroline, dressed exactly as I saw her dressed, at that first communion which that dear child received as viaticum, surrounded with flowers on her deathbed. Oh! how I consider and experience that a person can be resigned to God’s will, without however ceasing to be profoundly afflicted! Poor little angel! I was in the next room to my sister’s when she was brought into the world; I baptized her, and it was my destiny to serve her at death and give her Extreme Unction! Nature revolts, but grace overcomes it, inspiring faith and hope. Dear child! I imagine you in the heaven that you counted on with so much trust and simplicity. That beautiful heaven is made for those who, like you, have preserved their innocence: To such belongs the Kingdom of Heaven (Mt. 19,14): those are the words I engraved on the tombstone. Now that you reign with the dear God whom you so greatly desired to possess, invoke his clemency and mercy on those who, like myself, have merited by their sins to be separated from him forever, but who still dare to hope, through the merits of Jesus Christ and the prayers of saints, to arrive at that blessed homeland, there to love and eternally praise that same Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with the Father and the Holy Spirit forever and ever.
Roman Diary, 9 April 1826, EO XVII
Think of your child, then, not as dead, but as living; not as a flower that has withered, but as one that is transplanted, and touched by a Divine hand, is blooming in richer colors and sweeter shades than those of earth.” Richard Hooker
Not quite sure where I am with all of this today and wish that I could be a little bit more open and loving as Frank who is able to see what Eugene wrote in such a positive light. I find myself though returning again and again to Eugene’s words of “…invoke his clemency and mercy on those who, like myself, have merited by their sins to be separated from him forever, but who still dare to hope, through the merits of Jesus Christ and the prayers of saints, to arrive at that blessed homeland, there to love and eternally praise that same Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with the Father and the Holy Spirit forever and ever.” My admission says perhaps more about myself and where I am at this morning than about Eugene and his manner of loving. I continue to struggle. “…those who, like myself, have merited by their sins to be separated from him forever…” Perhaps a sign of his times, but it seems remarkably similar to the way I was brought up with a God who looked ‘down’ on because of there being an intrinsic evilness in my very humanity – non-redeemable and somehow worthless. There was almost a hopelessness about it. My experience has been so different – not that I am sinless – but that I am loved so greatly. For sure more than I deserve or could ever hope for – but – I am loved. And that love transforms. Yesterday at Mass they said the Confetior and I have to admit that I refused to say the words “through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault”. It is not that my ego is too big to admit that I sin, it is just that I do as I run into the embrace of my God. This morning I have moved from struggle to gratitude and being able to understand in a way why Frank wrote as he did. It took me that route just to get to the whole idea of “death as a time of new communion”