Next in the examination of his life, Eugene looked at the quality of his life as a religious missionary. Always conscious of God’s love in calling him to be an Oblate, he reflected on the central components of his religious life.
The examination of my duties as a simple religious must cover my cooperation with the exceptional grace of vocation and make note of the endless sequence of infidelities, resistance, ingratitude.
Although for three years I have been barred by force of circumstances from mission work, I will glance over the preceding years and discern the faults I committed in the exercise of this ministry that is proper to my vocation.
I will next examine how I have lived my vows, stressing the obedience I owe to the Rules to which I must submit in everything compatible with my other duties which must never serve as a pretext for exempting myself from them.
Examination of conscience, October 1826, EO XV n 157
Eugene invites each one of us to look at our state of life and to recognize God’s grace in the transforming gift we received at our baptism, and of our vocation to express and live it in marriage, single life, religious life, or ordination.
“Everyone has his own specific vocation or mission in life; everyone must carry out a concrete assignment that demands fulfillment. Therein he cannot be replaced, nor can his life be repeated, thus, everyone’s task is unique as his specific opportunity to implement it.” Viktor E. Frankl
I have the image of a potter forming the clay into a shape which takes form only with patience and tenderness, the end result being a vessel created for the purpose of holding liquid or perhaps serving more as a platter, but each ridge and line a little different from any other made, each pattern different from the other somehow. The forming, the molding continues until it is perfect and as designed in the heart of the potter. And as the shape is molded it takes on subtle changes that will allow it to be used to contain different things and to provide differently. It seems that life is never ‘cut and dried’, nor is it only one way for we must be fluid enough to flow clearly and quickly and at other times more slowly with a life that is denser and more complicated.
This is what happens when we are clay, being formed by the potter, not letting ourselves ever think that we have ‘arrived’, not saying that it is time to set and dried so that the potter cannot refashion and remold us. Who are we to say we are done?
Eugene gave himself to God, totally and without reservation as much as he was able, he gave his all and made himself available to what God would wish him to be. It is not enough that I go to church on Sunday, I must go each day. It is not enough to stay busy with my friends and love a few but must be open to giving myself to any who come through the door. And with my tendency to relax and rest and say I have done enough – well I have to keep checking, because the journey does not stop – but then neither does the transformation.