Hippolyte Guibert had been an Oblate priest for a year, and Jeancard for 3 years and were both in their mid-twenties. Eugene followed the missionary adventures of these young men with pride and interest. As they enjoyed successes and also fumbled along in their difficulties he reminds them that all that is important is that they never lose sight of the Oblate life-giving ideal: “seek only God and the souls which his Son Jesus Christ has redeemed with his blood.”
As I get pulled into countless different directions in the activities of each day, Eugene invites me to identify what my real focus should be in every activity, and to do my best to maintain that life-giving desire at all times.
Believe me, my dear friends, that I am just as impatient to write you as you can be to receive my news; those you have given me in your two letters give me the greatest hope; the contradictions that Fr. Jeancard tells me about have no more disquieted me than they have shaken his courage which has become virile and truly worthy of an Oblate of Mary who counts on the protection of this powerful Mother and on the help of God which she never fails to obtain for those who put their confidence in her. The beginning of success that Fr. Guibert takes pleasure in writing me about has consoled me as well as him, but has not surprised me. You had to expect all the precautions that have been taken, however strange they may be.
What does it matter, after all, you will not do any less good provided that you never lose from sight the true spirit of the Society and that you seek only God and the souls which his Son Jesus Christ has redeemed with his blood.
Letter to Fathers Mie, Jeancard and Guibert, 21 November 1826, EO VII n. 259
“The key to success is to focus our conscious mind on things we desire not things we fear.” Brian Tracy
My thoughts this morning seem to be coming from all directions, I find myself a little distracted. Perhaps I am trying to focus on the doing that will come without first allowing myself to sit in the being and become focused. Through it all I read again “…Eugene invites me to identify what my real focus should be in every activity, and to do my best to maintain that life-giving desire at all times.” There is a marriage here of my focus and my most basic and deepest desire. God. I find myself moving around and into a place of nothingness, a place that is nowhere. I have come to be here through a route not focused but rather full of distractions that I needed to wind my way through. Tears start from that hidden place and push their way to the surface. They engulf me in a way that does not smother but rather heals and consoles me. This is not how I would have planned to be this morning, or what I would have thought after the first reading of this day. But there is no reasoning with this gift of hearing the whisper ‘beloved’, there is only an expanse of gratitude. I cannot begin to say why, just that I am grateful. This is how I go now towards the busyness of my day.
A useful approach to staying focused is to create a personal mission statement. Base it on the Mission Statement in the Rule and on Provincial Mission Statements. Keep it to a quarter page or less. Then USE it. Set aside a little time at the end of each week to examine what has been accomplished in the past 7 days and what will be attempted in the next 7. Take a look at the recommendations for writing a Mission Statement found in the 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Today’s quotes confirm a thought I had been playing with over the last couple of years – that Eugene would surely have followed this approach had he been alive today.