The time had come for Eugene to begin to invite others to join him in his missionary project. As members of the Mazenodian family, lay and religious, we are invited to see in these vocational texts something about our own calling to live out our baptism according to the spirit of Eugene.
In this letter Eugene invites Hilaire Aubert, director of the seminary in Limoges, to join him and gives the main reasons for the existence of the new group: the tragic religious situation of the poor and the scarcity of missionaries to help them through preaching and through their efforts to destroy the power of evil. The situation today still calls out with the same invitation.
The good we intend to do must remedy the greatest evils that face us. Those who deal with them dwindle; there is nothing more urgent.
It is a matter of some priests banding together and continually preaching missions in all sectors of this vast diocese and surroundings. We wish to do modestly, but not less effectively, what they are striving to do at Paris on a larger scale. We would want to act without commotion but what blows we would strike at hell!
Oh, dear friend, if you would be one of us! We would begin in your part of the country where religion is practically extinct as in so many other places. I almost dare to say that you would be necessary.
Letter to Hilaire Aubert, priest and director of the Seminary of Limoges, 1815, O.W. VI n 3
Eugene, your spirit continue to be so present with in us. For it is often heard, “we Oblates don’t know how to toot our own horn”! And so what is has been. And yet in talking to others the relationships that have happened in communities /parishes /centres/schools have continued for many years. Fondly we are often reminded that.
In the last paragraph the line “one of us” is powerful as the doors of the charism are opening to all and that the Oblate Family is growing far beyond clerical / diocesan structures (our vocation is grounded in our Baptism). I hope all will have the chance to read the Chapter Report on Oblate Associates. And to follow up on the paragraph, Eugene accepted Hilaire where he was at and so the same needs to be true as “vocation work” broadens to encompass the whole Oblate Family. Jack,omi