Continuing to write to the discouraged missionaries:
Discouragement is a weakness. If you analyse it well, you will find it is caused by self-love. The Lord, in giving you the lofty mission of sowing, planting and watering, has reserved to himself the granting of the growth and maturity when it pleases and as it pleases him. Do then, what you have been commissioned to do and leave to God that which belongs to him alone.
Letter to Jean Baptiste Mille, 13 December 1840, EO IX n 720
Even though the people of the village were not responding to the ministry of the Oblate missionaries, Eugene reminded them that God was using them as instruments and it was up to God to judge the people, not them.
Useful advice when we are discouraged if things do not go our way.
I suppose it had to come one day – finding myself filled with dismay at Eugene’s opening words as he speaks of discouragement as a weakness, caused by self-love. I wonder if he wasn’t having a bad day himself when he wrote this letter.
Last night in a ZOOM gathering I listened as a friend spoke of a serious outbreak of COVID where she works and how tired she was, how difficult it was to not become discouraged. She was in a difficult place to be. She was not giving up but she did ask for prayers. We were again asked for prayers as one of our most senior Oblates who is in palliative care and who we love, but cannot visit, hug, or hold his hand. And one from our group who no longer meets with us as she too suffers from dementia; she too has just tested positive for COVID along with many others where she lives.
Heart wrenching news. There were quiet but heartfelt words of “I’m so sorry” and some tears; and there was deep silence as we sat before our respective screens and computers somehow being present to one another. There was within those moments incredible love and strength flowing from one to other. We were hugging and holding each other in the only way that we could.
Here I sit before dawn arrives, held in the quiet of the night which is still wrapped tightly around us. The image that comes to mind is that of Mary, our mother, standing with a few others at the foot of the cross, in silence offering their presence as they could.
No rallying or lofty cries to one another, simply an offering of walking with each other in hope and love – in prayer.
Eugene and I in this morning’s encounter –each of us sharing as we can to help and support, standing with each other in love of all we meet and serve. And how as we look at each other we allow God to speak through our words and our thoughts and to say yes to our Beloved. In our oblation we are God’s instruments.
But oh Eugene…