I FINISH THIS LETTER BROKEN-HEARTED WITH SORROW

Posted on February 15, 2022 by franksantucci

Despite all his efforts to revive the “smoldering wick” of this 24 year-old Oblate who had been a priest for one year, the Founder had to take drastic action when it became clear that no change in behavior was possible.

I will attend to the business of your expulsion from the Society. For that, I must assemble the council which must decide on this question.

 I do not think that the council will hesitate. Only after the decision am I able to give you the dispensation that you, in all likelihood, will not present to the Lord’s tribunal as a claim to his mercy. If I am to judge by the signing of your letter, I am led to think that you believe yourself freed from your commitments by the very fact of making your request. Your behaviour at Vico would confirm that opinion…

I finish this letter broken-hearted with sorrow. I measure beforehand the disastrous consequences to your poor soul of the course you have just undertaken. I knew that you were very imperfect; but I did not suppose you to be unfaithful to the point you have shown. The poison was hidden in the wound. With more frankness on your part, the evil could probably have been remedied; but once Satan is allowed to penetrate a soul, he soon carries a person far away. That is your sorrowful story.

I shall gather all your misleading letters, which I believed to be sincere, and burn them on the day that you are cut off from the family which had adopted you.

Letter to Father Leopold Carles, 22 July 1844, EO X n 848

A sad ending.

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1 Response to I FINISH THIS LETTER BROKEN-HEARTED WITH SORROW

  1. Eleanor Rabnett, Oblate Associate says:
    February 15, 2022 at 11:29

    This is a sad ending – for both Fr. Carles, for the Society [congregation] and for Eugene. A type of death has happened here and the sorrow being expressed by Eugene is notably different from the sorrow that he expressed when Marius Suzanne died. There is a sense of betrayal having happened here.

    For a moment two contrasting stories from the New Testament come to mind. The first is the story of the Prodigal Son, of the son who repented, and returned to his father’s home seeking forgiveness. And the second is of Judas, who after betraying Jesus left and hung himself.

    Eugene is left with a heart full of sorrow and his statement that he will gather all the letters that Carles had sent to him were deliberate lies and so would be burned. That is the reaction of one who loved greatly and been betrayed.

    I imagine that the council and the other members of the community also may have felt betrayed since Carles had kept the truth of his being and intentions secret even up to making his oblation. Was the lie also to himself or just the community of brothers that he had been adopted into?

    There was a tear in the tapestry of the community, a hole that would take time to be rewoven and filled in with new threads. And after the anger passed the sadness would remain.

    Reply

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