Where is home for me? Home is where the heart is – what is God’s place in my heart?
As Superior General, Eugene needed to move Oblates to different places when the need arose. Approaching Father Jean Joseph Magnan about a possible move, Eugene was edified by his response.
Letter from Fr. Magnan. He expresses the sentiments of a perfect religious: Ubi Deus, ibi patria [ed Where God is, there is my country], he says to me, so as to put his will into my hands.
Eugene de Mazenod’s Diary, 24 May 1845, EO XXI
Putting these words into practice, Eugene gives him a new mission:
I am obliged to call you to the Major Seminary of Marseilles to be professor of moral theology. I am telling you this under secret. When I get to Lumières, I will spell out for you which treatises you will have to teach at the outset. You will also be responsible for the formation of the seminarians in piety and the knowledge of their duties, that is to say, to assist at the spiritual lectures and to comment during the last eight or ten minutes. Those are the functions of what is called the spiritual director. You may begin your groundwork and to prepare your materials.
Letter to Fr Jean Joseph Magnan, 13 June 1845, EO X n 874
Where there is God, there is my country – the sentiment of a true missionary. In other words, wherever God is present, that is my home.
Yesterday I listened to Fr. Bonga’s chat with Fr. Louis Lougen OMI – now former Superior General as he explained what his job has been for the last 12 years. And today the men at the Chapter will elect a new Superior General for the congregation.
As I listened yesterday to Louis speak, I realized the sacrifice of love that is needed to fill that position. It will not be a position of power or politics, but rather will be a place of loving service, to God, to the Church and to the entire congregation. It will be a place of listening to his brothers, his family and listening to the Spirit. For the new Superior General who may have come from any country it will be very much a “Ubi Deus, ibi patria”. And I am sure that the Spirit will fill him with the grace needed to fulfill his term(s).
Where God is, that/this is my home. However much I stumbled getting here, this is my home. “Here I am Lord… I come to do your will.” (Hebrews 10:9) When I look back on my life, I see my conversion and the path that I began to walk from that moment on, small steps that caused me to stumble and sometimes distracted me so that I called out to God to come to my aid.
There are still obstacles and distractions, but they are not a big or long lasting. I have settled in only in the sense of that here is where I am called to be right now, in my home here.
But here is also where I sometimes catch a sight of something that I have not noticed before. It may be in the beauty and quiet joy of a sunset or in the struggle and pain of another who has been marginalized – by society, by the Church, and yes unconsciously by myself.
Today I am called to be present and attend to my business of the day, fully offering all of my attention to the people I am with. Just as, today the capitulants in Nemi are called to be present to their job at hand of electing a new Superior General and then offering him their obedience, love and support.
My heart has found its home.
It is how we serve each other wherever we find ourselves with and in the presence of God.