WHAT HE WOULD HAVE DONE FOR ME IF I HAD SO WISHED

During his 1817 visit to Paris, Eugene himself was also offered the post of Vicar General of Chartres by Bishop Latil, which would certainly have led to the episcopacy.

I was well aware of this and this is what I did not want; and I didn’t think I was making a sacrifice by stubbornly refusing such flattering and obliging offers, on the argument that, having already formed a group of missionaries in Provence and gathered around me a large number of young people whom I was leading to God, all this would vanish if I left the position.

He continues describing his relationship with this bishop who had authority in the French government over ecclesiastical matters and appointments, none of which interested Eugene:

This excellent friend later proved what he was to me, when so many years later, he came to die as I held him. The beautiful portrait of Pius VII that he bequeathed me in his will, executed when he was in the best of health and far from foreseeing his imminent end, and the ring that I wear on my finger, which he wanted to give me when he called me to him, bear witness to the feelings that he had retained for me and prove what he would have done for me if I had so wished.

Eugene de Mazenod’s Diary, 31 August 1847, EO XXI

REFLECTION

“Sometimes it may seem to us that there is no purpose in our lives, that going day after day for years to this office or that school or factory is nothing else but waste and weariness. But it may be that God has sent us there because but for us Christ would not be there. If our being there means that Christ is there, that alone makes it worthwhile.” (Caryll Houselander)