IT TOOK CIRCUMSTANCES TRULY BROUGHT ABOUT BY PROVIDENCE FOR ME TO BECOME WHAT I AM AGAINST ALL ODDS

Continuing to list some of the occasions when he had refused a promotion, Eugene reflected on how he was offered the position of Bishop of the diocese of Châlons-sur-Marne:

            I turned this burden away from myself in making it known to the one responsible that I was absolutely necessary to my uncle who had consented to being bishop only on condition that I would bear the burden of his office and it was then that he was told: “We’ll only loan him to you and take him back when the time comes,” to which I replied: “Yes, but it will be given and taken.”

The authorities told him that his freedom would not last indefinitely. While being his uncle’s Vicar General in Marseilles he had crossed swords with the government.

I wasted no time in putting these arrangements in order, taking upon myself the responsibility for all the measures taken by my uncle and which have properly been attributed to me, and strongly asserting the rights of the Church and the independence of the episcopacy in an ongoing correspondence with the Minister, who from then on, as I had foreseen, feared me to the point of swearing that he would see to it that I would never be a bishop…

In the light of all his refusals to receive honors and ecclesiastical positions, he considers on how God did eventually lead him to accept being a bishop for the good of the Marseilles Church and of the Oblate Congregation in 1832.

It took circumstances truly brought about by Providence for me to become what I am against all odds and as if by miracle.

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

REFLECTION

“To be a leader means to have humility, to have respect and to serve the people that we are leading. And that type of character, that type of integrity not only brings real fulfillment to our own hearts, but also has a great effect on the lives of all the people around us.”  (Radhanath Swami)