Continuing his pre-ordination retreat, Eugene meditates on his sinfulness in vivid terms (I have delivered myself over to the devil as his slave), Eugene turns to the love of God which has overwhelmed him and which he wants to spend the rest of his life responding to. This is what his priesthood is all about.
And so I am convinced that I have never really loved you. But whom did I love in your place? The devil. Yes, it is the devil who has been my god, it is to him I have prostituted my whole being! See then how I have fulfilled the end for which I was created: I have hated my Creator, or at least I have acted just as if I hated him, and I have delivered myself over to the devil as his slave.
And it is a monster like this, O my God, that you wish to claim as your own and have admitted into your sanctuary, whom soon you will invest with your priesthood.
My God, what language is there to express what this infinite, incomprehensible goodness means to me? My head is prostrate in the dust, my lips press the earth, my soul is emptied, I can do no more.
My God, double, triple, increase my strength a hundredfold that I may love you, not merely as much as I can, that is nothing, but that I love you as much as did the saints, as much as your holy Mother loved and loves you. My God, that is not enough, and why I should I not love you as much as you love yourself? That cannot be, I know, but to desire it is not impossible, for I form it in all sincerity in my heart, with all my soul. Yes, my God, I would like to love you as much as you love yourself; this then is how I may undertake to make reparation for my past ingratitude.
Notes made during the retreat in preparation for priestly ordination
1-21 December , O.W. XIV n. 95
It is not the norm to be privy to another’s most inner and hidden expressions of love and so these sharings of Eugene’s writings and thoughts, of his very heart and absolute love of God are an incredible gift. Not something to be critiqued or measured, but rather something to be treasured and perhaps used as a doorway or window into the hidden corners of one’s own heart. Eugene’s expressions and love, although seemingly zealous and extreme can be like a ‘base camp’ from which our how hearts start from and then climb on our own mountains of love. His words and the language he uses, far from being an abasement of his self (in a negative way) are simply his way of trying to express how it is to find himself in the presence and a part of the greatness and love that is God and his experience of something that is so indescribably, inexpressibly awesome. It is incomprehensible, infinitely wondrous that all we can do is to in a sense, lower ourselves. I do not think that it is negative, or even unhealthy. It is trying to put words to the indescribable. He needed to express who he was and so he did this naturally in how he lived, how he spoke and even more so in how and what he wrote.
Frank says: “…Eugene turns to the love of God which has overwhelmed him and which he wants to spend the rest of his life responding to. This is what his priesthood is all about.” I think this just may be of the best descriptions that I have read describing what we are all about here on earth. Perhaps this is why I come here each morning, to read and experience, to open my own heart and try to share who I am. Another might say: “Eleanor turns to the love of God which has overwhelmed her and which she wants to spend the rest of her life responding to. This is what her personhood in God is all about.”