THEY LIVE POORLY AND ARE HAPPY TO DO SO

Father Leonard Bavette, had conducted a successful visit in France to promote Oblate vocations (see: https://www.eugenedemazenod.net/?p=5497 and related entries) and Eugene knew him well. In his return to Canada he had been appointed to establish the first Oblate community in Montreal and the Parish of St Pierre. In his Diary, Eugene noted:

Letter from Fr. Leonard. He has settled down in Montreal with Fr. Bernard. They live poorly and are happy to do so. Their chapel is a wooden structure.

Eugene de Mazenod’s Diary, 14 January 1849, EO XXII.

In a letter to him, Eugene wrote:

I congratulate you on being chosen as the first to establish our Congregation in Montreal. God will bless the beginnings all the more because they are somewhat marked by certain privations which, as you tell me, make you feel the value of holy poverty. This is the way we began when we laid the first foundations of the Society.

Letter to Fr. Leonard Bavette in Montreal, 11 January 1849, EO I n 107

REFLECTION

Voluntary poverty, as a religious choice, is a way of becoming one with those whose circumstances have immersed them in poverty. Mazenodian poverty aims at focusing on what is really important in our lives.

“Truth is ever to be found in simplicity, and not in the multiplicity and confusion of things.” (Isaac Newton)

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1 Response to THEY LIVE POORLY AND ARE HAPPY TO DO SO

  1. Eleanor Rabnett, Lay Oblate Associate says:

    We cannot forget how Eugene and his founding community set themselves up in what was basically a hallway and one room. Nor can I help but be reminded of Fr. Albert Lacombe, OMI here in Canada: ministering to the Indigenous peoples as he travelled from their hunting and winter homes, with animal skins and long poles so as to be able to erect a teepee largen enough to hold the elders and the many who were eager to come and “learn who they were in the eyes of God”, their Creator. My own parish church started out as one of those small “wooden structures” which was a simple chapel that dotted the new world and which is now thought of as the Canada-USA Region, in the OMI World.

    Today it seems that only bigger and richer is the way to be.

    During Covid I found it necessary to move from the ground floor of a large 4-bedroom ground floor unit of a hundred-year-old house. My new small apartment in a neighbouring part of the city as I look out from my front room windows faces west; overlooking the downtown area, the south area where the airport resides and to the north the Gatineau Hills. Eventually I began to experience what I call contentment. Getting to know my new neighbours, I also spend time throughout the day, to sit and be with the Beloved – each in the presence of the other.

    I continue learning how to live with what is enough. I offer myself as a model of missionary discipleship for Oblate Associates; a model of what it might look like to stand in the light of Eugene de Mazenod with so many others. No extra adornment is necessary.

    My chapel is within me, in my small apartment and my parish church. I spend some of my time with my beloved 2SLGBTQ+ brothers and sisters, along side of my Oblate/Mazenodian Family. Always there is a place to sit and be in the presence of God. This is where our wealth lies, within each other.

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