In his 1839 Diary, Eugene continues to reflect on his vocation. As a son of Aix’s “high society” he could have aspired to a high position in the diocese, because his father had been President de Mazenod of the Court of Accounts. As a seminarian, Eugene had taken his father’s coat of arms (his mortier – which was a velvet head covering that denoted the judges of the Courts of Accounts, placed on his presidential robe), reversed it and placed a Cross and a crown of thorns above these symbols of power. Already here we see the place of the symbol of the Cross in the life of the future founder.
It was this same sentiment that determined my choice when, on returning to Aix the Bishop of Metz, who was the administrator of the diocese at the time, asked me what I wanted to do. There was not a hair on my head that wished to take advantage of my social position to give in to the pretensions that the whole world would have found reasonable at the time. I preferred to be put aside in the house of my God [Ps 84 (83),11] was my motto.
It is drawn on a small drawing that I had had made while I was at the seminary to perfectly express the secret of my heart. My coat of arms placed on the cloak of the president à mortier of my father, detached and negligently thrown on a stone bench, with the cap and the crown reversed; a wooden cross and a crown of thorns are above this coat of arms in the place of the ornaments that I witness to have renounced by throwing them in this way at my feet. There you have the true expression of the secret of my vocation.
Diary of 31 March 1839, O.W. XX
Today as Eugene wrote about a small drawing he had made while still at the seminary I thought back to a drawing I made during a retreat six or seven years ago, when told by the retreat master to draw (if we were right-handed with our left hand or if we were left-handed with our right) a simple picture of who we were. For me who is not even a little talented when it comes to drawing this sounded daunting but nevertheless I gave it a try. With a very small prayer I began. I drew a big heart that almost filled the page, and at the top rising up from within the centre of the heart was a cross – a plain cross. The heart was covered in cracks and little holes with light bursting out from within it. And that heart was me, who I am, with the cross a part of me. And the light that shone from within was God – the core of my being, who I am, bursting forth through the cracks and holes of my humanity. Beautiful – not so much the drawing but the image it invoked.
I had forgotten about that drawing until reading this today. And I think of how busy I have been – trying to help God widen the cracks to allow more light, love and life burst forth. The “doing”. All along God has simply been inviting me to rest in Him and let him worry about the doing.
“Who are you?” I was asked. Today I am gratitude for all that I have been given, the love of my God, not earned simply there fully given. Love that fills every little bit of that heart and spilling out, bursting forth to be shared with the world. Today I am joy, the joy of being called “beloved” by a God who is love. This morning I awoke and found myself singing the Gloria (and still it echos through me), a song to praise God and that in itself brings joy. Today I am beautiful for I am an image of my God. I walk in the joy and beauty of knowing myself to be “beloved”, able to share in being a part of the delight of our God. This is a part of who I am, who each of us is. And being able to recognize it in each other – truly the icing on the cake.
I do not have a coat of arms, but if I did I think it might look something like the heart that I drew with the cross at the center – the symbol of who I am and how I live. So I am grateful and I thank you G0d for all that you give to us.