EUGENE THE CHILD
1 August 1782 – birth in Aix en Provence. Son of Charles Antoine de Mazenod, President of the Court of Accounts, and of Marie Rose Joannis.
© Laurent Girard / Studio Mazenod (2011) - Tableau du Jean-Jacques Martin
I have not changed over the years. I idolize my family.
I would let myself be cut up into little pieces for some members of my family, and that stretches out to quite a long way for I would give my life without hesitation for my father, mother, grandmother, my sister and my father’s two brothers.
Generally speaking I love with passion everybody I believe loves me, but theirs must be a passionate love too.
So gratitude is the final constituent that goes to make up my heart’s passion.
Self-evaluation written for his spiritual director in 1808, O.W. XIV n. 30
It is hard to understand, given the portrait of myself I have just painted, how sensitive a heart I have, overly so in fact. It would take too long to give you all the stories of my childhood traits I have had related to me and which are really rather surprising.
It was quite normal for me to give away my breakfast even when I was hungry to satisfy the hunger of the poor, I used to bring firewood to people who complained of the cold and of not being able to afford to buy it, on one occasion I went as far as to give away the clothes off my back to clothe a poor person, and many, many other stories in the same vein.
Self-evaluation written for his spiritual director in 1808, O.W. XIV n. 30
This passage touches deeply the Oblate heart.
For when we hear of childhood stories (who ever that may be), we come to know the person deeply.
August 01, Eugene’s Birthday, will also be the first evening of the Icon Retreat of St. Eugene here at Galilee Centre. Please consider painting/writing this Icon and let Suzanne or myself know. Registration is important, so we have enough paint and boards.
But Please sit with this and ask yourself; how you have at your core not changed? We are unique and called to respond from that gift.
Eugene’s passionate love touches me deeply and reminds me of a Nate King Cole song, done recently by Celine Dion that ends by saying, “to love and to be loved in return.” We all need that, (ego formation) so that we can then take the next step in the spiritual life in which we then let go of the walls/judgments that come from the ego (I).
So the spiritual journey leads us to love even when love seems not present, “turn the other cheek”.
So here we see Eugene in 1808, 26 years of age and yet we see the same passion on May 21, 1861.
What about us when we enter into our own Dies Natalis?
Blessings, Jack,omi