While Eugene is in Paris to regulate the business of the Missionaries, he has time to look back and reflect on the 18 months of the life of the Missionaries of Provence. From the context of what he writes it becomes clear that he is drafting the first Rule of life for the Missionaries (it would only be finalised a year later in November 1818). It is the Rule for a community, and it needed to express the foundational spirit already being lived by the group.
His reflection touches the heart of community life: it must be born from a relationship with God. As one is in communion with all the manifestations of the Sacred in everyday life, so then is there the birth of a new reality.
Venerable Paul of the Cross, founder of the Congregation of discalced Clerks of the Passion and Death of Jesus Christ, whose life I am presently reading, said “le fondazioni devono essere parto della orazione” [ed. prayer must give birth to foundations], which is to say that it is by prayer that foundations are laid.
And thus with nothing he accomplished many things.
If we knew how to pray better, we would have more courage.
Letter to Henri Tempier, 12 August 1817, O.W. VI n. 20
If we try to live as fully as possible in communion with the many ways in which God is present each day, then we will have courage to make a difference in our world.
“If we try to live as fully as possible in communion with the many ways in which God is present each day, then we will have courage to make a difference in our world.”
Amen!
Today we have Eugene reading – in Italian – the life of another founder who gives rise to inspiration and rather than decreasing his own way of being, he finds himself being nourished with new food for thought. Eugene was impacted not only by St. Vincent de Paul during his time with the Sulpicians, but also by Alphonsus Liguori, founder of the Redemptorist congregation and Forbin Janson with the Missionaries of France.
I think of the different congregations that I learned about in the Oblate Studies Program and how they touched and inspired me, to go deeper with Eugene and the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate. Always encouraged and accompanied to go beyond and not be satisfied with ‘just enough’…
At our 2022 Provincial Convocation we were animated, led by and worked with by two members of the Ignation Family using some of their spiritual exercises to help us to go deeper with each other as we looked at the tasks ahead of us as a Province. None of us was content with simply allowing ourselves to become “smouldering wicks”…
That experience along with others encouraged me to begin to follow a daily podcast with Fr. James Martin SJ who leads us through theExamen (under 20 minutes), helping me to stay focussed and not get lost in my own thoughts.
Rather than this lessening my own experience of oblation and Mazenodian spirituality this new practice (new for me) it actually deepens my own spirituality.
Indeed as Frank suggested: “If we try to live as fully as possible in communion with the many ways in which God is present each day, then we will have courage to make a difference in our world.”
How dull it is to pause, to make an end,
To rust unburnish’d, not to shine in use!
As tho’ to breathe were life! (Tennyson)