Rector's Reflection- Part 3

The Journey from Eugene de Mazenod

                                   to

              St Eugene de Mazenod

                                Part 3

Two interior graces transformed Eugene in his twenties. The first was a grace of “conversion”. In 1807, at the age of twenty-five, during the adoration of the Cross on Good Friday, Eugene encountered Christ and recognized him as his Saviour. “My soul aspired for its ultimate end, God, the unique Good the loss of whom I keenly felt.”

The image of Jesus on the Cross reminded Eugene that in the shedding of Jesus’ blood we obtained the forgiveness of our sins. Eugene, conscious of his own faults and failings and filled with a sense of profound confidence in the Mercy of God, decided to make amends through the total gift of his life to Jesus his Saviour.

The second moment of grace, which Eugene describes as “an impulse from without” from the Spirit, led him to a decision for the priesthood. In 1808, at the age of twenty-six, despite opposition from his mother, Eugene entered the seminary at Saint-Sulpice in Paris (Right). 

As a seminarian at St. Sulpice, Eugene was given charge of catechism instruction for some of the poorest children in the parish, a task he found completely to his liking.

We find his thoughts on the experience in a letter to his mother.

“These are the poorest in the parish… but I am not concerned with that, and I am very happy to find myself in the middle of these poor verminous lads, whom I shall try to win over to ourselves”.

On December 21, 1811 Eugene was ordained a priest in Amiens. His dream was to be “the servant and priest of the poor”.

After his ordination, Fr Eugene asked if he could work with the poor and abandoned. 

Fr Harry Dyer OMI

Rector