On 17 February the Mazenodian Family marks the day when in 1826 Pope Leo XII, after a process of discernment, recognized that the group brought into existence by Eugene de Mazenod was a creation of God. Eugene understood the
steady determination of the Holy Father, whom nothing has been able to prevent from the first thought with which the Holy Spirit inspired him on the first day that I knelt at his feet and presented to him the plan of this enterprise which now we can call divine…
Letter to all the Oblates, 18 February 1826, EO VII, n. 226
The Pope recognized that it is a charism of the Holy Spirit. So it is an act of God that we celebrate!
For ten years this small group of men had survived by their founding vision, surviving hardships, persecution, defections and near-extermination, and yet never giving up. They believed that their vocation came from God, that their ideal was God-inspired and that their mission to the most-abandoned was God-given. The discernment of the Church confirmed this and injected new life and vigor into them. It was not meant to degenerate into a moment of back-slapping backward-looking community festivity. It was an injection of divine life that propelled the Oblates.
REFLECTION
May this 17 February be a moment of grace to rediscover the value of our God-given life as calling us into courageous new horizons
May it be a moment to give thanks for the gift of over 200 years of dedicated service of bring the Gospel to the most abandoned.
May it be a grace-filled moment to re-value, at our local levels, a Mazenodian family, where every way of life receives and is equally important in belonging and cooperating in God’s gift of the charism.
Fr. Frank Santucci OMI currently holds the Kusenberger Chair of Oblate Studies and is assisted by Fr. David Muñoz OMI. They are teachers at OST, and have Oblate and lay students following their online courses in many parts of the world. They are involved in promoting St. Eugene de Mazenod’s charism, spirituality and mission at many levels in the United States and throughout the countries where the Oblates and lay members f the Mazenodian Family are present. Father Frank has been producing these daily guided readings to the writings of Saint Eugene de Mazenod since 2010. They are published in English, French, Spanish and Polish, visit: http://www.eugenedemazenod.net/