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Also known as
Charles Joseph Eugene de Mazenod
Memorial: 21 May
Profile
Eldest son of Charles-Antoine De Mazenod and Marie-Rose Joannis. His
mother was of the French middle class, convent educated, and wealthy; his
father was an aristocrat, classically educated, and poor. Their marriage,
and Eugene's home life, were plagued by constant family in-fighting, and
interference from his maternal grandmother and a neurotic maternal aunt.
The women never let his father forget that they brought the money to the
family.
On 13 December 1790, at age eight, Eugene fled with his family to exile in
Italy to escape the French Revolution. He spent eleven years in Italy
living in Nice, Turin, Venice, Naples, and Palermo. While he learned
Italian and German from dealing with people day to day, the bulk of his
education came in Venice from Father Bartolo Zinelli, a local priest. In
Palermo he was exposed to a wild and worldly life among rich young Italian
nobles.
After the Revolution, his mother returned to France, but his father stayed
in Italy, ostensibly for political reasons. Upon his own return to France
in 1802 in an attempt to reclaim the family lands, Eugene tried to reunite
his parents, but failed, and they were divorced, an unusual event in the
early 19th century. His often unsupervised youth, the constant fighting at
home, and the eventual break up of his family led to his patronage of
dysfunctional families and those in them.
For years, Eugene struggled in himself, drawn on the one hand to the
worldly life he knew from Palermo, and the beauty of the religious life he
had seen in Venice with Don Bartolo. In an effort to work it out, Eugene
began teaching catechism and working with prisoners in 1805. God won at
last, assisted by a mystical experience at the foot of a cross on Good
Friday 1807 when Eugene was momentarily touched by the full force of the
love of God. He entered the seminary of Saint Sulpice, Paris in 1808.
Ordained on 21 December 1811 at age 29 at Amiens, France.
Because of his noble birth, he was immediately offered the position of
Vicar General to the bishop of Amiens. Eugene renounced his family's
wealth, and preferred to become a parish priest in Aix-en-Provence,
working among the poor, preaching missions and bringing them the church in
their native Provencal dialect, not the French used by the upper classes.
He worked among the sick, prisoners, the poor, and the overlooked young.
Eugene contracted, and nearly died from, typhus while working in prisons.
Eugene gathered other workers around him, both clergy and laymen. They
worked from a former Carmelite convent, and the priests among them formed
the Missionaries of Province who conducted parish missions throughout the
region. They were successful, and their reputation spread, bringing
requests for them outside the region. Eugene realized the need for formal
organization, and on 17 February 1826 he received approval from Pope Leo
XII to found a new congregation, the Oblates of Mary Immaculate founded on
his core of missionaries.
Though he would have preferred to remain a missionary, Eugene knew that
position with the Church hierarchy would allow him to insure the success
of his little congregation. He was appointed Vicar-General of Marseille in
1823. Titular Bishop of Icosia on 14 October 1832. Co-adjuror in 1834.
Bishop of Marseille, France on 24 December 1837, ordained by Pope Gregory
XVI.
He founded 23 parishes, built or restored 50 churches, cared for aged and
persecuted priests, restored ecclesiastical discipline, and developed
catechetics for young people. Started work on the cathedral and shrine of
Notre-Dame de la Garde in Marseille. Welcomed 33 congregations of
religious brothers and sisters into the diocese. More than doubled the
number of priests in his diocese, and celebrated all ordinations himself.
Eugene realigned parishes and maneuvered behind the scenes to weaken the
government monopoly on education. He was an outspoken supporter of the
papacy, and fought government intervention into Church matters. Publicly
endorsed the dogma of the Immaculate Conception, and worked for its
promulgation. His printed writings run to 25 volumes. Made a peer of the
French Empire. Made Archbishop of Marseille in 1851 by Blessed Pope Pius
IX. Named senator and member of the Legion of Honour by Napoleon III in
1856. Proposed as cardinal in 1859.
On 2 December 1841, Bishop de Mazenod's first overseas missionaries
arrived in Canada. By the time of his death, there were six Oblate bishops
and over 400 missionaries working in ten countries. The Oblates continue
their good work to this day with some 5,000 missionaries in 68 countries.
Born
1 August 1782 at Aix-en-Provence, southern France as Charles Joseph Eugene
de Mazenod
Died
21 May 1861 at Marseille, France of cancer; on 12 December 1936, his body
was exhumed and found to be intact; part of his heart is venerated at
Blessed Sacrament Chapel at the Oblate-owned Lourdes Grotto of the
Southwest in San Antonio, Texas, USA
Beatified
19 October 1975 by Pope Paul VI
Canonized
3 December 1995 by Pope John Paul II at Saint Peter's Square, Rome
Patronage
dysfunctional families
Readings
I am a priest, a priest of Jesus Christ. That says it all.
- Saint Eugene
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The Oblates [of Mary Immaculate] are the specialists of difficult
missions.
- Pope Pius XI
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Go to Marseilles. There is a Bishop there whose Congregation is still
small, but the man himself has a heart as big as Saint Paul’s, as big as
the world.
- contemporary bishop speaking of Bishop de Mazenod
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Their ambition will be to encompass in their holy desires the immense
breadth of the entire world.
- Saint Eugene, speaking of his missionaries; at the time, there were ten
of them
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To love the Church is to love Jesus Christ, and vice versa.
- Saint Eugene
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We glorify God in the masterpiece of his power and love...it is the Son
whom we honor in the person of his Mother.
- Saint Eugene
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Leave nothing undared for the Kingdom of God.
- Saint Eugene
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Learn who you are in the eyes of God.
- Saint Eugene
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Practice amongst yourselves charity, charity, charity . . . and zeal for
the salvation of souls.
- Saint Eugene to Oblate members as he lay dying
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I find my happiness in pastoral work. It is for this that I am a bishop,
and not to write books, still less to pay court to the great, or to waste
my time among the rich. It is true...that this is not the way to become a
cardinal, but if one could become a saint, would it not be better still?
- Saint Eugene
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If priests could be formed, afire with zeal for men’s salvation, solidly
grounded in virtue - in a word, apostolic men deeply conscious of the need
to reform themselves, who would labor with all the resources at their
command to convert others - then there would be ample reason to believe
that in a short while people who had gone astray might be brought back to
the long neglected duties of religion. We pledge ourselves to all the
works of zeal that priestly charity can inspire... We must spare no effort
to extend the Savior’s Empire and destroy the dominion of hell.
- Saint Eugene
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Every religious congregation in the Church has a spirit all its own; it is
inspired by the Spirit of God to respond to the needs of the Church to
work for the salvation of souls. By our particular vocation we are
involved with the redemption of humanity... May we, by the sacrifice of
our whole being, so cooperate as not to render His redemption fruitless
for ourselves and for those we are called upon to evangelize.
- Saint Eugene
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Servants! Farmhands! Peasants! Poor! Come and learn who you are in the
eyes of God. You poor of Jesus Christ, you afflicted, unfortunate
suffering, infirm, diseased: all you who are burdened with misery, listen
to me! You are the children of God, brothers and sisters of Jesus Christ,
co-heirs of His eternal kingdom, His cherished inheritance. Lift up your
minds: you are the children of God. Look through the tatters that cover
you. There is an immortal soul within you made to the image of God, a soul
redeemed at the price of the very blood of Jesus, more precious in the
eyes of God than all the riches and all the kingdoms of this earth. Know
your dignity - you even share the Divine Nature - Children of God,
Children of the Most High!
- Saint Eugene
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How should men who want to follow in the footsteps of their divine Master
Jesus Christ conduct themselves if they are to win back the many souls who
have thrown off his yoke? They mus strive to be saints. They must walk
courageously along the same paths trodden by so many before them who
handed on splendid examples of virtue they must wholly renounce
themselves, striving solely for the glory of God, the good of the Church,
and the growth and salvation of souls.
The Oblates are a Missionary Congregation. They are men set apart for the
Gospel, men ready to leave everything to be disciples of Jesus Christ.
Their principal service in the Church is to proclaim Christ and his
kingdom to the most abandoned. They preach the Gospel among people who
have not yet received it. Where the Church is already established, their
commitment is to those groups it touches least.
The mission of the Oblate is especially to those people whose condition
cries out for salvation and for the hope which only Jesus Christ can fully
bring. These are the poor with their many faces - they have our preference
because of their need
Our mission is to proclaim the kingdom of God and seek it before all else.
We fulfill this mission in community; and our communities are a sign that
in Jesus, God is everything for us. Together we await Christ’s coming in
the fullness of his justice so that God may be all in all.
The cross of Jesus Christ is central to our mission. Like the apostle
Paul, we “preach Christ and him crucified.” If we bear in our body the
death of Jesus, it is with the hope that the life of Jesus, too, may be
seen in our body. Through the eyes of our crucified Savior, we see the
world which he redeemed with his blood, desiring that those in whom he
continues to suffer will know also the power of his resurrection.
Growing in faith, hope and love, we commit ourselves to be a leaven of the
Beatitudes at the heart of the world. Our mission requires that, in a
radical way, we follow Jesus who was chaste and poor, and who redeemed
mankind by his obedience. That is why, through a gift of the Father, we
choose the way of the evangelical counsels.
- extracts from the Rule of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate
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