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Letter of the Superior General for the Feast of St. Eugene de Mazenod – May 21 2019 May 16th, 2019
Dear Brother Oblates and all our Brothers and Sisters living the Oblate Charism,
The feast of St. Eugene de Mazenod always brings us the renewed desire to live more faithfully as he insisted: with charity among us and zeal for the salvation of souls. May this day be a special day of prayer, communion and joyful celebration!
Very shortly, in July, the Major Superiors of the Congregation will be meeting for the Interchapter in Obra, Poland. We will be evaluating how the decisions taken in the 2016 General Chapter have been carried out and how to further implement them; the remote preparation for the next Chapter will also begin at the Interchapter. Please pray to the Holy Spirit so that we may achieve greater effectiveness in responding to the Chapter directions.
In January of this year, the members of the Central Government spent several days in Palermo, Sicily, following the footsteps of Eugene de Mazenod. It was in Palermo that he spent the last stage of his exile, from 1799 to 1802, before finally returning to France. He would have been there from the age of 17 to 20 years. We were guided on this pilgrimage by a member of MAMI, Enzo David, and by the president of the secular Institute, Oblate Missionary Cooperators of the Immaculate ((COMI), Ileana Chinnici.
We spent hours in the streets of Palermo, seeing the places where Eugene lived, the palazzi of important families whose circles he frequented and the churches he attended. We accompanied his life as a young noble, stopping at various sites to read excerpts from his letters and memoirs. We came in touch with different aspects of Eugene’s personality and we recognized experiences from his sojourn in Palermo that surely left marks on his personality, his future and the Oblate charism.
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