Saint EUGÈNE de MAZENOD, évêque et fondateur de la congrégation des Oblats de Marie Immaculée

Saint Eugène de Mazenod

Fondateur des Oblats de Marie Immaculée – Évêque de Marseille (+1861)

Né à Aix-en-Provence en 1782, il vit en exil en Italie durant la Révolution française. A son retour, après une période de réflexion, il entre en 1808 au séminaire Saint-Sulpice de Paris. Trois ans après, il est ordonné prêtre et revient à Aix exercer son ministère auprès des pauvres. En 1816, il fonde les Missionnaires de Provence qui deviendront les Oblats de Marie Immaculée. Nommé vicaire général de son oncle, archevêque de Marseille, il lui succède en 1837 et, tout en s'occupant des Oblats, il développe la vie de son diocèse, marqué par les suites de la Révolution et les secousses sociales de l'époque. Il dirige les Oblats vers les missions les plus difficiles comme celles du Grand Nord.

Canonisé le 3 décembre 1995.

Eugène de Mazenod (1782-1861) - Biographie - Photo - site du Vatican

Le souci d'annoncer la Bonne Nouvelle aux pauvres - portrait spirituel sur le site de l'Église catholique en France.

Les Marseillais ont célébré le 150ème anniversaire de la mort de Mgr Eugène de Mazenod (1782-1861). Le fondateur des «Missionnaires Oblats de Marie Immaculée» a été canonisé par Jean-Paul II en 1995. Reportages sur les sites du diocèse et de la congrégation.

Les Marseillais ont commémoré le 150e anniversaire de la mort de Mgr de Mazenod à la cathédrale de la Major samedi 21 mai 2011

"Lorsque le Vendredi saint de l'année 1807, alors qu'il est âgé de 25 ans, Eugène de Mazenod se rend à l'office religieux, il ne se doute pas qu'il va vivre le moment le plus décisif de sa vie." Mgr Georges Pontier

"Pour nous, les Oblats, saint Eugène était un homme passionné avec un grand amour pour Jésus-Christ, pour l'Église et pour les pauvres" père Louis Lougen, supérieur général des Oblats de Marie Immaculée.

Ouvrages mentionnés sur le site Internet du diocèse de Marseille:

- Jean Leflon, Eugène de Mazenod, évêque de Marseille, fondateur des missionnaires oblats de Marie Immaculée, 1782 - 1861, 3 vol.

- Jean Chelini, (sous la direction de), Saint Eugène de Mazenod, Évêque de Marseille, fondateur des Oblats de Marie Immaculée, Actes du Colloque du 18 novembre 1995.

..."Mazenod paya de sa personne, visitant les quartiers de la ville et les villages périphériques, prêchant en provençal, montant dans les étages porter le viatique ou quelque secours"..."Il eut l'art de communiquer avec cette facilité souriante de l'aristocrate qui sait s'adapter à tous les milieux. parlait facilement avec bienveillance, voire avec bonhomie. Il était aussi à l'aise avec les prélats romains qu'avec les poissonnières de Marseille qu'il rencontrait régulièrement. Il écrivait sans cesse à ses proches, à ses fils aux quatre coins du monde, à ses protégés, à ses confrères de l'épiscopat, aux cardinaux, au pape"... (source: Eugène de Mazenod 1837-1861 Histoire du diocèse de Marseille)

En 1816, le Père Eugène de Mazenod fonde à Aix les "Missionnaires de Provence" qui deviendront les "Oblats de Marie Immaculée"; Mgr de Mazenod a été canonisé le 3 décembre 1995. (Diocèse d'Aix et Arles - histoire et géographie)

... En 1816, il fonde les Missionnaires de Provence, spécialistes des prédications en langue provençale. Il vient lui-même prêcher dans le diocèse à Barjols, Brignoles, Pignans, Lorgues, Puget... (Histoire des saints de Provence - diocèse de Fréjus-Toulon)

À Marseille, en 1861, saint Charles-Eugène de Mazenod, évêque. Pour que les pauvres soient évangélisés, il suscita les Missionnaires Oblats de Marie Immaculée et, pendant près de vingt-cinq ans, il illustra son Église par ses vertus, ses œuvres et ses écrits.

Martyrologe romain

"Aimer le Christ, c'est aimer l'Église"

SOURCE : https://nominis.cef.fr/contenus/saint/1191/Saint-Eugene-de-Mazenod.html

Buste de Eugène de Mazenord devant la Maison des missionnaires Oblats en Chainrue à Barvaux.

Eugène de Mazenod (1782-1861)

Évêque de Marseille, fondateur de la congrégation des Oblats de Marie Immaculée

CHARLES-JOSEPH-EUGÈNE DE MAZENOD vit le jour dans un monde en pleine et rapide évolution. Né à Aix-en-Provence, dans le sud de la France, le premier août 1782, il paraissait assuré d'une brillante carrière et d'une certaine aisance de par sa famille qui était de la petite noblesse. Les bouleversements de la révolution française allaient changer cela pour toujours. Eugène n'avait encore que huit ans quand sa famille dut fuir la France en abandonnant ses biens derrière elle. La famille commençait alors un long et pénible exil qui allait durer onze ans.

Les années en Italie

La famille de Mazenod, partit en exil en Italie, passant d'une cité à une autre. Le père, qui avait été Président de chambre au Parlement d'Aix, fut contraint de s'adonner au commerce pour faire vivre sa famille. Il se montra si peu habile en affaire qu'au bout de quelques années sa famille était proche de la détresse. Eugène étudia quelque peu au Collège des Nobles à Turin mais l'obligation de partir pour Venise allait marquer pour lui la fin d'une fréquentation scolaire normale. Un prêtre, Don Bartolo Zinelli, qui était proche de la famille de Mazenod, entreprit de travailler à la formation du jeune émigré. Don Bartolo donna à Eugène une éducation fondamentale imprégnée du sens de Dieu et du désir d'une vie de piété qui devaient l'accompagner pour toujours malgré les hauts et les bas de son existence. Un nouveau déplacement, vers Naples cette fois, engendra une période d'ennui doublée d'un sentiment d'impuissance. La famille changea de nouveau, et cette fois se rendit à Palerme, où grâce à la bonté du Duc et de la Duchesse de Cannizzaro, Eugène goûta pour la première fois à la vie de la noblesse qu'il trouva agréable. Il prit le titre de "Comte de Mazenod", s'initia aux habitudes de cour et se mit à rêver à un brillant avenir.

Le retour en France: la Prêtrise

En 1802, à l'âge de 20 ans, Eugène put retourner dans son pays. Tous ses rêves et ses illusions s'évanouirent rapidement. Il n'était que le "Citoyen" Mazenod. La France avait beaucoup changé. Ses parents s'étaient séparés. Sa mère essaya de récupérer le patrimoine familial. Elle était aussi très préoccupée de marier Eugène à une plus riche héritière. Il devint pessimiste face à l'avenir qui s'offrait à lui. Mais son souci spontané des autres, joint à la foi qu'il avait développée à Venise commencèrent à s'affirmer. Il fut profondément peiné par la situation désastreuse de l'Église de France qui avait été provoquée, attaquée et décimée par la révolution. L'appel au sacerdoce commença à se manifester en lui et Eugène répondit à cet appel. En dépit de l'opposition de sa mère, il entra au Séminaire Saint-Sulpice à Paris et le 21 décembre 1811 il fut ordonné prêtre à Amiens.

Les engagements apostoliques: Oblats de Marie Immaculée

Revenant à Aix-en-Provence, il ne prit pas la charge d'une paroisse, mais commença à exercer son ministère en se souciant tout spécialement d'aider spirituellement les plus pauvres: les prisonniers, les jeunes, les employés, les gens des campagnes. Souvent, Eugène fut en butte à l'opposition du clergé local. Mais bientôt il trouva d'autres prêtres également remplis de zèle et prêts à sortir des sentiers battus. Eugène et ses compagnons prêchèrent en provençal, le langage courant chez leurs auditeurs et non dans le français des gens instruits. Ils allaient de village en village enseignant le "petit peuple" et passant de longues heures au confessionnal. Entre ces "missions paroissiales", le groupe se retrouvait pour une intense vie communautaire de prière, d'étude et de fraternité. Ils s'appelaient "Les Missionnaires de Provence". Pour assurer la continuité de l'œuvre, Eugène entreprit une démarche audacieuse, celle d'en appeler au Saint-Père et de lui demander que son groupe soit reconnu comme congrégation de droit pontifical.

Sa foi et sa persévérance portèrent des fruits et c'est ainsi que le 17 février 1826, le Pape Léon XII approuvait la nouvelle congrégation sous le nom d'"Oblats de Marie Immaculée". Eugène fut élu supérieur général et il continua d'inspirer et de guider ses membres pendant 35 ans encore, jusqu'à sa mort. Le nombre des oeuvres allait croissant: prédications, confessions, ministère auprès des jeunes, responsabilité de sanctuaires marials, visites de prisons, directions de séminaires, charges de paroisses. Dans leur accomplissement, Eugène insista toujours sur la nécessité d'une profonde formation spirituelle et d'une vie communautaire intense. Il aimait Jésus Christ avec passion et il était toujours prêt à assumer un nouvel engagement s'il y voyait une réponse aux besoins de l'Église. La "gloire de Dieu, le bien de l'Église et la sanctification des âmes" étaient à la source de son dynamisme intérieur.

Évêque de Marseille

Le diocèse de Marseille avait été supprimé après le Concordat de 1802. Quand il fut rétabli, c'est le vieil oncle d'Eugène, le chanoine Fortuné de Mazenod, qui y fut nommé évêque. Aussitôt, le nouvel évêque appela Eugène comme vicaire général et c'est ainsi que le chantier immense de la reconstruction du diocèse lui incomba. Après quelques années, en 1832, Eugène lui-même, fut nommé évêque auxiliaire de son oncle. Son ordination épiscopale eut lieu à Rome. Ce fut considère comme un défi au gouvernement français qui prétendait avoir le droit de confirmer de telles nominations. Il s'en suivit une bataille diplomatique serrée. Eugène en fut le centre: accusations, incompréhensions, menaces et récriminations. Ce fut une période douloureuse pour lui, douleur accrue encore par les difficultés croissantes de sa propre famille religieuse.

Cependant, il garda fermement le cap et finalement les affaires s'apaisèrent. Cinq ans plus tard, quand son Oncle se retira, il fut nommé évêque de Marseille.

Un coeur grand comme le monde

Bien qu'il ait fondé les Oblats de Marie Immaculée pour apporter d'abord les services de la foi aux pauvres des campagnes de France, le zèle d'Eugène pour le Royaume de Dieu et son amour pour l'Église amenèrent les Oblats à la pointe de l'apostolat missionnaire. Ceux-ci s'installèrent en Suisse, en Angleterre et en Irlande. En raison de son zèle, Eugène fut regardé comme un "second Saint Paul". Des évêques missionnaires vinrent lui demander d'envoyer des Oblats dans leur champ apostolique en expansion. Malgré le petit nombre des membres de son Institut, Eugène répondit généreusement. Il envoya ses hommes au Canada, aux Etats-Unis, à Ceylan (Sri Lanka), en Afrique du Sud et au Basutoland (Lesotho). Missionnaires à sa manière, ils se répandirent en prêchant, baptisant, apportant à tous leur soutien. Fréquemment, ils s'installèrent dans des terres ignorées, établirent et dirigèrent de nouveaux diocèses et de multiples façons ils "osèrent tout, pour faire avancer le Règne de Dieu". Pendant les années qui suivirent, l'élan missionnaire s'est poursuivi de sorte qu'aujourd'hui l'esprit d'Eugène de Mazenod est bien vivant dans 68 pays.

Pasteur de son Diocèse

Dans ce bouillonnement d'activités missionnaires, Eugène se révélait comme l'éminent pasteur du Diocèse de Marseille. Il assurait la meilleure formation à ses prêtres, établissait de nouvelles paroisses, construisait une nouvelle cathédrale ainsi que, dominant la ville, la spectaculaire basilique de Notre-Dame-de-la-Garde. II encourageait ses prêtres à devenir des saints, invitait un grand nombre de communautés religieuses à travailler dans son diocèse et prenait la tête de l'ensemble des évêques français pour appuyer le Pape dans ses droits. Il devint une figure reconnue de l'Église de France. En 1856, Napoléon III le nommait sénateur, et à sa mort il était le doyen des évêques de France.

L'héritage d'un saint

Le 21 mai 1861 Eugène de Mazenod retournait vers Dieu à l'âge de 79 ans. Ainsi se terminait une vie riche de réalisations dont plusieurs avaient été portées dans la souffrance. Pour sa famille religieuse et pour son diocèse, il avait été à la fois point d'appui et inspiration, pour Dieu et l'Église, il avait été un fils fidèle et généreux. Au moment de sa mort, il laissa une ultime recommandation: "Entre vous, pratiquez bien la charité! La charité, la charité et dans le monde, le zèle pour le salut des âmes". L'Église en le déclarant "Saint" le 3 décembre 1995, met en valeur ces deux traits de sa vie: l'amour et le zèle. Sa vie et ses oeuvres demeurent pour tous une ouverture sur le mystère de Dieu lui-même. Ceci est le plus grand don qu'Eugène de Mazenod, Oblat de Marie Immaculée, puisse nous offrir.

SOURCE : http://www.vatican.va/news_services/liturgy/saints/ns_lit_doc_19951203_de-mazenod_fr.html

Mgr Eugène de Mazenod en bas de la basilique N.D. de la Garde à Marseille
in Henri Duclos, Histoire de Royaumont, tome 2e, Paris 1867, planche après la page 598

DISCOURS DU SAINT-PÈRE JEAN-PAUL II

AUX PÈLERINS VENUS À ROME

POUR LA CANONISATION D'EUGÈNE DE MAZENOD

Lundi 4 décembre 1995

Chers Frères dans l’épiscopat,

Chers amis Oblats de Marie Immaculée,

Chers Frères et Sœurs,

1. Au lendemain du jour qui m’a permis d’élever Monseigneur de Mazenod à la gloire des autels, je suis heureux de vous retrouver et de vous accueillir à nouveau auprès du tombeau de saint Pierre, pour lequel il avait une si grande vénération.

J’adresse avant tout un cordial souhait de bienvenue à tous les membres de la famille terrestre de saint Eugène de Mazenod. La canonisation de votre parent selon la chair, qui est devenu citoyen des cieux et «concitoyen des saints», rappelle à tous l’importance de l’éducation chrétienne donnée dans les familles dès l’enfance. Vous savez que l’on cite souvent le mot du jeune Eugène à l’un de ses oncles qui voulait le dissuader de devenir prêtre: «Eh quoi, mon oncle, ne serait-ce pas un grand honneur pour notre famille de finir par un prêtre?». C’est la foi qui inspire cette remarque, une foi éveillée et mûrie grâce à l’action de parents profondément chrétiens animés par l’amour du Seigneur et de son Eglise.

Familles chrétiennes, votre mission est primordiale! Dans la grande tradition illustrée notamment par saint François de Sales, Eugène écrivait à sa sœur récemment mariée: «Le mariage est saint, il ne peut donc être obstacle à la sainteté». Dans le célibat consacré comme dans la vie conjugale, le Seigneur, qui est le seul saint, donne part à sa sainteté.

2. La famille de saint Eugène de Mazenod, dès son accession au siège de Marseille, ce fut son diocèse tout entier. Je salue ici avec plaisir la délégation de pèlerins marseillais venus sous la conduite de Monseigneur Bernard Panafieu, et notamment les jeunes du collège de Mazenod. Vous savez avec quel soin l’évêque parcourut son diocèse et le réorganisa à la suite de la déchristianisation opérée par la Révolution. Par les visites pastorales, la fondation de paroisses et de séminaires, la réforme du clergé, la célébration de la liturgie, la prédication aux foules, un immense amour des pauvres, il ne cessa de faire du peuple qui lui était confié «une nation sainte, une race choisie, un sacerdoce royal».

Près de 40 années d’un ministère d’une extrême fécondité: une telle durée n’eût été ni possible ni pensable sans un profond amour de l’Eglise. Saint Eugène aura aimé l’Eglise que le Christ a voulu se présenter, «sans tâche, ni ride, ni aucun défaut; il la voulait sainte et irréprochable». C’est pourquoi il aidait chacun à s’ouvrir à l’Eglise universelle, à vivre dans l’union avec l’Evêque de Rome, à être attentif aux besoins spirituels et matériels du monde entier. Jamais, alors que les difficultés ne lui ont pas été épargnées, il n’a perdu l’espérance.

3. Son œuvre pastorale est un éloquent témoignage en faveur de la paix entre les fils et les filles de l’Eglise. Je saisis cette occasion pour saluer tout particulièrement le groupe des pèlerins venus de Corse, sous la conduite de Monseigneur André Lacrampe. Le nouveau saint que nous vénérons avait envoyé des Oblats de Marie Immaculée à Vico et à Ajaccio, pour y tenir le séminaire. Demeurez fidèles à son esprit. Je vous encourage vivement dans votre démarche de paix et de réconciliation. L’île de Beauté doit surmonter les divisions qui sont sources de souffrance. J’invoque de manière pressante l’intercession de saint Eugène sur vous-mêmes et sur tous les habitants de la Corse.

Soyez fidèles à votre vocation profonde d’hommes et de femmes hospitaliers, généreux et fiers de leur foi!

4. And you, dear Oblates of Mary Immaculate, it is with joy that I meet you again and confirm you in the mission which you have received from Christ through your Founder. Twenty years have passed since his beatification, and in the course of those years you have worked ever more earnestly to know him better yourselves and to make him known to others. As your Rule bids you, continue to "follow in the footsteps of Jesus Christ" and, in so doing, "strive to be saints", walking "courageously along the same paths trodden by so many labourers for the Gospel".

An immense field for the apostolate still lies open before you; this is both exhilarating and demanding. Evangelizing the poor remains the primary missionary concern of the Church. As I said in my Encyclical "Redemptoris Missio", missionary activity proper, or the mission ad gentes, "can be characterized as the work of proclaiming Christ and his Gospel, building up the local Church and promoting the values of the Kingdom". The holiness of your lives makes you zealous missionaries for the evangelization of Christians and non-Christians. I know your fervour well. Continue to give priority to proclaiming Christ, in faithfulness to your motto: "To evangelize the poor". By your community life, by faithfulness to your Founder, you will not cease to bear fruit, as the presence of many Bishops from your Congregation clearly attests.

6. Słowa serdecznego pozdrowienia kieruję do pielgrzymów, którzy przybyli z Polski i z różnych stron świata na kanonizację Eugeniusza de Mazenod.

Ten wielki Biskup i Założyciel Oblatów Maryi Niepokalanej został nam dany przez Kościół jako przykład heroicznej wiary, nadziei i miłości. Jego apostolstwo polegało na przemienianiu świata mocą Chrystusowej Ewangelii. Idźmy drogą, którą wyznaczył nam Święty Eugeniusz – niech miłość do Chrystusa i do Kościoła ciągle w nas wzrasta i wydaje obfite owoce duchowe.

7. An die Pilger deutscher Sprache richte ich ebenso einen sehr herzlichen Willkommensgru. Ihr habt einen besonderen Grund zur Freude, da wir in diesem Jahr den hundertsten Jahrestag der Gründung der deutschen Oblatenprovinz feiern können. Besonders auf die Oblaten deutscher Herkunft geht die Gründung neuer Diözesen in Namibia, in Südafrika und in Lateinamerika zurück. Schreitet auf diesem vom heiligen Eugen vorgezeichneten Weg weiter voran! Ich bin glücklich, Euch dabei mit meinen Gedanken zu begleiten und Euch mit meinem Gebet zu unterstützen.

8. Os saludo cordialmente, queridos peregrinos de lengua española. Muchos habéis venido desde lejos, y entre vosotros veo a numerosos jóvenes. Ya sabéis que los jóvenes son valientes misioneros de otros jóvenes. Por esto, Cristo os confía la misión de difundir la Buena Nueva de su Resurrección, especialmente entre los movimientos que siguen el espíritu de san Eugenio. ¡Que el Señor suscite también numerosas y santas vocaciones entre vosotros!

9. Infine, saluto cordialmente tutti gli altri pellegrini qui presenti. Carissimi, vedete come la canonizzazione di un santo offra a Roma l’occasione di mostrare l’immagine della Chiesa universale.

Vi auguro di ritornare nei vostri Paesi pieni di fede e fiduciosi nell’avvenire della Chiesa una, santa, cattolica ed apostolica.

Benedetto sia Dio che ci ha fatto sperimentare in questi giorni, a quale comunione d’amore chiama i santi e, per loro intercessione, «ogni uomo venuto in questo mondo» (Gv 1, 9)! Vi affido tutti a Sant’Eugenio de Mazenod, e di cuore imparto a ciascuno una speciale Benedizione Apostolica.

© Copyright 1995 - Libreria Editrice Vaticana

SOURCE : http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/speeches/1995/december/documents/hf_jp-ii_spe_19951204_pellegrini-beatificaz_fr.html

Statue de Monseigneur de Mazenod 
à l'entrée de la crypte de la basilique Notre-Dame de la Garde à Marseille

Saint Eugène de Mazenod

Charles-Joseph-Eugéne de Mazenod naquit le premier août 1782, à Aix-en-Provence ; sa famille qui était de la petite noblesse[1], paraissait pouvoir lui assurer une brillante carrière et une certaine aisance, ce que les bouleversements de la révolution française allaient changer pour toujours. Eugène n'avait encore que huit ans quand sa famille dut fuir la France en abandonnant ses biens derrière elle. La famille commençait alors un long et pénible exil qui allait durer onze ans.

La famille de Mazenod partit en exil en Italie, passant d'une ville à une autre. Le père fut contraint de s'adonner au commerce pour faire vivre sa famille. Il se montra si peu habile en affaire qu'au bout de quelques années sa famille était proche de la détresse. Eugène étudia quelque peu au Collège des Nobles à Turin mais l'obligation de partir pour Venise allait marquer pour lui la fin d'une fréquentation scolaire normale. Les frontières italiennes n'étaient plus sûres devant les troupes françaises conquérantes. Le 2 mai 1794, Eugène prit place avec toute sa famille et de nombreux émigrés, sur une barque frétée par son père. En suivant le cours du Pô, puis par les canaux, les rivières, les lagunes, ils arrivèrent à Venise[2]. Tous les matins, il lui servait la messe dans l'église paroissiale de Saint-Sylvestre. Il lia ainsi connaissance avec le curé, l'abbé Milesi, qui devait devenir évêque de Vigevano et mourir patriarche de Venise. Ce fut son confesseur tous les samedis. Le saint prêtre aimait le pieux enfant auquel il venait délicatement en aide ; il le fit admettre dans une famille patriarcale et chrétienne, celle des Zinelli, laquelle comprenait avec la vénérable mère, Donna Camilla Brigheriti, six enfants, dont un diacre et un prêtre, don Bartolo Zinelli, qui devait mourir jésuite à Rome, et en odeur de sainteté. Ce fut le maître et le directeur d'Eugène. Don Bartolo donna à Eugène une éducation fondamentale imprégnée du sens de Dieu et du désir d'une vie de piété qui devaient l'accompagner pour toujours malgré les hauts et les bas de son existence[3].

Deux ans plus tard, il dut partir pour Naples où il connut une période d'ennui doublée d'un sentiment d'impuissance. La famille changea de nouveau, et cette fois se rendit à Palerme, où grâce à la bonté du Duc et de la Duchesse de Cannizzaro, Eugène goûta pour la première fois à la vie de la noblesse qu’il trouva agréable[4]. ll prit le titre de « Comte de Mazenod », s'initia aux habitudes de cour et se mit à réver à un brillant avenir.

En 1802, à l'âge de vingt ans, Eugène put retourner dans son pays où ses illusions s'évanouirent rapidement. La France avait beaucoup changé. Ses parents s'étaient séparés. Sa mère essaya de récupérer le patrimoine familial. Elle était aussi très préoccupée de marier Eugène à une plus riche héritière. Il devint pessimiste face à l'avenir qui s'offrait à lui. Mais son souci spontané des autres, joint à la foi qu'il avait développée à Venise commencèrent à s'affirmer. Il fut profondément peiné par la situation désastreuse de l'Eglise de France qui avait été provoquée, attaquée et décimée par la révolution. L'appel au sacerdoce commença à se manifester en lui et Eugène répondit à cet appel. En dépit de l'opposition de sa mère[5], il entra au séminaire Saint-Sulpice à Paris, en octobre 1808 ; il fut ordonné prêtre à Amiens, par Mgr de Mandolx, le 21 décembre 1811.

Revenant à Aix-en-Provence, il ne prit pas la charge d'une paroisse, mais commença à exercer son ministère en se souciant tout spécialement d'aider spirituellement les plus pauvres : les prisonniers, les jeunes, les employés, les gens des campagnes. Souvent, Eugène fut en butte à l'opposition du clergé local. Mais bientôt il trouva d'autres prêtres également remplis de zèle et prêts à sortir des sentiers battus. Eugène et ses compagnons prêchèrent en provençal, le langage courant chez leurs auditeurs et non dans le français des gens instruits. Ils allaient de village en village, enseignant le « petit peuple » et passant de longues heures au confessionnal. Entre ces « missions paroissiales », le groupe se retrouvait pour une intense vie communautaire de prière, d'étude et de fraternité. Ils s'appelaient « Les Missionnaires de Provence. » Pour assurer la continuité de l'Oeuvre, Eugène entreprit d'en appeler au Pape pour de lui demander que son groupe fût reconnu comme congrégation de droit pontifical.

Sa foi et sa persévérance portèrent des fruits et c'est ainsi que le 17 février 1826, le pape Léon XII approuvait la nouvelle congrégation sous le nom d' « Oblats de Marie Immaculée. » Eugène fut élu supérieur général et il continua d'inspirer et de guider ses membres pendant encore trente-cinq ans, jusqu'à sa mort. Le nombre des œuvres allait croissant : prédications, confessions, ministère auprès des jeunes, responsabilité de sanctuaires marials, visites de prisons, directions de séminaires, charges de paroisses. Dans leur accomplissement, Eugène insista toujours sur la nécessité d’une profonde formation spirituelle et d'une vie communautaire intense. Il aimait Jésus-Christ avec passion et il était toujours prêt à assumer un nouvel engagement s'il y voyait une réponse aux besoins de l'Eglise. La « gloire de Dieu, le bien de l'Eglise et la sanctification des âmes » étaient à la source de son dynamisme intérieur.

Le diocèse de Marseille avait été supprimé après le Concordat de 1802. Quand il fut rétabli, c'est le vieil oncle d'Eugène, le chanoine Fortuné de Mazenod (1749-1840), qui y fut nommé évêque. Aussitôt, le nouvel éveque appela Eugène comme vicaire général et c'est ainsi que le chantier immense de la reconstruction du diocèse lui incomba. Après quelques années, en 1832, Eugène lui-même fut nommé évêque auxiliaire de son oncle. Son ordination épiscopale eut lieu à Rome le 14 octobre 1832. Ce fut considéré comme un défi au gouvernement français qui prétendait avoir le droit de confirrner de telles nominations. Il s'en suivit une bataille diplomatique serrée dont Eugène fut le centre : accusations, incompréhensions, menaces et récriminations. Ce fut une période douloureuse pour lui, douleur accrue encore par les diff'cultés croissantes de sa propre famille regieuse. Cependant, il garda fermement le cap et finalement les affaires s'apaisèrent. Cinq ans plus tard, quand son oncle se retira, il fut nommé évêque de Marseille et prit possession le 24 décembre 1837.

Bien qu'il eût fondé les Oblats de Marie Immaculée pour apponer d'abord les services de la foi aux pauvres des campagnes de France, le zèle d'Eugène pour le Royaume de Dieu et son amour pour l'Eglise amenèrent les Oblats à la pointe de l’apostolat missionnaire. Ceux-ci s'installèrent en Suisse, en Angleterre et en Irlande. En raison de son zèle, Eugène fut regardé comme un « second Saint Paul. » Des évêques missionnaires vinrent lui demander d'envoyer des Oblats dans leur champ apostolique en expansion. Malgré le petit nombre des membres de son Institut, Eugène répondit génereusement. Il envoya ses hommes au Canada, aux Etats-Unis, à Ceylan, en Afrique du Sud et au Basutoland. Missionnaires à sa manière, ils se répandirent en prêchant, baptisant, apportant à tous leur soutien. Fréquemment, ils s'installèrent dans des terres ignorées, établirent et dirigèrent de nouveaux diocèses et de multiples façons ils « osèrent tout pour faire avancer le Règne de Dieu. » Pendant les années qui suivirent, l'élan missionnaire s'est poursuivi de sorte qu'aujourd'hui l'esprit d’Eugène de Mazenod est bien vivant dans soixante-huit pays.

Dans ce bouillonnement d'activités misslonnaires, Eugène se révélait comme l'éminent pasteur du diocèse de Marseille. Il assurait la meilleure formation à ses prêtres, établissait de nouvelles paroisses, construisait une nouvelle cathédrale ainsi que, dominant la ville, la spectaculaire basilique de Notre-Dame-de-la-Garde. Il encourageait ses prêtres à devenir des saints, invitait un grand nombre de communautés religieuses à travailler dans son diocèse et prenait la tête de l'ensemble des évêques français pour appuyer le Pape dans ses droits. Il devint une figure reconnue de l'Eglise de France. En 1856. Napoléon III le nommait sénateur, et à sa mort il était le doyen des évêques de France.

Le 21 mai 1861, Mgr Eugène de Mazenod retournait vers Dieu à l'âge de soixante-dix-neuf ans. Ainsi se terminait une vie riche de réalisations dont plusieurs avaient été portées dans la souffrance. Pour sa famille religieuse et pour son diocèse, il avait été à la fois point d'appui et inspiration ; pour Dieu et l'Eglise, il avait été un fils fidèle et généreux. Au moment de sa mort il laissa une ultime recommandation : « Entre vous pratiquez bien la charité. La charité, la charité et dans le monde, le zèle pour le salut des âmes. » En le canonisant, le 3 decembre 1995, l'Eglise mit en valeur ces deux traits de sa vie : l'amour et le zèle. Sa vie et ses œuvres demeurent pour tous une ouverture sur le mystére de Dieu lui-même.

[1] Famille de souche lyonnaise établie à Marseille au XVI° siècle. Eugène est le fils de Charles-Antoine de Mazenod (1745-1820), président de chambre à la Cour des Comptes du Parlement d'Aix, et de Marie-Rose de Joannis (1760-1851).

[2] « Venise, écrira Eugène, cette reine des mers, majestueusement assise au centre de ces eaux, d'où jadis elle rendait tributaire le commerce de toutes les nations. La République antique vivait encore, mais elle était sur son déclin, et elle s'éteignit bientôt sous nos yeux. »

[3] « O bienheureux Zinelli, écrira, près de cinquante ans plus tard, Mgr de Mazenod en revoyant Venise, que serais-je devenu sans vous ? Quelles actions de grâces ne dois-je pas à Dieu pour m'avoir ménagé la connaissance et l'affection d'un si saint personnage ! Passer près de quatre ans, et précisément les années les plus dangereuses, sous la direction et dans l'intimité d'un saint veritable, qui, inspiré par la charité la plus affectueuse, non seulement s'était imposé la tâche de m'instruire dans les belles-lettres, mais qui me façonna à la vertu autant par ses exemples que par ses préceptes ! J'étais le Benjamin de toute sa famille ; c'était à qui me témoignerait le plus d'affection. »

« C'est à l'école de ce saint prêtre que j'ai appris à mépriser les vanités du monde et à goûter les choses de Dieu. Eloigné de toute dissipation, de tout contact avec les jeunes gens de mon âge, je ne pensais seulement pas à ce qui fait l'objet de toutes leurs convoitises. »

[4] Il me prirent l’un et l’autre en grande affection, et il paraît qu’ils s’estimèrent heureux de donner à leurs deux fils qui étaient à peu près de mon âge, un compagnon qui pût devenir leur ami et leur offrir l’exemple d’une bonne conduite, chose rare, hélas ! sorte de phénomène dans un pays comme le leur. »

[5] « Quelle est donc la pensée qui vous agite, ma bonne maman, et comment, après tout ce que nous avons dit, écoutez-vous encore les mauvaises insinuation que le malin esprit tâche d’introduire dans votre cœur au sujet de ma vocation à l'état ecclésiastique ? Eh ! bon Dieu, le Seigneur n'est-il pas le maître de ses créatures et que sommes-nous pour oser lui résister ? Si jamais vocation a été éprouvée, ç'a certainement été la mienne. Je vous ai donné tant et de si bonnes raisons, que je crois tout à fait inutile de revenir là-dessus. Je croyais que vous aviez fait votre sacrifice, poussée à cela par vos sentiments religieux, mais que dis-je, sacrifice ? Je vous ai prouvé, comme deux et deux font quatre, que bien loin de faire le moindre sacrifice votre tendresse gagne prodigieusement par mon entrée dans l'état ecclésiastique. Je vous conjure de ne point vous faire de monstres pour avoir le plaisir de les combattre ! Quelle illusion de croire que je puisse me sanctifier dans un état où Dieu visiblement ne me veut pas ! Une fois pour toutes, voyez donc les choses comme elles sont. Vous ne vous tirez pas de cette idée que je pourrais tranquillement me sanctifier en étant laïque. Cela est faux, puisque, je vous le répète, on ne se sanctifie que dans l’état où Dieu nous veut. »

« Ah ! ma chère maman, si vous vous pénétriez bien d’une grande vérité : que les âmes rachetées par le sang de l'Homme-Dieu sont si précieuses que quand même passés, présents et avenirs emploieraient, pour en sauver une seule, tout ce qu'ils ont de talents, de moyens et de vie, ce temps serait bien et admirablement employé ; bien loin de gémir de ce que votre fils se consacre à ce divin ministère, vous ne cesseriez de bénir Dieu de ce que dans sa miséricorde, il m'a bien voulu appeler à une si haute faveur par une vocation qui vient si visiblement de lui. »

SOURCE : http://missel.free.fr/Sanctoral/05/21.php

Saint Eugène de Mazenod (1782-1861)

Le souci d'annoncer la Bonne Nouvelle aux pauvres

Fondateur des oblats de Marie immaculée avant de devenir évêque de Marseille, cet apôtre de la charité s'est attaché sa vie durant à aider spirituellement les plus pauvres. L'Église l'a déclaré « Saint » le 3 décembre 1995.

J'ai fait un rêve... J'ai rêvé que saint Eugène de Mazenod, mon prédécesseur, avait ressuscité comme Lazare et me succédait à Marseille ! Oui, il revenait comme pasteur de ce peuple marseillais auquel il avait déjà donné près de quarante ans de sa vie : quatorze ans vicaire général de son vieil oncle et vingt-quatre ans évêque, ça marque un diocèse... et le diocèse vous marque, vous colle à la peau ! Ce peuple, il le connaissait bien, il lui parlait en provençal, il lui ouvrait toutes les portes de son évêché, il lui faisait des paroisses (vingt-deux), il lui bâtissait des églises (trente-quatre), une cathédrale, la basilique de Notre-Dame-de-la-Garde.

Réalise-t-on la charge du pasteur dans une cité qui a vu doubler sa population (de 150 000 à 300 000 habitants), à une époque où s'entrechoquent anciens et nouveaux régimes, anciens et nouveaux négoces et où s'affrontent des influences, des mentalités qui divisent la société marseillaise, y compris le clergé ?

Réalise-t-on la force d'âme d'un évêque qui mène de front la direction d'un diocèse complexe et le gouvernement d'une congrégation missionnaire qu'il avait fondée tout jeune et qui, à sa mort, compte plus de 400 religieux, déjà répandus du Pôle nord à Ceylan (Sri Lanka), en passant par l'Afrique du Sud ?

Que saint Eugène de Mazenod réveille en chacun de nous le souci d'annoncer la Bonne Nouvelle aux pauvres, selon sa devise évangélique. C'est à ce signe que l'on nous reconnaîtra comme ses disciples... et que nous serons dans la communion des saints !

Et ceci n'est pas un rêve...

Cardinal Roger Etchegaray

Archevêque émérite de Marseille

SOURCE : http://www.eglise.catholique.fr/foi-et-vie-chretienne/la-vie-spirituelle/saintete-et-saints/saints/saint-eugene-de-mazenod-1782-1861.html

Monseigneur de Mazenod, chapelle absidiale axiale de la cathédrale de La Major, 

où se trouve son tombeau

Saint Eugène de Mazenod

Fondateur des Oblats de Marie-Immaculée - Évêque de Marseille (✝ 1861)

Né à Aix-en-Provence en 1782, il vit en exil en Italie durant la Révolution française. A son retour, après une période de réflexion, il entre en 1808 au séminaire Saint-Sulpice de Paris. Trois ans après, il est ordonné prêtre et revient à Aix exercer son ministère auprès des pauvres. En 1816, il fonde les Missionnaires de Provence qui deviendront les Oblats de Marie Immaculée. Nommé vicaire général de son oncle, archevêque de Marseille, il lui succède en 1837 et, tout en s'occupant des Oblats, il développe la vie de son diocèse, marqué par les suites de la Révolution et les secousses sociales de l'époque. Il dirige les Oblats vers les missions les plus difficiles comme celles du Grand Nord.

Canonisé le 3 décembre 1995.

(…)

Les Marseillais ont célébré le 150ème anniversaire de la mort de Mgr Eugène de Mazenod (1782-1861). Le fondateur des «Missionnaires Oblats de Marie Immaculée» a été canonisé par Jean-Paul II en 1995. Reportages sur les sites du diocèse et de la congrégation.

Les Marseillais ont commémoré le 150e anniversaire de la mort de Mgr de Mazenod à la cathédrale de la Major samedi 21 mai 2011

"Lorsque le Vendredi saint de l’année 1807, alors qu’il est âgé de 25 ans, Eugène de Mazenod se rend à l’office religieux, il ne se doute pas qu’il va vivre le moment le plus décisif de sa vie." Mgr Georges Pontier

"Pour nous, les Oblats, saint Eugène était un homme passionné avec un grand amour pour Jésus-Christ, pour l’Eglise et pour les pauvres" père Louis Lougen, supérieur général des Oblats de Marie Immaculée.

Ouvrages mentionnés sur le site Internet du diocèse de Marseille:

- Jean Leflon, Eugène de Mazenod, évêque de Marseille, fondateur des missionnaires oblats de Marie Immaculée, 1782 - 1861, 3 vol.

- Jean Chelini, (sous la direction de), Saint Eugène de Mazenod, Évêque de Marseille, fondateur des Oblats de Marie Immaculée, Actes du Colloque du 18 novembre 1995.

..."Mazenod paya de sa personne, visitant les quartiers de la ville et les villages périphériques, prêchant en provençal, montant dans les étages porter le viatique ou quelque secours"..."Il eut l'art de communiquer avec cette facilité souriante de l'aristocrate qui sait s'adapter à tous les milieux. parlait facilement avec bienveillance, voire avec bonhomie. Il était aussi à l'aise avec les prélats romains qu'avec les poissonnières de Marseille qu'il rencontrait régulièrement. Il écrivait sans cesse à ses proches, à ses fils aux quatre coins du monde, à ses protégés, à ses confrères de l'épiscopat, aux cardinaux, au pape"... (source: Eugène de Mazenod 1837-1861 Histoire du diocèse de Marseille)

En 1816, le Père Eugène de Mazenod fonde à Aix les "Missionnaires de Provence" qui deviendront les "Oblats de Marie Immaculée"; Mgr de Mazenod a été canonisé le 3 décembre 1995. (Diocèse d'Aix et Arles - Une histoire)

... En 1816, il fonde les Missionnaires de Provence, spécialistes des prédications en langue provençale. Il vient lui-même prêcher dans le diocèse à Barjols, Brignoles, Pignans, Lorgues, Puget... (Histoire des saints de Provence - diocèse de Fréjus-Toulon)

À Marseille, en 1861, saint Charles-Eugène de Mazenod, évêque. Pour que les pauvres soient évangélisés, il suscita les Missionnaires Oblats de Marie Immaculée et, pendant près de vingt-cinq ans, il illustra son Église par ses vertus, ses œuvres et ses écrits.

Martyrologe romain

"Aimer le Christ, c’est aimer l’Église"

SOURCE : http://nominis.cef.fr/contenus/saint/1191/Saint-Eugene-de-Mazenod.html

Eugène de Mazenod naît en France, à Aix-en-Provence, le 1er août 1782, à la veille de la Révolution française. Son père, Charles-Antoine, appartenait à la noblesse; sa mère était très riche. Charles-Antoine entend dire que les révolutionnaires menacent de tuer les fils des nobles, alors le jeune Eugène, âgé de huit ans, doit s’enfuir de la France. Son exil durera onze ans. À Turin, il fera sa Première Communion et sera confirmé. À Venise, il sera influencé par une famille exemplaire, les Tinallis. Plus tard, saint Eugène écrira : «C’est là, que j’ai découvert ma vocation à la prêtrise.» Plus tard, en déménageant en Sicile; il passe au grand luxe et il va frayer avec les aristocrates et les nobles de Palerme.

De retour en France à l’âge de vingt ans, Eugène, un jeune homme très mondain, n’ambitionne que de redorer le blason familial entr’autres par un mariage avec une jeune fille riche. Tout d’abord, il ne peut trouver de jeune femme assez riche; ensuite, celle qu’il veut épouser meurt de tuberculose.

En 1807 un Vendredi saint, Eugène âgé de vingt-cinq ans comprend pour la première fois et de façon irrévocable que le Christ l’aime et est mort sur la croix pour lui. «Mon âme cherche le Seigneur; il est mon unique bien dont je ressens profondément la perte.» Ses aspirations d’autrefois reprennent vie.

À l’âge de vingt-six ans, Eugène entre au séminaire Saint- Sulpice de Paris. Son idéal était clair : «Il sera le serviteur et le prêtre des pauvres.»

Ordonné en 1811, l’évêque se demande quoi faire avec ce jeune aristocrate.

«… si personnel et impétueux» et il est quelque peu soulagé quand l’abbé de Mazenod lui demande de travailler avec les pauvres et les abandonnés des villes et des banlieues.

Le jeune prêtre plein de zèle se préoccupe des jeunes. Il fondera une œuvre de jeunesse. Il travaillera également avec les prisonniers et prêchera aux pauvres.

En 1815, Eugène de Mazenod voit vite la nécessité de s’adjoindre des collaborateurs qui partageront son apostolat, qui vivront en communauté avec lui et qui s’engageront envers Dieu par les vœux de religion. Le 25 janvier 1816, l’abbé de Mazenod et quatre compagnons s’engagent envers Dieu et consacrent leur vie pour apporter la Bonne Nouvelle aux pauvres. Ils accompliront cela principalement par la prédication de retraites dans les paroisses. Le pape Léo XII approuvera la Société en 1826 sous le nom de Congrégation des Missionnaires Oblats de la très Sainte et Immaculée Vierge Marie.

En 1837, Eugène de Mazenod devient évêque de Marseille en France. Il aura une grande influence non seulement dans ce diocèse, mais dans d’autres régions du monde.

À sa mort en 1861, sa Congrégation religieuse comptait 417 membres. On trouvait des Oblats en France, en Grande Bretagne, au Canada, aux États-Unis, en Afrique du Sud et au Sri Lanka. En 1975, le dimanche des Missions, quand le pape Paul VI a béatifié Eugène de Mazenod, il y avait 6, 000 Oblats qui travaillaient dans cinq continents. En 1995, l’Église l’a officiellement reconnu comme un Saint.

Saint Eugène de Mazenod était un homme de son temps. Il était loyal envers le Pape, et à cause de cela, il a presque perdu sa citoyenneté française. Plus tard, il est devenu Sénateur de l’empire français, mais il n’a jamais été Cardinal à cause de la tension entre l’Empereur et le Saint Siège. Il était déterminé, éloquent, austère, obstiné, impulsif, généreux, intuitif et sensible. Sur son lit de mort, ses dernières paroles à ses confrères Oblats à travers le monde furent : «Pratiquez bien parmi vous la charité… la charité… la charité… et au dehors, le zèle pour le salut des âmes.»

SOURCE : http://www.omilacombe.ca/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=49&Itemid=45&lang=fr

Armoiries de Monseigneur de Mazenod dans la basilique Notre-Dame de la Garde

Saint Eugène de Mazenod (1782 – 1861), Un grand Saint de Provence.

De souche forézienne, les Mazenod de Provence s’établirent à Marseille aux alentours de 1529 et s’enrichirent progressivement dans le commerce des drogueries. Le grand-père d’Eugène, Charles-Alexandre abandonna le négoce, étudia le droit et obtint en 1741 une charge de président à la Cour des Comptes, Aides et Finances de la Provence. Il vint résider à Aix, tandis que son frère, Charles-André, demeurait à Marseille comme grand vicaire du diocèse.

La Provence souffrit à cette époque comme le reste du royaume des divisions qui régnaient entre les partisans et les adversaires des Jésuites dans le conflit provoqué par la résistance des Jansénistes à l’autorité papale.

Les Mazenod manifestèrent une opposition constante à l’esprit d’hostilité des Parlements envers l’Eglise.

Charles-Antoine de Mazenod, fils aîné de Charles-Alexandre, avocat, jeune président de 26 ans, entra comme son père à la Cour des Comptes en 1771. Il épousa en 1778 Marie-Rose-Eugénie Joannis, fille d’un riche médecin de la ville qui améliora la situation financière des Mazenod. Charles-Joseph-Eugène, leur premier héritier, naquit le 1er Août 1782. L’enfant affirme de bonne heure une volonté tenace, des réactions spontanées, une bonté de cœur qui ne calcule pas et une franchise totale. Ces qualités disciplinées et mises au service de l’Eglise permettent à Eugène de Mazenod d’accomplir une œuvre gigantesque et de faire face à tous les obstacles.

Monsieur de Mazenod s’oppose nettement à la Révolution française de 1789, et, devant les menaces, gagne Nice pour protéger sa famille. C’est le début d’une longue émigration de 11 ans ponctuée d’étapes : Turin, Venise, Naples, Palerme. De retour à Marseille en 1802, Eugène dépaysé est frappé de désarroi. Il envisage même de retourner à Palerme. La foi l’aide à trouver sa voie, et il décide en 1808 de se mettre « au service de l’Eglise » au moment même où les armées napoléoniennes occupent Rome.

Il entre au séminaire de Saint-Sulpice à Paris. Le Pape Pie VII ayant été emprisonné à Savone, Eugène de Mazenod rejoint clandestinement les groupes de résistance à la dictature impériale. Par une vie pauvre il se libère de ses habitudes aristocratiques. Il est ordonné prêtre à Amiens en 1812. Il rêve de ranimer la foi des villageois des campagnes provençales. Au Carême de 1813 il inaugure à la paroisse de la Madeleine à Aix-en-Provence une série d’entretiens réservés aux domestiques et aux artisans. Quand l’entière liberté religieuse revient en 1815, il fonde une société de missionnaires dans un ancien couvent. Les missions débordent à partir de 1818 – 1819 sur le Var et les Hautes-Alpes. Elles s’adressent surtout aux localités rurales des campagnes par fidélité à leur devise : « Pauperes evangelisantur ». Les pauvres sont évangélisés. Le Père de Mazenod a dirigé personnellement presque toutes ces missions prêchées en provençal qui duraient un mois environ et s’achevaient par la plantation d’une croix. Il comptait pour convertir les âmes sur la force de la prière et de la pénitence.

Dans ce renouveau de foi religieuse, le fondateur des Missions de Provence recherche une authentique efficacité surnaturelle. En 1818, les Missionnaires s’installent à Notre Dame du Laus et décident de se consacrer à Dieu par l’oblation perpétuelle. En 1826 le Pape Léon XII reconnaît officiellement l’œuvre du fondateur sous le nom de Missionnaires Oblats de Marie Immaculée. Le Père de Mazenod doit subir des attaques contre sa personne et ses initiatives de la part d’un clergé aixois divisé.

Son oncle, Charles-Fortuné revenu d’exil et nommé évêque de MARSEILLE en 1823 à l’âge de 75 ans exige que son neveu devienne vicaire général. Les intrigues politiques visant à supprimer le siège épiscopal de Marseille, le vieux prélat obtient du pape que son neveu obtienne le titre d’évêque titulaire en 1832 à l’insu du gouvernement français pour sauver le diocèse. En 1837, Eugène de Mazenod succède à son oncle démissionnaire. Il va être le restaurateur de l’Eglise de Marseille. Soustrait à la vocation de missionnaire, il va en garder profondément l’esprit, se dévoue avec un zèle apostolique et intervient partout où il peut faire du bien.

Il se fixe quatre heures de réception par jour. Missionnaire itinérant, il donne chaque année la confirmation dans toutes les paroisses de son diocèse. Il prêche aussi bien en langue provençale, surtout dans les campagnes, qu’en français.

A Marseille, jusque dans les dernières années, il se déplace comme un simple curé pour remplir les devoirs de son ministère. A 77 ans, en plein hiver, il va visiter un malade à travers une rue de misérables. Il va donner la confirmation à un enfant mourant qui le réclame au cinquième étage d’une pauvre demeure.

Lors des épidémies fréquentes de choléra, il visite les hôpitaux et les maisons particulières. Malgré ses journées bien remplies, accaparé parfois par cinq cérémonies le même dimanche, il ne détourne pas son attention des grands intérêts de l’Eglise. Il lutte pour la liberté de l’enseignement. Il était fier de sa cité qu’il aimait et qui connaissait un prodigieux essor.

S’intéressant à tous ses progrès, il était toujours présent pour bénir les grandes entreprises : canal des eaux de la Durance, arrivée de la première locomotive dans la gare Saint Charles, palais de la Bourse du Commerce.

La population de Marseille double presque pendant l’épiscopat de Mgr de Mazenod et atteint 260.000 habitants en 1861. Il crée 21 paroisses et construit 34 églises. Il fait commencer les travaux de deux vastes chantiers : la nouvelle Cathédrale de la Major et la Basilique de N.D. de la Garde.

Il accomplit un effort remarquable d’équipement pastoral : 26 institutions charitables, 7 nouvelles communautés d’hommes, 24 congrégations de femmes.

Par ailleurs, l’esprit de cet évêque courageux déborde l’horizon de son diocèse. En 1841, Mgr BOURGET, évêque de Montréal, fait une halte à Marseille. Il a besoin d’aide pour évangéliser les immenses territoires du Canada. Tous les missionnaires de Mgr de Mazenod s’offrent immédiatement à partir. Six privilégiés furent choisis. Le fondateur avait pressenti l’étonnante expansion que prendrait son œuvre. La porte vers l’Ouest canadien ne tarda pas à s’ouvrir. En 1845, Mgr PROVENCHER, évêque de Saint Boniface offre aux Oblats un territoire grand comme l’Europe. Une héroïque « épopée blanche » devait conduire les fils de Mgr de Mazenod à travers les prairies et l’Athabaska-Mackenzie jusqu’aux esquimaux de la Terre Stérile. En 1859 le Père Grolier atteint le cercle polaire au fort Good Hope, « Notre Dame de Bonne Espérance ». Quelques Pères pénètrent aux Etats-Unis et s’établissent au Texas en 1849.

« Je voudrais pouvoir fournir des missionnaires au monde entier » ne cessait de répéter Mgr de Mazenod. Des équipes de missionnaires partent pour l’Orégon sur les côtes du Pacifique, en Orient, au Natal dans le fin fond de l’Afrique …

L’évêque et le supérieur général voient progresser d’un même pas ses deux familles, religieuse et diocésaine. Une de ses plus grandes joies fut la proclamation solennelle le 8 Décembre 1854 par le Pape Pie IX du dogme de l’Immaculée Conception.

La complicité de Napoléon III pour arracher au Saint-Siège la possession des Etats pontificaux assombrirent les derniers jours de Mgr de Mazenod qui portait envers le Pape une dévotion ardente. Il souffrit beaucoup des malheurs de l’Eglise.

Après 38 ans d’épiscopat Eugène de Mazenod s’éteignit le 21 Mai 1861 à Marseille ayant accompli un extraordinaire labeur dépensé dans les tâches quotidiennes.

Attachant par sa générosité et son dévouement permanent, il s’est haussé jusqu’à l’oubli total de sa personne, par soumission et fidélité à l’Eglise dont il ne voulut être que le serviteur.

Mgr de Mazenod a été béatifié par Paul VI le 19 Octobre 1975 et, depuis lors, canonisé le 3 Décembre 1995 par Jean-Paul II.

Il est fêté le 21 Mai.

Saint Eugène de Mazenod, priez pour nous.

Par Henri PRABIS, agrégé d’Histoire,

Notre adhérent.

SOURCE : http://www.saintsdeprovence.com/MazenodPrabis.html

Eugene de Mazenod (1782-1861)

Bishop of Marseille, founder of the Congregation

of the Missionaries, Oblates of Mary Immaculate

CHARLES JOSEPH EUGENE DE MAZENOD came into a world that was destined to change very quickly. Born in Aix-en-Provence in the south of France on August 1, 1782, he seemed assured of position and wealth from his family, who were of the minor nobility. However, the turmoil of the French Revolution changed all that forever. When Eugene was just eight years old his family fled France, leaving their possessions behind, and started a long and increasingly difficult eleven year exile.

The Years in Italy

The Mazenod family, political refugees, trailed through a succession of cities in Italy. His father, who had been President of the Court of Accounts, Aids and Finances in Aix, was forced to try his hand at trade to support his family. He proved to be a poor businessman, and as the years went on the family came close to destitution. Eugene studied briefly at the College of Nobles in Turin, but a move to Venice meant the end to formal schooling. A sympathetic priest, Don Bartolo Zinelli, living nearby, undertook to educate the young French emigre. Don Bartolo gave the adolescent Eugene a fundamental education, but with a lasting sense of God and a regimen of piety which was to stay with him always, despite the ups and downs of his life. A further move to Naples, because of financial problems, led to a time of boredom and helplessness. The family moved again, this time to Palermo where, thanks to the kindness of the Duke and Duchess of Cannizzaro, Eugene had his first taste of noble living and found it very much to his liking. He took to himself the title of "Count" de Mazenod, did all the courtly things, and dreamed of a bright future.

Return to France: the Priesthood

In 1802, at the age of 20, Eugene was able to return to his homeland - and all his dreams and illusions were quickly shattered. He was just plain "Citizen" de Mazenod, France was a changed world, his parents had separated, his mother was fighting to get back the family possessions. She was also intent on marrying off Eugene to the richest possible heiress. He sank into depression, seeing little real future for himself. But his natural qualities of concern for others, together with the faith fostered in Venice began to assert themselves. He was deeply affected by the disastrous situation of the French Church, which had been ridiculed, attacked and decimated by the Revolution. A calling to the priesthood began to manifest itself, and Eugene answered that call. Despite opposition from his mother, he entered the seminary of St. Sulpice in Paris, and on December 21, 1811, he was ordained a priest in Amiens.

Apostolic endeavours: Oblates of Mary Immaculate

Returning to Aix-en-Provence, he did not take up a normal parish appointment, but started to exercise his priesthood in the care of the truly spiritually needy-prisoners, youth, servants, country villagers. Often in the face of opposition from the local clergy, Eugene pursued his course. Soon he sought out other equally zealous priests who were prepared to step outside the old, even outmoded, structures. Eugene and his men preached in Provencal, the language of the common people, not in "educated" French. From village to village they went, instructing at the level of the people, spending amazingly long hours in the confessional. In between these parish missions the group joined in an intense community life of prayer, study and fellowship. They called themselves "Missionaries of Provence". However, so that there would be an assured continuity in the work, Eugene took the bold step of going directly to the Pope and asking that his group be recognized officially as a Religious Congregation of pontifical right. His faith and his persistence paid off-and on February 17d, 1826, Pope Leo XII approved the new Congregation, the "Oblates of Mary Immaculate". Eugene was elected Superior General, and continued to inspire and guide his men for 35 years, until his death. Together with their growing apostolic endeavours-preaching, youth work, care of shrines, prison chaplaincy, confessors, direction of seminaries, parishes - Eugene insisted on deep spiritual formation and a close community life. He was a man who loved Christ with passion and was always ready to take on any apostolate if he saw it answering the needs of the Church. The "glory of God, the good of the Church and the sanctification of souls" were impelling forces for him.

Bishop o f Marseilles

The Diocese of Marseilles had been suppressed after the 1802 Concordat, and when it was re-established, Eugene's aged uncle, Canon Fortune de Mazenod, was named Bishop. He appointed Eugene Vicar General immediately, and most of the difficult work of re-building the Diocese fell to him. Within a few years, in 1832, Eugene himself was named auxiliary bishop. His Episcopal ordination took place in Rome, in defiance of the pretensions of the French Government that it had the right to sanction all such appointments. This caused a bitter diplomatic battle, and Eugene was caught in the middle, with accusations, misunderstandings, threats, and recriminations swirling around him. It was an especially devastating time for him, further complicated by the growing pains of his religious family. Though battered, Eugene steered ahead resolutely, and finally the impasse was broken. Five years later, he was appointed to the See of Marseilles as its Bishop, when Bishop Fortune retired.

A heart as big as the world

Whilst he had founded the Oblates of Mary Immaculate primarily to serve the spiritually needy and deprived of the French countryside, Eugene's zeal for the Kingdom of God and his devotion to the Church moved the Oblates to the advancing edge of the apostolate. His men ventured into Switzerland, England, Ireland. Because of his zeal, Eugene had been dubbed "a second Paul," and bishops from the missions came to him asking for Oblates for their expanding mission fields. Eugene responded willingly despite small initial numbers, and sent his men out to Canada, to the United States, to Ceylon (Sri Lanka), to South Africa, to Basutoland (Lesotho). As missionaries in his mould, they fanned out preaching, baptising, caring. They frequently opened up previously uncharted lands, established and manned many new dioceses, and in a multitude of ways they "left nothing undared that the Kingdom of Christ might be advanced." In the years that followed, the Oblate mission thrust continued, so that today the impulse of Eugene de Mazenod is alive in his men in 68 different countries.

Pastor of his Diocese

During all this ferment of missionary activity, Eugene was an outstanding pastor of the Church of Marseilles-ensuring the best seminary training for his priests, establishing new parishes, building the city's cathedral and the spectacular Shrine of Notre Dame de la Garde above the city, encouraging his priests to lives of holiness, introducing many Religious Congregations to work in the diocese, leading his fellow Bishops in support of the rights of the Pope. He grew into a towering figure in the French Church. In 1856, Napoleon III appointed him a Senator, and at his death he was the senior bishop of France.

Legacy of a Saint

May 21, 1861, saw Eugene de Mazenod returning to his God, at the age of 79, after a life crowded with achievements, many of them born in suffering. For his religious family and for his diocese, he was a founding and life-giving source: for God and for the Church, he was a faithful and generous son. As he lay dying he left his Oblates a final testament, "Among yourselves-charity, charity, charity: in the world-zeal for souls." The Church in declaring him a saint on December 3, 1995, crowns these two pivots of his living-love and zeal. His life and his deeds remain for all a window unto God Himself. And that is the greatest gift that Eugene de Mazenod, Oblate of Mary Immaculate, can offer us.

SOURCE : http://www.vatican.va/news_services/liturgy/saints/ns_lit_doc_19951203_de-mazenod_en.html

Eugene of Mazenod was born in Aix-en-Provence in France in 1782, the son of a wealthy aristocratic parents. His father Charles Antoine de Mazenod, a member of the French nobility was the President of the Aix Parliament. His mother Marie-Rose Joannis, a member of the rapidly evolving bourgeois merchants embodied the practical and shrewd realism of this group.

This union of complementary social and cultural values assured young Eugene all the requisites for a successful and comfortable life. This idyllic world was swept away by the French Revolution in 1789. After his father opposed the revolution, the entire family was obliged to flee into exile in Italy. In 1790, a new painful period began for Eugene.

These were years of family instability, material scarcity and danger.The family was forced to flee successively to Turin, Venice, Naples and Palermo.

Eugene's adolescence was impoverished. Deprived of friends of his own age, unable to continue an orderly academic program, he was also separated from his mother who divorced her husband in order to return and reclaim family property in France.

SOURCE : http://www.omiworld.org/content.asp?artID=1

St. Eugene de Mazenod

(1782-1861)

Born into a noble family in Aix (Provence), Eugene spent part of his childhood in Italy because of the French Revolution. Ordained a priest at Amiens in 1811, he soon organized missionaries to go to rural parts of Provence, instructing the people whose religious training had been disrupted for many years by the French Revolution and its aftermath.

Eugene began the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate in 1816, obtaining papal approval for them 10 years later. From rural preaching, they soon moved into running seminaries to improve the quality of the clergy. Their first foreign mission was in Canada in 1841; soon they were in Africa, Asia, Australia and Latin America.

In 1851, Eugene followed his uncle as archbishop of Marseilles; Eugene died in that city 10 years later. He had focused his energies on Church renewal and reform while vigorously defending the Church’s right to spread the Good News.

His congregation has grown to become one of the largest in the Church, serving in over 50 countries, especially in northern and western Canada. Many of its members have become missionary bishops.

At Eugene’s canonization in 1998, Pope John Paul II praised his vision, perseverance and conformity to God’s will.

Comment:

Eugene de Mazenod allowed the grace of God to bear rich fruit in his life. That required a certain amount of flexibility as well as courage to face the problems every growing group encounters. We look to saints like Eugene not to borrow their courage and zeal but, with God’s grace, to discover our own, always seeking first God’s kingdom (see Matthew 6:33).

Quote:

“Holiness is the grace of God operating in and through human beings” (Kenneth Woodward, Making Saints).

SOURCE : http://www.americancatholic.org/features/saints/saint.aspx?id=1937

Charles Joseph Eugene de Mazenod

Bishop of Marseilles, and founder of the Congregation of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, b. at Aix, in Provence, 1 August, 1782; d. at Marseilles 21 May, 1861. De Mazenod was the offspring of a noble family of southern France, and even in his tender years he showed unmistakable evidence of a pious disposition and a high and independent spirit. Sharing the fate of most French noblemen at the time of the Revolution, he passed some years as an exile in Italy, after which he studied for the priesthood, though he was the last representative of his family. On 21 December, 1811, he was ordained priest at Amiens, whither he had gone to escape receiving orders at the hands of Cardinal Maury, who was then governing the archdiocese of Parisagainst the wishes of the pope. After some years of ecclesiastical labours at Aix, the young priest, bewailing the sad fate of religion resulting among the masses from the French Revolution, gathered together a little band of missionaries to preach in the vernacular and to instruct the rural populations of Provence. He commenced, 25 January, 1816, his Institute which was immediately prolific of much good among the people, and on 17 February, 1826, was solemnly approved by Leo XII under the name of Congregation of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate.

After having aided for some time his uncle, the aged Bishop of Marseilles, in the administration of his diocese, Father De Mazenod was called to Rome and, on 14 October, 1832, consecrated titular Bishop of Icosium, which title he had, in the beginning of 1837, to exchange for that of Bioshop of Marseilles. His episcopate was marked by measures tending to the restoration in all its integrity of ecclesiastical discipline. De Mazenod unceasingly strove to uphold the rights of the Holy See, somewhat obscured in France by the pretensions of the Gallican Church. He favoured the moral teachings of Blessed (now Saint) Alphonsus Liguori, whosetheological system he was the first to introduce in France, and whose first life in French he caused to be written by one of his disciples among the Oblates. At the same time he watched with a jealous eye over theeducation of youth, and, in spite of the susceptibilities of the civil power, he never swerved from what he considered the path of justice. In fact, by the apostolic freedom of his public utterances he deserved to be compared to St. Ambrose. He was ever a strong supporter of papal infallibility and a devout advocate of Mary'simmaculate conception, in the solemn definition of which (1854) he took an active part. In spite of his well-known outspokenness, he was made a Peer of the French Empire, and in 1851 Pius IX gave him the pallium.

Meanwhile he continued as Superior General of the religious family he had founded and whose fortunes will be found described in the article on the Oblates of Mary Immaculate. Such was the esteem in which he was held at Rome that the pope had marked him out as one of the cardinals he was to create when death claimed him at the ripe age of almost seventy-nine.

Sources

COOKE, Sketches of the Life of Mgr de Mazenod, Bishop of Marseilles (London and Dublin, 1879); RAMBERT, Vie de Mgr D. J. E. De Mazenod (Tours, 1883); RICARD, Mgr de Mazenod, évêque de Marseille (Paris, n. d.).

Morice, Adrian. "Charles Joseph Eugene de Mazenod." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 10. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1911. 21 May 2020 <http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10094a.htm>.

Transcription. This article was transcribed for New Advent by WGKofron. With thanks to Fr. John Hilkert and St. Mary's Church, Akron, Ohio.

Ecclesiastical approbation. Nihil Obstat. October 1, 1911. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor. Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York.

SOURCE : http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/10094a.htm

Diocesan Shrine of Our Lady of Grace (Grace Park East, Our Lady of Grace, Caloocan City South) Diocesan Shrine of Our Lady of Grace (Caloocan City South), Solemn Declaration on December 11, 2007, Statues of Eugène de Mazenod founder of Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate (Vicariate of Our Lady of Grace, List of Roman Catholic churches in Metro Manila, Roman Catholic Diocese of Kalookan, in Legislative districts of Caloocan District 2, Barangays of Caloocan Barangay 91, Zone 8, District II, in front of Barangays 68 & 71, Zone 7, 12th Avenue West, District II, 12th Avenue West, Grace Park, 10th, 11th & 12th Avenues, (Caloocan City South), Caloocan City, Buildings in Caloocan City (along the List of roads in Metro Manila, along M. H. Del Pilar Street, 10th Avenue corner Rizal Avenue Extension, Grace Park, beside 11th Avenue, PLDT, Caloocan City Branch, St. Eugene De Mazenod Avenue (formerly 11th Avenue) (Grace Park) to Monumento LRT Station).

Saint Eugene de Mazenod

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 wordly 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. Eugune 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 Provence 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-adjutor in 1834. Bishop of Marseilles, France on 24 December 1837, ordained by Pope Gregory XVI.

He founded 23 parishes, built or retored 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. Archbishop of Marseille in 1851 by Pope Blessed Pius IX. Helped Saint Emily de Vialar re-build the Sisters of Saint Joseph of the Apparition after their move to Marseille. 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 in 1861, 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

Venerated

• 19 November 1970 by Pope Paul VI (decree of heroic virtues)

Beatified

• 19 October 1975 by Pope Paul VI

Canonized

• 3 December 1995 by Pope John Paul II at Saint Peter’s Square, Rome, Italy

Patronage

• dysfunctional families

SOURCE : https://catholicsaints.info/saint-eugene-de-mazenod/

Sanktuarium Relikwii Drzewa Krzyża Świętego - portret Św Eugeniusza de Mazenod 

- założyciela i generała zakonu Misjonarzy Oblatów Maryi Niepokalanej (OMI). Photographie : Jolanta Dyr

Catholic Truth Society – Saint Eugene de Mazenod, Priest, Missionary, Bishop

I – Missionary of Provence

It was a moment of decision. A very few hours earlier, on the morning of 21st December, 1811, Eugene de Mazenod had been ordained a priest, at Amiens. And now the Bishop of Amiens had offered the newly ordained priest the post of Vicar General of the diocese. It was an appointment, which carried with it the promise of episcopal succession.

To Eugene de Mazenod, then in his twenty-ninth year, the proffered appointment gave the promise of fruitful years of priestly service at a moment when the Church, so lately emerged from the darkness and terror of life in France under the Revolution, faced the problems and uncertainties of existence under the rule of the Emperor Napoleon. It was, too, an appointment which promised the young Father de Mazenod a dignity of rank and place in keeping with the centuries old traditions of his family in the service of France. But to Eugene de Mazenod, his duty seemed elsewhere, his life’s work of a different kind. He returned to his native Provence, to the city of Aix.

For just under 300 years, the family of de Mazenod had put their roots deep in the soil of Provence. As long since as 1529 a de Mazenod had established himself at Marseilles and had laid the foundations of a family fortune in the pharmaceutical trade. By the mid-eighteenth century, a de Mazenod had become one of the leading notabilities in the legal profession in Marseilles. In 1789, that year in which the storming of the Bastille had thrown open the flood gates of revolution in France, the father of the nine-years-old Eugene, Charles Antoine de Mazenod, was Chief Justice of the High Courts at Aix and, by right of office and of election, one of the Nobility of Provence and a delegate to the Estates-General, the Parliament of France.

It was Charles de Mazenod’s very brilliance as a lawyer, which brought the family’s fortune to destruction in the storms of violence out of which came Revolution. When, in 1789, King Louis XVI summoned for the first time in 175 years the Nobility and Clergy and Commons, the three Estates or groups which comprised the French Parliament, and decreed that the Commons should have as many delegates as the Nobility and Clergy together, the Provincial Assembly of Provence at once protested. Hitherto each Estate had had an equal voting strength; any change, protested the Provençals, would be a violation of the Constitution of Provence solemnly guaranteed when the province was annexed to the Crown of France under Louis XI.

To the lawyer de Mazenod was assigned the task of arguing the Provençal case before the King. He pleaded his cause with so great a measure of success that he earned the furious enmity of Mirabeau, that strange man of genius and of violence, about whom gathered the turbulent forces of revolt in Marseilles and throughout the Midi. No man could stand against the fury which it was in Mirabeau’s power to unleash by the flamboyant fevour of his oratory and the sheer magnetism of his personality. Against Charles de Mazenod, that fury was unleashed in all its terrifying violence; by a hairsbreadth, the spokesman of the Provençal Assembly escaped the death which had overtaken four of his colleagues at the hands of Mirabeau’s followers. He fled into exile. For the child, Eugene de Mazenod, there began then those years of exile during which — as is so often the way of exiles — he put down his roots spiritually into the soil of that homeland from which he had been physically driven. In Nice, in Turin, in Venice, in Palermo, he grew to young manhood, remembering Provence. In exile, he attained, out of the piety of adolescence, to a faith and fervor, which were to be the twin keystones of his spiritual life.

Vocation

He was in his twenty-first year when, with Napoleon’s election as First Consul for life in 1802, it became possible for him to return to Aix. The city of Aix to which he came home was a city on which the years of turmoil and revolution had laid a blighting shadow. Napoleon’s reconstruction-of the country’s civil institutions had restored the Church, but in Aix, the returned exile found the church in which he had been baptised a shattered ruin and the parishes of the city without priests to replace those done to death or banished into exile. Spiritually, the city was a desert, the faith of its people dead or dying. And side by side with spiritual poverty went material hunger and destitution, which appalled the sensitive mind of the young de Mazenod. The Aix he had known and treasured in memory during his years of exile had been warm and bright with the ease and elegance of wealthy family life. Now the reality was of a poverty of soul and body that cried out for aid. To Eugene de Mazenod there seemed here to his hand a cause more urgent and compelling than the task of restoring the ruined fortunes of his family. He had found his vocation.

In the October of 1808, he entered the seminary of Saint Sulpice, in Paris. In the December of 1811, he was ordained a priest at Amiens. And within the year, he had returned for a second time to Aix. In the decision to return was the foreshadowing of his life’s work.

In the pattern of Eugene de Mazenod’s life story, that deliberate return to the Midi, to the Provence out of which his family had come, has its illuminating significance. “If grace would make a saint of him,” said the Abbe Bremond, “it would in the strict sense of the word make him a Provençal saint.” That southland of France, sun-warmed, yet with its own rock-ribbed ruggedness, gives its sons a warm humanity, a quick sensitivity, a vivid imagination, a ready tongue. In the young priest, returning to a homeland spiritually and materially impoverished, these qualities of the true Provençal were allied to a tireless drive and dynamic energy, to a rock-firm purpose, which would carry him forward against all opposition in any cause to which he had dedicated himself.

The cause which transmitted the warmth of his Provençal nature into a flame of purpose in those spring and summer days of 1812 was the cause of the forgotten men of the Midi, of the workers, artisans, servants, slum-dwellers and beggars of Aix; the cause of the common people whose common bond was a starvation of soul and body.

Because he was himself a Provençal, Eugene de Mazenod instinctively sensed one of the greatest stumbling blocks which lay across the path to spiritual regeneration of the common people of Aix. This instinctive understanding went back, perhaps, to Lenten days shortly after he had first returned from exile.

During those Lenten days, Eugene de Mazenod was one of the congregation which crowded a church in Aix to hear a famous preacher. Renowned for his oratory, the preacher chose such themes as the story of the creation, of the deluge, of the plagues of Egypt, subjects which moved the imagination of his almost wholly aristocratic audience without unduly stirring its conscience.

The grandeur of the preacher’s themes was matched by his language. He was an orator in the grand style. He spoke with an elegance and grace and colour, which charmed his listeners whose common language was French, whose pride was in their familiarity with the classic poets and romantic novelists of France. He spoke in French of outstanding clarity and accent. But to the ordinary people of Aix, to the little shopkeepers and tradesmen and artisans and labourers and servants, he did not speak at all; for their native tongue was Provençal, and of French, they knew no more than a stray word, an occasional mispronounced phrase.

“Here are people in dire need of the word of God, and the Gospel is not preached to them in a language they understand,” the youthful de Mazenod told himself, moved to a full-hearted indignation by this deprivation of a people whose fate seemed always destined to be spiritual and material starvation. “One day I shall fill this need.”

His First Sermon

And now the time had come to redeem that promise. In the Lent of 1813, eager to put his plans to the test, but as yet unsure of his capabilities, he began a series of Lenten talks at the church of the Madeleine, in the heart of a working-class parish, to a congregation of housemaids, washerwomen, domestic servants, porters, unskilled workers from the kitchens, the stables, the warehouses and the warehouse yards. His opening words foreshadowed his life’s mission:

“During this holy period of Lent there will be many talks for the rich. Are there to be none for the poor? The Gospel must be taught to all men, and in a fashion easily understood. The poor are precious members of the Christian family and cannot be abandoned. The poor of Christ, all you whom misery disheartens, my brothers, my dear brothers, my esteemed brothers, listen to me. You are the children of God, the brothers of Jesus Christ, the co-heirs of His eternal kingdom…”

So began his first sermon, spoken in the Mother tongue of those who listened to him — in Provençal, the language of the congregation, which crowded the vast church in the six o’clock half-light of that Lenten morning.

And the crowds did not dwindle or fall away after that first morning of heart-warming discovery by a people who had found their pastor — as that pastor had found his people. The poor of Aix had found a pastor who spoke a language they understood, not merely the rich, vivid language of the tongue, which was their dearest heritage and proudest badge of individuality — but also a language of the heart which spoke to them in love and charity and without patronage or condescension.

Mission to the Poor

Success brings its own problems, and the great problem, which the success of those Lenten lectures of 1813 brought to the young priest, was that of meeting the demands of the many who were eager to share the joy of those who had crowded to hear him preach those first sermons.

Ragged, often hungry, poor in soul and body, they thronged to the Missions he preached. But in a city and its hinterland where five out of every ten citizens had fallen away from the Sacraments and had ceased to hear Mass; where children grew to young manhood and young womanhood without making their First Communion; where so few priests laboured amongst so many, that thousands had not the opportunity of even speaking to a priest from one year’s end to the next: the single-handed work of one preacher was not enough. More was wanted.

To Father Eugene de Mazenod — a realist whose sense of realism always expressed itself in seeing not the magnitude of the obstacle but the straightforward methods which would help to overcome that obstacle — what was needed was plain enough: if more Missions were to be preached, then he would need more helpers to work with him in the preaching of them.

When he obtained the permission of his episcopal superiors to find helpers to assist him in the preaching of Missions, Eugene de Mazenod had no immediate plan or intention of founding a new religious society, bound by vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. He looked first for companions to share in his work; and, out of that original intention, came the grouping together in community life of those priests who were to become known as “The Missioners of Provence.”

Father Missioners of Provence

The Curé of Arles, Father Tempier, was his first helper and associate; their first community house — an old Carmelite convent, shabby and gone to seed, within a stone’s throw of the graceful and elegant town house of the de Mazenods in which Father Eugene had been born.

Indeed, there is something almost comically grandiloquent about the use of so dignified a term as “community house” for the shabby, one-time convent of the Carmelites to which Father de Mazenod and Father Tempier came to live. Part of the old building served as a lodging house of the cheaper sort; and the portion reserved to the use of the two priests was no more than a single large room.

It was a room of such stark and pitiless poverty that, in some odd way, it somehow conveys in description less a picture of the bare, austere simplicity of deliberate asceticism than the unrelieved outline of desperate and utterly comfortless destitution and want. A smouldering fire in a yawning fireplace belched smoke back from faulty chimneys until all the room was filled by a sooty fog that turned brightest day into the perpetual twilight of a fox’s den. For a table the two priests made do with a plank supported by two barrels; but in later years, when Eugene de Mazenod recalled that makeshift table, it was to remember with characteristic cheerfulness that from it they “used to eat with relish the small share of food that fell to each one.”

As for Father Tempier, when he recalls that room of their early beginnings, it was to remember with brisk satisfaction that the two first tenants of the room did not long have it to themselves. Within a month — in the February of 1816 — they were joined there by Fathers Mye, Deblieu and Icard. And now, a team of five priests strong, they were ready to start their apostolic work.

For their first combined missionary operation, they chose the town of Grans. It was a market town of some 1,500 inhabitants, and the pattern of its spiritual life — or lack of spiritual life — was one which the “Missioners of Provence” were to see repeated again and again throughout the Midi.

Of its fifteen-hundred people, scarcely a score had fulfilled their Easter duties. So few of the parishioners ever bothered to cross the threshold of the parish church to pray, to confess or to assist at Sunday Mass, that episcopal decision to close the church for lack of use seemed unlikely to be long delayed. The town was a centre of spiritual paralysis; to revive it, spiritually, was a task to appall the imagination of any but the most dedicated of men.

Yet it was the very magnitude of the task, which seems to have spurred Father de Mazenod and his companions to efforts straining human strength and endurance to the very limits — and beyond.

Again, as in Aix, the church was thronged, but not only for sermon and lecture. Almost from the very first day of the Mission, lines and queues of men and women began to form about the confessionals. Virtually all the penitents were working people; great numbers of them worked from dawn to dusk and so would not be free to join the queues until late evening, when crowds would already have gathered, or in the hour after the first of the morning Masses when, again, the crowds would be so great that many would have to leave for work before their turn came.

Here was the kind of difficulty which Eugene de Mazenod, down through the years, was to deal with in a fashion so forthright and decisive that once he had acted, people scarcely remembered that there ever had been a problem to solve.

At three o’clock in the morning, each one of the confessionals in the church at Grans was occupied by a confessor. During twenty out of the four and twenty hours that followed, confessors remained at their posts. There were Masses and sermons and lectures; there were visitations to the sick; and all through the day, penitents came in long unending lines. And this pattern was repeated day after day, week after week, for the full month of that Mission in Grans.

That year of 1816 was a year of beginnings. Two further Missions were preached that year. In the half-dozen years that followed, four and twenty Missions were preached. Missions were preached in Arles and Marseilles and Aix, cities with which Father de Mazenod and some of his associates had strong connections; but for the most part, the Missioners of Provence laboured in the rural districts and in the country towns, areas in which their work was amongst the poor and the peasants. And everywhere the pattern of work which was established at Grans was repeated; so, too, was the pattern of reward which showed itself, in varying degree, in crowded churches and besieged confessionals.

A Life of Hardship

It was a life of hardship. The hardship was not merely a matter of rough living and poor lodging, as when, at Rognac during the bitter days of a winter long memorable for its harshness, the Missioners, Fathers Tempier and Mye, were given, through either the poverty or the inhospitality of their hosts, only a pile of straw to sleep upon and fare so frugal that their Superior was moved to alarmed comment. It was the hardship of ceaseless, unrelenting toil; and even though new labourers joined the little band, the task of preaching, of confessing, of visiting, for month-long after month-long spell imposed crushing burdens on the willing backs of the Missioners of Provence.

In that life of labour — a life sweetened by the unmistakable signs of a reawakening faith amongst the people of the Midi — Father de Mazenod played a leader’s part. His was not merely the leadership of dynamic action, although his sheer activity set a standard that spurred his colleagues to unremitting effort. He undertook personally the direction of almost every one of the Missions during those early fruitful years. His leadership created, too, an inspiring model for those to whom the preaching of a Mission was a new thing.

The Born Orator

He was a born orator, whose gift of oratory was fired and forged and tempered in the ardent flame of his belief that he had found the Divine purpose in his life — the bringing of the Gospel to the poor.

All his gifts and talents seemed to be shaping themselves towards that end. When he spoke to a congregation of Provençal peasantry, he seemed to put himself unhesitatingly and directly in communication with his listeners, speaking face to face, as it were, with each individual man and woman, making the message that was for all a message charged with significance for each single soul.

They came, these people of the poor, to the churches of the Midi to hear a great preacher. He was a great preacher, but with a greatness that owed nothing to the fashions and conventions of the oratory of his time. He did more than speak the dialect that was their own, he spoke it with the vividness and colour and fire of one to whom this tongue was, as it was to every one of them, a warm and living tongue.

There was much, too, of their own quicksilver temperament in the style and manner of a preacher whose sermons had the light and shade, the swift interplay of mood, of thundering sternness and sunny persuasiveness that were warp and woof of the Provençal character.

Sermon after sermon he preached, never from prepared and remembered texts or from notes, but always spontaneously, improvising with a fluent and easy grace that allowed no barrier to stand between him and his listeners. Hearing and watching him, his fellow workers found a model and learned something, but not all, of the gift that won men back to God.

The Inner Life

Something but not all; for the power of preaching sermons and the talent for directing Missions were no more than the outward signs of the inner life which made Eugene de Mazenod the “fisher of men” he had become. “It was not upon his natural gifts that Father de Mazenod relied to convert souls,” says his latest biographer, “but rather upon the strength of prayer and penance. Though he slept but five hours a night, he rigorously kept the days of fasting and abstinence even when the Mission took place in Lent.” He himself showed his full awareness of the gifts that were truly needed by the preacher and missioner who would bring the Gospel to men when, at the very outset of their missionary work, he talked with Father Tempier.

“If it were only a matter of preaching well or badly the word of God,” he said, “to run about the countryside without going to the trouble of making ourselves interior men, really apostolic men, I think it would not be too difficult to replace you. But, do you believe that I want that rubbish?”

He wanted more, very much more from his co-workers than willingness, however eager, to follow the routine and humdrum life of preaching in town after town, very much more than the uncomplaining acceptance of the grinding labour of pulpit and confessional. In the words of Father Tempier, he wanted men “ready to follow in the footprints of the Apostles, to work for the salvation of souls without expecting any other reward on earth but pain and fatigue.”

Such men he sought, and many such he found. But a further step forward on his path of purpose was not made until the autumn of 1818. In the August of that year occurred an event, which made him reconsider the composition and standing of his group of helpers: he was offered the gift of a house in the Upper Alps, at Notre Dame de Laus.

All through the early days of their work together, the group of priests who became known as “The Missioners of Provence,” returned after each season of work in the Mission field to the old Carmelite convent, where Fathers de Mazenod and Tempier relished those frugal meals, eaten from makeshift table of rough planks in a sulphurous fog of smoke.

Here they rested and recuperated after the weeks of grinding toil that each Mission entailed. Here they lived a community life; here they prayed, studied, officiated in the convent chapel, devoted regular hours to recollection and meditation.

They lived in community in that one-time community home of the Carmelites; but they themselves were not a community united by any vows. Unity of ideals, the influence of Father de Mazenod, who became their Superior by common consent; mutual charity; a simple agreement; these were the only bonds that bound the Missioners of Provence.

A Community Rule

And now, with the house of Notre Dame de Laus ready to become a community house, Father de Mazenod and his helpers prepared for that step which they had long pondered and meditated and prayed for. The Superior was called upon to formulate a rule, a code of laws by which the community should live.

So it was done. In the October of that year, 1818, Father de Mazenod placed before his fellow workers the Rules and Constitution, which were to transform the group of Mission workers and preachers into a religious Congregation in the fullest sense. Not all of the priests who had joined with Father de Mazenod for the primary purpose of preaching the Gospel to the poor of Provence were convinced of the wisdom or the desirability of making their simple federation of Missioners a new religious society, fully and duly constituted and demanding by its rules and vows a far greater and more definite engagement than had been entailed by the simple agreement which had hitherto bound the band of preachers. But when, in the closing days of 1818, the little community met to deliberate and vote upon the Constitution which would bind the future Missioners of Provence, all but two of the ten priests and scholastic brothers consecrated themselves to God by perpetual oblation.

II – Missionary of Mary Immaculate

Yet another half-dozen years were to pass before Eugene de Mazenod took the next great step forward in the progress of the work which had begun so humbly and unostentatiously in that stark, poverty-marked room in the old house of the Carmelites. Time and again, he had pondered the possibility of seeking for the new Society, its work and Rules and Constitution, the solemn approval and approbation of the Holy See. At first, a prudent realisation of the many difficulties involved in such a formal application made him put off the final decision. But by the winter of 1825, he had become convinced that the seal of Papal Approbation must now be sought if the Society he had founded was to achieve stability and strength. The first days of November saw him on his way to Rome.

Visit to Rome

Out of the formal journal of his days in Rome which he later wrote, but even more warmly in the letters which he sent by almost every post to Father Tempier, comes a vivid picture of those momentous days in the history of the Society — and an even more vivid picture of the founder of the Society.

Not many days in Rome were to pass before he discovered how very right he had been in thinking that the task of obtaining Papal approbation for the Society would be a lengthy and difficult one, calling for unlimited patience and pertinacity in enduring the delays and postponements and refusals that are an inevitable part of the delicate process of considering pleas and passing judgment on them.

“I called on Cardinal de Gregorio,” he wrote, “and presented letters from Turin which recommended me to him in glowing terms; he received me in a most friendly way, invited me to dinner and was exceedingly courteous. But, he assured me, he does not believe that the Pope would grant us a formal approbation.”

Here was disappointment indeed; but neither then nor later was there the least hint of complaint or regret in Father de Mazenod’s letters. In that very letter, he is content to state the Cardinal’s adverse opinion; and then he goes briskly and cheerfully on to detail the steps he is taking to turn temporary defeat into lasting victory. The Cardinal Vicar is visited, and a promise extracted to have the case of the Missioners of Provence specially mentioned to the Holy Father. Friendly relations are established with the Secretary of Propaganda. The Master of the Chamber has to be reminded to arrange the all-important audience with the Pope. And in the midst of all this ceaseless activity, Father de Mazenod summons up sufficient sardonic humour to welcome the rigorous Black Fasts of Quarter Tense (the demanding fasts formerly observed during ‘Ember Days’) in Rome, since fasting makes it possible for him to dine on a morsel of fish and half a lemon, and so avoid allowing his hosts to realise his typically French opinion of Roman cooking, the Roman use of “the detestable oil which people from Provence find it absolutely impossible to stomach.”

A Critical Day

For a little while, it seemed that all his ceaseless and exhausting activities were not bringing Father de Mazenod closer to his goal. Five days before Christmas, he woke one morning to realise that this day was the last day of the year for audiences. Something would have to be done quickly if his visit to Rome were not to be extended indefinitely. And something was done. Let Father de Mazenod himself tell us what it was:

“One fine day I made up my mind. Having borrowed the doyen’s carriage, I arrived at the Vatican, in full dress. The first person I met — a minor prelate — advised me not to wait; it would be quite impossible for me to see His Holiness that day; a whole flock of Cardinals would arrive, and Ministers and goodness knows who else; it would be better to put off my visit to the beginning of the New Year.

“As he withdrew, Monsignor Barberini arrived and I explained my position to him and reproached him for having put me in a difficulty by his forgetfulness. Somewhat embarrassed by my gentle rebuke, .but admitting its justice, he invited me to enter the salon. Having the status of both a prelate and a gentleman, I forthwith went into the room next to the Pope’s office, the room where Cardinals, Bishops, other prelates and Ministers wait their turn for audience.

“I was in good heart that day, although I was fasting. Monsignor the Secretary of Briefs was the first to be called, but I was not dismayed by his huge purple bag. Nor by the satchel, equally well filled, of Cardinal Pacca, Prefect of the Congregation of Bishops and Regulars. Alas! I thought, some day it may be our turn to be shut up in that satchel.

“Each of these spent an hour with the Pope. The Bishop Almoner, who distributes the Pope’s charities, and the priest who is Master of the Sacred Palace had appointments for that day, but the interviews were short.

“Who would be called next? The Father General of the Dominicans — the poor man was ravenously hungry — would have wagered it would be his turn. But not at all! I was called. You know how dignified I am? Well, I maintained my dignity till I got to the door, but I dropped it then, and did not assume it again till I came out.

“The Pope received me in his small bedroom. He was seated on a couch, and before him was a desk on which he leaned. On entering, I made the first genuflexion, as is the custom; but between the door and the place where he sat, there was not room to make a second one. So, all at once, I was kneeling before him…”

With that vividly evocative and warm-hearted introduction to the story of his first audience with Pope Leo XII, Father de Mazenod goes on, in high delight, to tell Father Tempier how far from the pessimistic forecasts of his advisers, who saw little hope of the Sovereign Pontiff granting his request, was the kindness and courtesy which the Pope showed to him in an audience which was extended to last nearer a full hour than the allotted time of half an hour.

The Pope’s Reaction

He tells of the Pope’s interest in his account of the founding of the Missioners of Provence and of their work during the years past. Then, with joy, he tells of the Pope’s reaction to his request for formal approval of the Rules and Constitution of the Society. He writes:

“It almost seemed as if he wanted to apologize for not granting by a stroke of the pen what I knew well could only be given after lengthy formalities were complete.

“Yes, ‘One knows,’ he said, addressing me all the time in the third person, ‘one knows the customs of the Holy See. The procedure today is the same as was followed a hundred years ago. The Secretary of the Congregation will make a report to me on this matter. I shall appoint a Cardinal to examine it; he will report to the Congregation; each Cardinal will give his vote . . .’

“Lest I should forget the name of the Secretary he had mentioned, he was kind enough to get me a sheet of paper, and he gave me a pen and dictated;

“Yes, ‘Call on the Archpriest, tell him one comes from me, and that he is to make his report on Friday’.”

This was success beyond Father de Mazenod’s most optimistic dreams. But it was only a beginning. The project had been set in motion, but there was much yet to do before the seal of Papal approbation would be finally set upon the Rules and Constitution of the Society.

The winter of 1825 was to give way to the spring of 1826, Christmas to Lent, Lent to Easter, and Whitsuntide (Pentecost) to be no more than days away before Father de Mazenod had completed, single-handed, the tremendous task of piloting the project through the maze of protocol and legal formality designed to save final decision from any chance of error.

From Cardinal Major Penitentiary to Cardinals of Congregation, from Archpriest to Auditor, he went, discussing, planning, interviewing, preparing voluminous replies to multitudinous questions. There were days when even the weather of a Roman Spring seemed to conspire against him, striking down with illness a Cardinal whose attendance was vital to the investigations ordered by the Pope. There were days when all progress was held up because some major domo or house servant could not be bothered to attend to the instructions of this plain priest from Provence in his shabby soutane and mended boots.

But Father de Mazenod did not allow himself to be discouraged, disappointed or deflected from his purpose. He had sources of patience and of strength.

“I spent last night before the Blessed Sacrament,” he wrote to Father Tempier, “which remains exposed during the two nights of the Forty Hours devotion.”

Cheerful Poverty

His cheerfulness during those tiring days was inexhaustible. He could, in his letters, find the humour to conjure up a wry smile at the poverty, which added to the worries of delay.

“I did not dare approach Tarlonia for so small a sum as one hundred Roman crowns,” he wrote, “so I drew it from Monsieur Curani. I shall ask my uncle to settle this.

“I used this money to pay my debts; I owed two months board and lodgings to the people with whom I stay. Clothes are my real worry. You should see how I try to make them last. I take advantage of the dry weather to wear out my old breeches; there are holes in them, here, there, and everywhere, but my soutane covers all. But, if it rained, I would have to gather up my soutane, and then my raggedness would be only too visible. If I hadn’t to appear so frequently before Cardinals, I would wear my old soutane all the time, for its wrinkles would be hidden by my coat.”

But in the end, all the pains and penalties and poverty, all the exasperating delays of protocol, all the incivilities of stewards and servants were gloriously made good to him. On February 15 th , the Cardinals of Congregation met in the palace of the Cardinal Prefect to complete their deliberations. That morning, in the Church of Saint Mary in Campitelli, Father Eugene de Mazenod heard nine successive Masses. In the early evening came the decision of the Cardinals: the Rules of the Society had been unanimously approved. Three days later, Father de Mazenod wrote:

“My dear friend, my dear brothers: Yesterday evening, the 17th February, 1826, the Sovereign Pontiff, Leo XII, confirmed the decision of the Congregation of Cardinals, and gave specific approval to the Institute, the Rules and the Constitution of the Missionary Oblates of the Most Holy and Immaculate Virgin Mary.”

Even after the Papal approbation of the Society, and the choice by the Pope himself of the name by which the Society would henceforth be known, Eugene de Mazenod’s work in Rome was not ended. It was mid-May before all the necessary formalities were completed — formalities which entailed further rounds of calls and interviews, long periods in session with secretaries of Committees, periods of actual transcribing to save the cost of a professional copyist. It was more than half a year after his departure to Rome before Father de Mazenod was re-united with his brothers of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate.

III – Missionary Bishop

“Rome’s unhoped for approbation was a cause of intense joy for Father de Mazenod,” writes a recent biographer. “It sanctioned his most cherished and valued project. Through a series of circumstances, whose meaning he did not even suspect, he had to abandon the missionary career and enter another field of Apostolate.”

Abandon seems scarcely the apt word; for Eugene de Mazenod’s close ties with and abiding interest in the Society which he founded were to last till the end of his days. But in the six years following the Papal approbation, it is true that a further dimension was added to his labours; his life’s work was woven in a pattern, which found its ultimate form in his elevation to the Episcopacy.

The year of that elevation was 1832. Pope Gregory XVI was on the throne of Saint Peter, and from him came the summons, which brought the founder of the Oblates of Mary again to Rome. He was summoned to Rome so that the Holy Father might personally judge the fitness of the one who had been recommended as a suitable auxiliary Bishop of Marseilles.

The judgment was favourable. Nominated Titular Bishop of Icosie in North Africa by Pope Gregory, Eugene de Mazenod was consecrated in Saint Sylvester’s Church in Rome on October 14th, 1832.

A Difficult Situation

The manner of Monsignor de Mazenod’s elevation to the episcopacy was to have repercussions, which threatened the very existence of the See. The new rulers, who had come into power in France in 1830, had claimed the right to alter and redraw the boundaries of the French dioceses. In fact, a Concordat existed between France and the Holy See by which it was agreed that the candidates for bishoprics in France would be presented by the State. But there were special considerations attaching to the appointment of a Bishop to the See of Marseilles.

After the revolution of 1830, the municipal authorities appointed under the new regime claimed that the Bishop of Marseilles and his clergy had opposed the revolution and favoured the overthrown government. In retaliation, they called for the suppression of the See of Marseilles and, indeed, a resolution to this effect was passed by the local District Council of Marseilles in 1831 and submitted to the central government in Paris. In these circumstances, it was thought that there was little likelihood of the French Government looking favourably on the appointment as auxiliary Bishop of Marseilles of Eugene de Mazenod, a nephew of Monsignor Fortune de Mazenod, the Bishop so very much out of favour with the authorities.

So the need for secrecy arose. The choice of the North African territory of Icosie was made deliberately so that it could be claimed that Father de Mazenod was not raised to a French See in flat defiance of the French Government. As a further precaution, the announcement of the consecration of the new Bishop was not made known for almost a year.

But none of this saved the new Bishop from envenomed attack. He was accused of having accepted a bishopric without the approval of the State. He was charged with being leader of a political group opposed to the Government. Charges were laid against him through diplomatic channels at the Vatican. But the Holy Father, having heard the Bishop’s defence, dismissed all the charges as unfounded. Once again, Eugene de Mazenod returned from Rome, heart-warmed by the friendship and confidence of a Pope. Once again, he could remind his brethren of the Society he had founded that: “The Oblates are the Pope’s men.”

With his elevation to the episcopate, the life story of Eugene de Mazenod becomes woven in a two-fold strand. He himself sets down in homely words his conception of a Bishop’s duties:

“In these days,” he wrote, “one rarely finds any true idea of what it is to be a bishop according to the teachings of our Faith and the institutions of our Divine Saviour. Nowadays, a bishop is shut up in his study, writing out dispensations or answering letters. If he sometimes makes his appearance in a parish, it is because he alone can give Confirmation. If it were not for Confirmation he would hardly be seen among the people; and it might happen that during the whole course of an episcopal career not a soul had ever given an account of duty fulfilled or neglected to the representative sent by Jesus Christ to dwell in the midst of His people.”

A Long Episcopate

During the nine and twenty years of his episcopate, Monsignor de Mazenod did, indeed, dwell in the midst of his people of the See of Marseilles. He became their only bishop in 1837. He, who loved the quiet of the study and the library, now gave himself to the public life of his diocese. He was there in the churches of Marseilles at all the solemn functions of the Church. In the streets of Marseilles, and particularly in the poorer streets and alleyways, he became as familiar a sight in his comings and goings as any priest on the rounds of his parish duties. High on the fifth floor of some quayside tenement a child is dying, and through the winter night and the darkened streets, the Bishop comes to baptize the child. Through lanes of hovels and cabins, the Bishop makes his way to the bedside of an aged woman who has asked to receive the Last Sacraments from his hands. At Easter, in a busy parish to which a new pastor has yet to be appointed, the Bishop comes to undertake the distribution of Communion to the sick. During the many epidemics of cholera, which swept 19th century Marseilles, Monsignor de Mazenod was to be found in hospital and fever ward, by the bedside of the dying. And when those about him implored him to husband his strength and to leave such active work to other and younger men, he had a ready answer:

“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 amongst the rich. It is true,” he added with a smile, “that this is not the way to become a Cardinal; but if one could become a saint, would it not be better still?”

And always Eugene de Mazenod remembered that early resolve of his that the poor amongst his people should have the Gospel preached to them in a language they could understand. He preached in all his pastoral visits to the city churches; at Confirmations he preached to the children and to their parents and god-parents; he preached each Monday in his own chapel, and in all churches where he said Mass or presided at religious functions. And when on visitation throughout the Midi he remembered that long-ago preacher of shining phrase and Parisian eloquence and preached his own sermons in Provençal.

The value of a bishop’s episcopate is not to be measured in figures and statistics, but it is a fact that illuminates Monsignor de Mazenod’s work for his people that in the years between 1823 and 1861, the year of his death, no fewer than twenty-two new parishes rose up in the diocese; twenty-six other churches, including the Cathedral itself, were reconstructed, enlarged or repaired. And towering over the waterfront and harbour of Marseilles there began in his episcopate the building of the Basilica of Notre Dame de la Garde.

The Foreign Missions

The spirit of Eugene de Mazenod was not to be confined within the limits of a diocese, devoted to that diocese though he was. Soon other work was opportunely offered to the man whose favourite boyhood reading had been the story of the Chinese missions. During the summer of 1841, there came to Marseilles the Canadian Bishop, Monsignor Bourget, of Montreal. He had come to Europe to find missionaries to work in the vast mission fields of North America, amongst the Red Indian tribes in Canadian territory. By good fortune, Monsignor Bourget’s search brought him to Bishop de Mazenod. The Canadian Bishop explained his need to the French Bishop.

“Missionaries to work amongst the Indian population?” Monsignor de Mazenod said. “But the foreign missions were not in our plans; and besides, I have so few priests whom I could send as Missionaries . . .”

“And I have so many, both white and Indian, who are poor and destitute in soul and body; so many crying out to hear the word of God . . .”

It was the appeal which Eugene de Mazenod had never been able to resist. Once again, as in those days amidst the poor of Aix, a quarter of a century before, the call had come to him from the forgotten men of the world; and once again, he remembered his long-ago resolution to bring the Gospel to the poor.

That day he put Bishop Bourget’s request before his Oblates. Of the forty-five members of the congregation, every one volunteered. But six only were chosen. They embarked at Le Havre on 22nd October, a contingent of four Fathers and two Brothers. It was the beginning of long years of fruitful work in the prairies and wildernesses of Canada.

IV – Missionary to the World

The work which began in that October of 1841 with such few numbers, soon began to assume larger proportions. Four years later, in 1845, the Bishop of Saint Boniface in Manitoba, Canada, offered the Oblates a territory as large as Europe, in the North-west of Canada. Without hesitation, Eugene de Mazenod accepted the enormous task of finding Missionaries for that territory.

Alaska and Canada

“I cannot permit of any hold up,” he declared and that firm declaration was the signal for the beginning of the Oblates’ epic work in this new land. Slowly at first, and then more quickly as new helpers joined their ranks, the Oblates spread across the prairies, moved onward to the dreary wastes of the Hudson Bay territory, established themselves amongst the Eskimo. By the August of 1859, Father Grollier had reached the Arctic circle at Fort Good Hope, and had gone on to the mouth of the Mackenzie River to become, in the words of Pius IX, one of the first of the “Martyrs of Cold”. Sioux, Cris, Blackfeet and many other tribes had come to know the missionaries whom they called the Oblate Black Robes and the Oblate Bishops whose name amongst the tribes was Great Chiefs of Prayer. The work done by these sons of de Mazenod is, perhaps, aptly summed up by a traveller who visited the western territories in the eighteen-nineties, fifty years after that first band of missionaries had sailed from Le Havre.

“The prairies are left behind, and the fastnesses of the mountains are entered. The Canadian Pacific railway cars thunder through the passes twice a day; but ten years ago, they had been trodden by the feet of no white men with one exception. As the train winds through the magnificent valley of the Frazer, here and there on mountain tops, may be seen, black against the sky, a rude cross, which marks an Indian burying ground. At each stage of the journey, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, the Church Universal is seen justifying its title by its adaptability to the nature and needs of each varying community. She observes precisely the same ritual, framed in identical language [Latin], for a little band of Blackfeet Indians, kneeling in a log hut in the Far West, as she uses for a French congregation in the Basilica at Quebec, or for the Irish immigrants who worship in Toronto Cathedral.”

From that success the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, the Missioners of Provence who became missionaries of the world, can claim, under God, their full share of credit. And the Canadian work of the sons of de Mazenod set a pattern for their labours across the world.

Sri Lanka

The work of the Oblates in Ceylon began with an appeal from the Coadjutor Bishop in Jaffna to Monsignor de Mazenod, asking the founder of the Oblates to send missionaries to help in the work of converting a population of more than one and a half million pagans and of ministering to the 100,000 Catholics on the island. That appeal was at once answered. The first Oblates went to Ceylon in 1847. Today there are almost three hundred Oblates (including a Cardinal) working in Sri Lanka (Ceylon).

“I would like to be able to supply missionaries for the whole world,” the Bishop of Marseilles cried constantly, and, so far as it was in his power and the power of his Oblates, he endeavoured to answer every request for missionaries that came to him.

South Africa

Scarcely had his group of missionaries sailed for Ceylon when there was yet another request. This time it came from the Prefect of Propaganda, Cardinal Barnabo, and asked for priests to work in the mission field of South Africa. “How could we refuse that which came from the legitimate voice of the Pope?” Eugene de Mazenod wrote in his diary on receiving that request. And once again, he made decisive answer to the request. In the autumn of 1851, Monsignor Allard, consecrated in Marseilles, embarked with three Fathers and a Brother for the port of Natal.

And so the territories, marked by an Oblate Cross, spread across the map of the world. Before the Founder died in 1861, his sons were to be found, to quote Father Cooke, “on the shores of the great Atlantic, amidst the snow-clad pine forests and dismal prairies of the Hudson Bay territory, near the shores of the Polar Sea, amongst the vastnesses of the Rocky Mountains, on the coast of the Pacific, on the plains of Texas, amidst the burning sands of South Africa, on that fairest of the islands of the Indian Ocean, Ceylon. To all these points in Asia, Africa and America did de Mazenod live to see his labours of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate extended.”

England, Ireland, Scotland

The Oblates went to preach their missions in the towns and cities of England and Scotland and Ireland. Typical of their history is the story of their coming to Dublin. In 1857, an Oblate of Mary Immaculate, preaching a mission in Dublin, had sought permission of the Archbishop to commence pastoral work in the Archdiocese. He was granted permission to work in the district of Inchicore. Here more than a thousand families of railway workers lived. Those who had not grown careless of their religious observances heard Mass and confessed and communicated in neighbouring parishes, for they had no church of their own. To them came the Oblate missioner.

Australia

In 1845, Bishop Brady of Perth called on the Oblate Founder and asked for missioners for Western Australia. Reluctantly he had to refuse. It was to be fifty years before the Oblates came to Australia, this time at the request of Bishop Gibney of Perth. They came to Fremantle to care for the local people and to open an Industrial School for boys. In 1926, they took over the parish of Sorrento, Victoria. Gradually they spread their pastoral care in parish and mission work throughout Victoria and the other States. Answering the call of the Bishops for Catholic Education, they opened three Colleges through Australia and an Oblate Education Centre in Sydney. To ensure the continuation of their work a House of Studies was opened in Mulgrave, Victoria.

The Oblates have contributed much to the care of the Italian Migrant population especially in Western Australia. Italian speaking or Italian born Oblates have worked among the local population for many years.

In recent years, the Oblates have spread to New Zealand and more recently to Indonesia where they work in Jakarta and Central Java.

Last Days

That story of the Oblates, of “the Pope’s men” going out to the ends of the earth, brought comfort to the last hours of the Founder. One day, during his last illness, a letter came from one of the foreign missions of the Order. Told of the letter, he asked if it was a letter that called for his guidance on spiritual matters or on matters of organisation. Told that it was a letter concerned solely with the routine organisation of the missioners, he said that this, now, was a matter, which had passed into the hands of others who would carry on the work he had begun. The work of organising and directing his missionaries in the far corners of the world was no longer his concern:

“My only business now,” he said, “is to prepare for a good death.”

Death came to him on the 21st day of May in 1861. As his long, fruitful life of constant prayer and unceasing effort came to its close, he could look with pride on the transformation of a handful of dedicated men labouring in the towns and villages of the Midi into a mighty battalion in the Church’s apostolic army. His Oblates of Mary Immaculate were being faithful to the chosen motto of their Founder: “To preach the Gospel to the poor, He has sent me.”

His Work Today

At the death of the Founder in 1861, his Oblate Congregation numbered just about 500 members.

One hundred years later the official total of membership shows an impressive muster of almost 7,000 members spread through 44 countries and pursuing the Ministry of the Gospel in more than 70 differing languages.

The tiny mustard seed planted in the poverty of Aix in January, 1816, has grown to a large Institute in the Church of God — an Institute that knows no boundary or frontier and extends, literally, from Pole to Pole. The legacy of Eugene de Mazenod is large for his sons have, under Providence, been chosen to “inherit the earth” for their portion and the Church, for her part, has shown its approval by proclaiming him, “Blessed” in 1975.

– from the booklet Saint Eugene de Mazenod, Priest, Missionary, Bishop, Founder of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, by Philip Rooney; published by the Australian Catholic Truth Society, 1975

SOURCE : https://catholicsaints.info/catholic-truth-society-saint-eugene-de-mazenod-priest-missionary-bishop/

San Carlo Eugenio de Mazenod Vescovo e fondatore

21 maggio

Aix in Provenza, Francia, 1 agosto 1782 - Marsiglia, Francia, 21 maggio 1861

Nato ad Aix in Provenza il 1° agosto 1782 figlio di una nobile famiglia, Carlo Giuseppe Eugenio Mazenod trascorre la sua gioventù in Italia, esule della rivoluzione francese. Torna in patria nel 1802, sei anni più tardi, entra nel Seminario di San Sulpizio a Parigi e viene ordinato sacerdote ad Amiens nel 1811. Torna ad Aix e qui, nel 1816, fonda la Società dei missionari di Provenza che più tardi si chiameranno Oblati di Maria Immacolata. Nominato vicario della diocesi di Marsiglia e poi, nel 1837, vescovo " per ben 37 anni" , attua pienamente il suo motto: «Mi ha mandato per evangelizzare i poveri». Muore il 21 maggio 1861, lasciando in testamento agli Oblati che lo circondava queste parole: «Praticate tra voi la carità, la carità, la carità" e a al di fuori lo zelo per la salvezza delle anime». E' stato beatificato il 19 ottobre 1975 da Paolo VI e proclamato santo da Giovanni Paolo II nel 1995.

Etimologia: Carlo = forte, virile, oppure uomo libero, dal tedesco arcaico

Emblema: Bastone pastorale

Martirologio Romano: A Marsiglia in Francia, san Carlo Eugenio de Mazenod, vescovo, che, per portare il Vangelo tra i poveri, istituì i Missionari Oblati di Maria Immacolata e per circa venticinque anni diede lustro alla sua Chiesa con le virtù, le opere, la predicazione e gli scritti. 

Suo padre era presidente della Corte dei conti della Provenza e aveva visto con trepidazione il 5 maggio 1789 radunarsi gli stati generali a Parigi, sotto l’influsso delle idee rivoluzionarie e massoniche. Nel 1790 l’illustre magistrato, Monsieur de Mazenod, da Aix-en-Provence, si rifugiò con la famiglia a Nizza, allora appartenente alla repubblica di Genova, per il momento ancora libera dai rivoluzionari di Francia.

Un ragazzo esule

Portava con sé un bambino di otto anni, nato il 2 agosto 1782, a Aix, intelligente, di singolare bontà, di nome Eugenio. Dai suoi genitori, il piccolo aveva imparato a conoscere e amare Gesù e la sua Chiesa, a pregare come si parla al più grande Amico e unico Signore. Quando le armate rivoluzionarie dilagheranno anche a Genova, nel regno di Piemonte e in Italia, per diffondervi, tramite violenze di ogni genere, la negazione di Gesù Cristo e della sua Chiesa, Eugenio e la sua famiglia si rifugiarono prima a Torino, poi a Venezia e a Napoli, infine a Palermo.

A Venezia, Eugenio frequentò le lezioni tenute dai fratelli Zinelli, santi preti, dai quali ebbe scuola e formazione spirituale così salda che né le difficoltà dell’esilio, né le idee sovversive del tempo, né gli ambienti in cui si trovò, poterono intaccare la sua fede.

Anzi, proprio in quel tempo in cui aveva sentito di migliaia di martiri caduti per amore a Gesù sotto la ghigliottina o per la persecuzione dei rivoluzionari, era sbocciato in lui il desiderio di consacrare la vita al suo Signore e Maestro: «Sarò sacerdote per Lui. Io vivrò per Lui».

In prima linea

Nel 1802 a 20 anni, poté rientrare in Francia e a Parigi chiese di essere accolto nel Seminario di Saint Sulpice. Il dibattito era caldissimo sui diritti del Papa Pio VII, conculcati, e sulle offese atroci fattegli da Napoleone, giunto al potere. Eugenio de Mazenod, nella difesa del Papa, diventò uno dei più stretti collaboratori di Mons. Emery, che lo nominò suo agente di collegamento con i Cardinali romani, esuli a Parigi.

Finalmente il 21 dicembre 1811, poté essere ordinato sacerdote da Mons. Demandolx, Vescovo di Amiens. Nel 1812, rientrò a Aix-en-Proven&SHY;ce, la sua città natale, dove iniziò il suo apostolato predicando la Quaresima in provenzale nella chiesa della Maddalena «per i suoi rispettabili fratelli, i poveri». Fu un successo per le confessioni e le conversioni ottenute.

Subito fondò un’opera per la formazione cristiana della gioventù e accettò di dedicarsi all’apostolato nelle carceri. Nel 1815, si impegnò ancora di più nelle missioni parrocchiali iniziando nell’antico Carmelo di Aix la Società dei Missionari di Provenza, per l’apostolato della gente più povera delle campagne. Era nato il primo nucleo degli Oblati di Maria Immacolata.

Padre dei suoi sacerdoti

Nel frattempo era stata ripristinata la diocesi di Marsiglia, da affidarsi al Canonico Fortunato De Mazenod, come Arcivescovo, e a suo nipote Mons. Eugenio, come vicario generale. Correva l’anno 1823 e Mons. Fortunato aveva 73 anni, suo nipote e vicario ne aveva 41: entrambi, con perfetto accordo, intendevano rivitalizzare la diocesi che troppo aveva patito durante la rivoluzione e l’impero. Nessuna difficoltà riuscì a fermarli nel progetto di «preparare un Clero all’altezza dei tempi».

Per 14 anni, Mons. Eugenio De Mazenod sarà vicario generale, poi toccherà a lui raccogliere nelle sue mani il governo episcopale di Marsiglia, fino a essere considerato il 2º fondatore della medesima diocesi.

La città portuale stava enormemente sviluppandosi e crescendo; aumentavano i traffici e i commerci, portando nuovi problemi economici e sociali. L’Arcivescovo pensò subito di rendere i metodi di apostolato più adeguati alla crescita della diocesi per rispondere con il Vangelo di Gesù, sempre valido e attuale, ai nuovi problemi.

In breve, 22 nuove parrocchie. Oltre a far erigere il grande Santuario di Nostra Signora della Guardia e la nuova cattedrale, progettò un grande numero di chiese nuove e molte altre fece restaurare. Chiamò in diocesi ben 25 Ordini religiosi a collaborare con i suoi preti diocesani per un apostolato che doveva arrivare a tutti, anche ai più lontani.

Ai suoi preti, già come vicario generale, poi come Arcivescovo, si rivolge con la premura di un padre e un vero maestro di santità, affinché, «a immagine di Cristo», con le dimensioni del suo Cuore divino che «abbraccia Dio e il mondo nella carità teologale e non ha pace finché c’è un’anima da salvare».

A ognuno di loro, chiede regolarità di vita, dedizione a Cristo e al ministero del confessionale, della predicazione, del catechismo, con l’intento di portare tutti a Gesù Eucaristico e da Lui al Cielo.

Centro della sua Azione è l’Eucaristia: «Lì – spiega con frequenza – Gesù è in stato di vittima come sulla croce. È non solo la vittima, ma anche il Sacerdote che si offre e si immola per noi, per attirare su di noi tutte le grazie meritate con il Suo Sacrificio, per allontanare i castighi della giustizia divina che le nostre infedeltà ci attirano».

L’impulso missionario

Soprattutto la povera gente del popolo, in primo luogo le note «pescivendole» di Marsiglia, si affezionano a lui, aristocratico anche nell’aspetto, ma così fedele alla sua vocazione di Vescovo, di Padre e Maestro della fede. Marsiglia intera lo venera, già in vita, come un santo.

Ai suoi Oblati, di Maria Immacolata, perfezionando la loro fondazione, dà come motto l’affermazione di Gesù: “Dio mi ha mandato a evangelizzare i poveri». L’ora di Dio giunge per loro quando nel 1841, vengono chiamati in Canada: 4 suoi missionari e 2 coadiutori laici si imbarcano per quel Paese lontano, subito seguiti da altri. Per la loro opera, sostenuta dal santo Arcivescovo, il messaggio di Gesù si propaga in condizioni eroiche dal Fiume Rosso all’Oceano Glaciale, dal Pacifico alla baia di Hudson.

In 20 anni, gli Oblati crescono da 60 a 415, davvero benedetti da Dio con l’affluenza di numerose vocazioni.

Altre missioni seguiranno negli Stati Uniti, nel Messico, a Ceylon, in Sud-Africa. Vedere espandersi il Regno di Gesù nella sua diocesi di Marsiglia e in terra di missione, è la gioia più grande di questo pastore dal cuore ardente come Gesù. Come grazia ultima, chiede di poter morire in piena lucidità. Offre a Dio il suo estremo sacrificio, mentre intorno a lui i suoi «figli», cantano dolcemente la «Salve Regina». È il 21 maggio 1861.

Papa Paolo VI lo beatificò il 19 ottobre 1975 e Giovanni Paolo II, il 3 dicembre 1995, lo iscrisse tra i santi: Sant’Eugenio de Mazenod.

Autore: Paolo Risso

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In casa sua ci sono dodici domestici, e lui da piccolo ogni tanto li fa stare immobili e schierati ad ascoltare i suoi discorsi, che imitano quelli dei predicatori. Ha tre nomi (Carlo, Giuseppe, Eugenio), secondo l’uso della famiglia, che è nobile per parte di padre e ricca per la dote proveniente dalla madre. Scoppiata nel 1789 la Rivoluzione francese, i Mazenod fuggono in Italia (Torino, Venezia, Napoli, Palermo), ma già nel 1795 la madre torna in patria, e chiede il divorzio dal marito per salvare il patrimonio dalle confische. 

Eugenio ricompare ad Aix-en-Provence solo nel 1802, a vent’anni. Potrebbe avviarsi alla carriera amministrativa, come suo padre; ma durante il soggiorno veneziano (1794-97), il sacerdote Bartolo Zinelli lo ha già avviato alla vita di fede. E lui, nel 1808, entra nel seminario di San Sulpizio a Parigi, ricevendo poi l’ordinazione sacerdotale ad Amiens nel 1811. 

Tornato ad Aix, si dedica unicamente alla predicazione, con alcuni altri sacerdoti votati alla missione popolare nelle campagne scristianizzate dalla Rivoluzione (e dai pessimi esempi di prima). Con essi, nel 1816, egli fonda la Società dei Missionari di Provenza, che più tardi si chiameranno Oblati di Maria Immacolata, con tutti i riconoscimenti pontifici, ma sempre scarsi di numero: nel 1841 saranno appena 59. Intanto Eugenio de Mazenod diventa vicario generale della diocesi di Marsiglia (che è guidata da un suo vecchio zio). Più tardi ne sarà vescovo e, in 37 anni di ministero nella grande città portuale, si scriverà: "egli ricostruì l’opera di quindici secoli". Il tutto, in mezzo a frequenti scontri con i Governi di Parigi – monarchici o repubblicani che fossero – e a penosi dissensi con sacerdoti che non accettavano la regola della vita in comune da lui imposta. 

Ma gli volevano bene i semplici fedeli; "e in particolare le famose e tremende pescivendole si affezionarono a quel prelato aristocratico tanto fedele alla sua vocazione: l’evangelizzazione del povero" (N. Del Re). Oltre a guidare la diocesi, Eugenio continua a governare i suoi Oblati, che negli anni Quaranta del secolo “esplodono”: i 59 del 1841 saranno 415 vent’anni dopo, e continueranno a crescere, andando a predicare in Canada, Stati Uniti, Messico e poi in Africa e in Asia. 

Da giovane prete aveva preso il tifo in mezzo ai prigionieri di guerra austriaci, sostituendo il loro cappellano che di tifo era morto. E pure la morte sua è ancora predicazione. Egli ha sempre chiesto al Signore la grazia di morire in piena lucidità, e così avviene: Eugenio de Mazenod si spegne al canto del Salve Regina, in mezzo agli Oblati, che sulla sua spinta andranno "fino all’estremo limite delle terre abitate", come dice Paolo VI beatificandolo nel 1975. Nel 1995, Giovanni Paolo II lo proclama santo.

Autore: Domenico Agasso

SOURCE : http://www.santiebeati.it/Detailed/32900.html

Voir aussi : http://www.eugenedemazenod.net/fra/

http://www.parish.woll.catholic.org.au/home/evale/html/founder.html

http://www.senat.fr/evenement/archives/D28/mazenod.html