Diary 1839-1841

Collection Oblate Writings 20 Saint EUGENE de MAZENOD DIARY 1839 -1841 Edited by Yvon Beaudoin, o.m.i. Translated by Edward Cardan, o.m.i Missionarii O.M.I. Rome, 2015 Editor: General Service for Oblate Studies Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate Via Aurelia 290 - 00165 Roma, Italia e-mail: [email protected] Finito di stampare nel mese di novembre 2015 dalla Tipografia Citta Nuova Via Pieve Torina, 55 - 00156 Roma Cover Image: Statue of Mons. Eugene de Mazenod Artwork of Father Andrea Martini, OFM, in the chapel of the General House O.M.I. in Rome, inaugurated February 7,1985 Table of Contents INTRODUCTION......................................................................... 5 TEXT Diary for 1839................................................................................. 17 Diary for 1840 ............................................................................... 165 Diary for 1841 ............................................................................... 209 Appendix: Administrative Letters ............................................... 235 Index of Proper Names ................................................................ 249 Index of Subjects........................................................................... 261 ILLUSTRATIONS Saint-Louis country h o u se ............................................................ 162 Emilie de V ialar............................................................................. 162 C.D. A lbini,O M I........................................................................... 163 Convent in Vico, C orsica.............................................................. 163 Bishop Ignace Bourget.................................................................. 206 J.B. Honorat, O M I......................................................................... 206 H. Guibert, O M I............................................................................. 207 Bell tower, N.D. du L aus .............................................................. 207 Shrine of N.D. du Laus ................................................................ 208 INTRODUCTION Having completed Bishop de Mazenod’s diaries of 1837 and 1838 (Vols. 18 and 19), here in this 20"' volume o f Oblate Writings I, is Bishop de Mazenod’s diary for the years 1839 to 1841. We still have the manuscripts for the diaries o f 1839 and 1840. They begin in the final part of notebook VII (September 6,1838 - February 16, 1839, then continue in notebook VIII (February 17 - June 6,1839) and notebook IX (November 9,1839 - December 17,1840). The manuscripts for 1841 have disappeared. We only have the excerpts found in the works o f Rambert, Rey and Yenveux. According to the references in Yenveux, the Founder would have written a notebook of about 90 pages (January to October 1841), and about fifty pages in another notebook for the remain ing months of the year. But, he most likely wrote sporadically, and the excerpts we do have are vary few. As he did in 1837 and 1838, Bishop de Mazenod continued to list his daily duties and occasionally enlivens them with short, and sometimes longer, reflections. However, events hinder him from writing regularly. For example, numerous New Year’s visits did not allow him time to keep up his diary from January 5 to 13, 1839. Nor does he write anything during his trip to northern Italy from June 9 to mid-August of that same year) He only begins again on November 9. There is another interrup tion between February 12 and July 31,1840. During that time, he took up his pen only once during April, to give the reason: the illness o f his uncle Fortune and his death on February 22 at 91 years of age. That death, which he calls “premature”, touched him profoundly and threw him into deep depression. “I am in such a state of mind and heart,” he writes, “that 1 value nothing and attach minimal importance to whatever happens here below. How could it be otherwise? 1 am surrounded on all sides by the shadow o f death; everything tells me that life is but a dream, the grave touches the cradle. What good is there in so much activity to place but a grain o f sand on your path as you pass by? You will soon be swallowed up in the abyss that devours generations that fall rapidly one 1 He had gone to Biandrate in the diocese of Vercelli to obtain a relic of Saint Serenus, a Bishop of Marseilles in the sixth century. He did not write an account of this trip until the following year, after July 25,1840, an account which he then introduced into his diary of 1839 after the diary entry of June 6. upon the other. I deem it folly to be seriously concerned with anything other than the salvation of one’s soul.” He starts writing again in August, then between September 13-16, on October 25, and from November 16 to December 17,1840. He gives no reason for the omissions during that time. However, we know that in October he made pastoral visits to rural parishes and in September he had gone to N.-D. du Laus, N.-D. de VOsier and Vienne in Isere to attend the consecration o f Bishop Chatrousse o f Valence. It seems that he wrote very little during the first six months o f 1841. In July he makes the following reflection: “I myself see clearly how re grettable it is that no one thinks o f keeping a register, at least o f the main events that concern the Congregation; but there must be someone other than myself to take up this task. I am too busy, always too much in demand to allow for the daily exactitude needed for this work. I have already interrupted it so many times. Will it be any different in the future? 1 do not flatter myself. Nevertheless, people are always begging for this Journal and they ask it of me, so I will keep on showing signs of good will. ” I - Characteristic traits Two characteristic traits appear in the following pages: the greater length that Bishop de Mazenod gives to describing some events and the precious details that he reveals about himself. A lengthy description of some events When he again takes up his diary in November 1839, after an inter lude o f five months, he says that he would like to have greater liberty “to give some explanation o f events relating to the diocese or the Congrega tion.” After the death of his uncle Fortune, he writes next at the begin ning o f April 1840: “I take up this journal again with extreme reluctance. After all, what will come of the trouble it gives me? To make known some mostly insignificant facts which I rarely have time to develop and on which 1 can make no reflection whatsoever....” The same type o f remark comes on December 9,1840: “/ am still overcome with distaste to con tinue this diary.... 1 must have time to add some reflections on the day’s events and 1 am unable to find that time. 1 could see an advantage in analyzing my letters as well as those that I receive.” So, he admits that he would like to keep up the diary if he had more time to reflect on the events which he recounts briefly, and to analyze the letters that he writes and receives. That is, however, what he actually does here more than before. At least a dozen times he writes two or three pages or more on the same day to describe some events at length or to elaborate them with personal reflections. For example, on January 16 and 17,1839, he devotes four pages to a detailed description of the solemn service and the formal ceremonies held on the occasion of the passage through Marseilles of the body of Princess Marie Christine (1813-1839), King Louis Philippe’s daughter, and the wife o f Duke Frederick William Alexander o f Wurtemberg, who had died recently in Pisa. On February 25, in a page filled with joy, he says he was “con soled” to see three Fathers who had caused him suffering in the past by their disobedience and bad spirit return to fervor: Fathers Calixte Kot- terer, JA . Valentin Reinaud, and A. Adrien Telmon. On March 8 and 9, he describes a marble plaque bearing an inscrip tion that was found while digging in front o f the Augustinians’ church (Ms. VIII, pp. 10 and 11) and on the 12th he does the same concerning a stone monument found at Algiers and which he writes, “proves irrefut ably that this city was built over my Icosia” (Ms. VIII, pp. 14 and 15). On March 9 when Gaston de Missiessy stops in Marseilles, Bishop de Mazenod recalls all that he had done for the young man when he was teaching him catechism at the church o f Saint Sulpice in Paris in 1809- 1810 (Ms. VIII, pp. 10 and 11). On March 31, Easter Sunday, a young lawyer came to inform him that “the despicable woman Arbieu” was preparing a lawsuit against him. He then writes seven pages about his “heart” and all he has had to suffer from the people of Marseilles who do not understand him. We will come back to these important pages later on. He continues this reflection on April 5, stating that he still owed 145,000francs for the construction o f the church o f Saint Lazarus (Ms. VIII, pp. 25-33). On April 10, he spends the day with Cardinal d ’Isoard examining the case ofFr. Gabriel, a retreat preacher, who “attacks everything: dogma, moral and discipline; he indiscriminately attacks things and persons. Nothing is sacred for him anymore. Councils, popes, bishops, Sacred Scripture, the most sacred dogmas like the Trinity, the Incarnation, Re demption, original sin, man’s free will, the Eucharist, Orders, Penance, everything is crushed by this infernal tooth.” (Ms. VIII, pp. 34-36). On April 15, 1839, he blames Canon Jeancard, his private secre tary, because he had not written after being absent for ten days, and Fr. Marc Caihol, secretary general o f the bishop’s office, who did not want to serve the bishop’s Mass. (Ms. VIII,pp. 38-39). On April 20, he writes two pages about the Confirmation o f a young girl who was to be sent to Swit zerland to be educated in the Protestant religion, and how he had just “discovered a new henchman o f the devil..., a Lenten preacher, honored with the mozzetta” who had seduced a young girl (Ms.

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