10 Reasons You Should Get to Know Saint Eugène de Mazenod

My book, Eugène de Mazenod: A Saint for Today, was recently released, and I am excited to be able to share this saint with the world. Regardless of whether or not you buy my book, I think everyone should know who this saint is. Below I have compiled 10 reasons why you should get to know Eugène de Mazenod.

1.) His life is an example of overcoming sinful inclinations. 

From an early age, Saint Eugène struggled with his temper. When he was four years old, his uncles took him to the theater where they sat in boxed seats. Below him, a ruckus broke out and disturbed his enjoyment of the show. He stood up and shouted down at those causing the disruption, "If I have to come down there!" The ringleader of the disturbance was so shocked by this that he ceased his actions, and the rest of the show was enjoyed in peace.

It was a lifelong struggle to control his temper. Once, while Bishop of Marseilles, Eugène was presiding over a solemn liturgy, and he noticed his confidant and Vicar General, Father Henri Tempier, kneeling next to him, silently praying with his breviary. In a quiet tone, the bishop asked him to put his breviary away. A short while later, Tempier still had his breviary, and he was once again quietly told to put it away. When the command was ignored again, Eugène smacked the breviary out of his hands, sending it skittering across the floor, and shouted, "Tempier, what do you take me for, a piece of dog shit?" Despite his natural inclination to anger, Eugène managed to achieve holiness.

2.) He is the patron saint of dysfunctional families/families in crisis.

Eugène's family fled their native country when the French Revolution broke out, and while in exile, his parents divorced. He then experienced years of separation from his mother, followed by years of separation from his father. For this reason, he was declared the patron saint for families experiencing upheaval due to being refugees, divorce, or other reasons.

3.) He is a powerful example of not letting the tragic events of our lives define us.

When I first began to study Saint Eugène's life for the purposes of writing a book about him, I intended my book to focus on his parents' divorce. Yet, as I studied his life and writings, I found little about the divorce and how it affected Eugène. Eventually, I realized his parents' divorce did not define him, nor does the divorce of my own parents define me. This changed my perspective on the tragic circumstances of life. We are not defined by the tragedies of our lives; we find our meaning in being a child of God.

4.) He reveals to us our inherent dignity.

Nothing makes the previous paragraph more true than Saint Eugène's 1814 Ash Wednesday sermon where he boldly proclaimed:

You are God’s children, the brothers of Jesus Christ, heirs to His eternal kingdom, chosen portion of His inheritance; you are, in the words of St. Peter, a holy nation, you are kings, you are priests, you are in some way gods...

Our identity can be found in the fact that we were created by God, and that gives us an inherent dignity.

5.) He encourages us to embrace suffering.

When you are on the cross, you must hang on to it. It is a gift.

The above quote from Saint Eugène demonstrates his attitude towards suffering. He sought to unite the sorrow of his life to the Cross of Christ. To the Christian, suffering has meaning. By uniting our sufferings to the Cross of Christ, we open ourselves to great graces.

6.) He reminds us to spread the Gospel and to do so in the best manner for the specific souls we are trying to reach.

"Leave nothing undared for the Kingdom of God." – Saint Eugène

Saint Eugène became a priest because he wanted to reach out to the most abandoned in society because, in his words, "the truth must be known to all, all having an equal right to its possession." However, he did not simply preach the same to everyone. When preaching to the poor of Aix-en-Provence, he spoke in Provençal, the language spoken by the people. When he went to the fish market in Marseilles to reach out to the wives of the fisherman, he spoke with them and matched their fast-paced wit and colorful language. The way he spoke to people in terms they could easily understand endeared him to people and increased the success he had in evangelization.

7.) He teaches us the importance of obedience.

If a man does not steep himself in obedience, he is good for nothing, whatever be his virtues.

Saint Eugène's warning above demonstrates how he felt about obedience. To him, it was of the utmost importance. When following God's will for his life, he wrote many letters to his mother (who did not want him to become a priest) stating how important it was to be obedient to God's will. “When the divine Master calls me to Him to serve His Church, at a time when everyone abandons her, am I to resist His voice?” he wrote. Moreover, when he was advised by the Vatican to stop defending himself from the illegal stripping of his French citizenship, he followed the orders of his superiors despite being told by two prominent lawyers his lawsuit would be successful. He believed that obedience to the Pope was integral to being a Catholic:

Once you are a Catholic, you are no longer free to pick and choose. One must of necessity adopt the decisions of the one established to teach; and if there is schism, it is the party who is not with Peter who has gone astray. Such is my invariable manner of thought; I would not swerve from it, even were some decision handed down by this tribunal that goes against my own views.

8.) He is a defender of religious freedom.

Following the French Revolution, the Church constantly had to fight off attempts by the government to infringe upon their rights. Eugène refused to be bullied by those in power. The government once tried to force the Church to move a cross from the public square of Marseilles into one of the churches. He refused, declaring, “I would rather die than take part in such an apostasy.” His brother bishops in France, after initially criticizing his tactics of defending the Church, grew to respect Eugène and often sought his advice on how to stand up for the Church.

9.) From him, we learn to honor Mary.

It is morally impossible for a soul to make any progress in the ways of perfection if it lacks this tender and sincere devotion to the most holy Mother of God.

Saint Eugène loved Mary and sought to imitate her obedience to the will of God throughout his life. As the founder of the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate and Bishop of Marseilles, he taught his oblates and his flock to love Mary:

We never give too much honor to the Blessed Virgin provided devotion to her is understood and practiced in the limited sense of what is due to a creature, however great and sublime she may be.

Furthermore, Eugène was an energetic supporter of the Immaculate Conception and wrote a letter to Pope Pius IX, encouraging him to proclaim the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. Five years after writing that letter, he was in Rome for the public declaration of the dogma. Describing that day, he wrote, “My heart overflowed with Catholicism.” He even requested to be buried in the miter he wore that day.

10.) A saint canonized him!

On December 3, 1995, Pope John Paul II canonized Saint Eugène de Mazenod. Of him, the now-canonized saint said, “Eugène de Mazenod was one of those apostles who prepared the modern times, our times...His influence is not limited to the times in which he lived, but continues even in our time."

Buy my book....or don't

I did not write my book to make a bunch of money. I would be totally okay with making a bunch of money because of my book, but that is not the reason I wrote the book. I wrote Eugène de Mazenod: A Saint for Today because I believe the world needs to know Saint Eugène de Mazenod. There are resources, other than my book, available one can use to learn about Saint Eugène. If you want to seek them out instead of my book, that is perfectly acceptable. However, if you are looking for a recommendation, I recommend my book. While writing it, I took great care to make it engaging and compelling. I sent it to a leading expert on Saint Eugène, and he said he "was spellbound by the fascination of your discovery of Eugene and the way you communicate it. Anecdote after anecdote, and the figure of Eugene emerges in all its colorful imperfections - the makings of a flesh-and-blood saint!"

If you would like to purchase my book, you can do so by clicking on one of these links: Amazon; Kindle; Barnes & Noble; Leonine Publishers

St. Patrick's Day Rant 2017

I told myself I was not going to be doing another one of these, but the more I thought about it, the more I could not keep silent. The main instigator for this year's rant is the decision made by many Catholic bishops in the United States to offer a dispensation from the obligation to abstain from meat on Fridays during Lent on Saint Patrick's Day. For all those who take advantage of the dispensation, I have two questions:

1.) How does eating corned beef honor Saint Patrick?

2.) What act of penance are you choosing to replace the abstinence from meat?

I fail to see how eating corned beef is necessary to honoring a Scottish saint. Even if one is not partaking of the despicable rowdiness that seems to be synonymous with Saint Patrick's Day, eating corned beef is an odd way of celebrating a Scottish saint who converted pagans as a missionary bishop. Should not the commemoration of a saint involve a spiritual aspect or at the very least studying the saint's life? Ask anyone at the Irish pub on St. Paddy's Day to tell you Saint Patrick's life story, and very few would be able to do so. A few vague details might be muttered, but unless the person is a Catholic history nerd, it would be a waste of time to learn about Saint Patrick at a bar on March 17.

Furthermore, I find it hard to believe that everyone who takes advantage of the dispensation from abstaining from meat is going to be substituting another act of penance in place of the usual Lenten requirements. Call me a pessimist, but I imagine many will forget or intentionally ignore that requirement the bishops put in place for those who wish to take advantage of the dispensation.

Lastly, this whole dispensation has made me feel confused, frustrated, angry, and disappointed. I do not intend to criticize the bishops who offered this dispensation. I know that many of them are good bishops, and I do not wish to stain their reputations. However, I expect the Church to promote sanctity. This dispensation does not do that. On a day that is already plagued by drunkeness and debauchery, a more appropriate action would be to make the Optional Memorial of Saint Patrick a day of prayer and fasting.

Read This Before Slamming That Pint of Green Beer

Every March 17, millions of people don the color green and head to the bar to celebrate Saint Patrick's Day. I have always wondered why the secular culture has embraced Saint Patrick's Day. Maybe the secular culture at large just wants an excuse for drinking excessively, and to make it appear they are not celebrating a Catholic day, they choose to wear green as a tribute to Ireland.

The truth is Saint Patrick's Day has nothing to do with the color green, beer, whiskey, or even Ireland. Saint Patrick's Day commemorates the life of Patrick, a fifth century missionary and bishop.

Saint Patrick was born in 389 AD in Bannavem Taberniae on the island of Britain. No one is sure on the exact location of this town, but most scholars suspect it is in west Scotland. The one thing that is certain is that Patrick was NOT born in Ireland.

At the age of 16, Patrick was kidnapped by pirates and became a slave in Ireland. Prior to his abduction, he had not been actively practicing the Christian faith. While in slavery, however, he felt God's presence and began praying as he tended sheep. According to Patrick's own words, he prayed nearly 100 times every day.

One night, he had a dream wherein he heard the Lord tell him a ship was waiting for him, and after six years in slavery, he escaped to search for the boat. Patrick wrote late in his life that he had to walk 200 miles to find the boat. When he reached the coast and saw a ship was indeed about to set sail, he told the captain he needed to sail with them to Britain, but the captain refused to let him board. Patrick turned around and began to pray, and before his prayer was finished, the sailors were calling out to him that they would take him on board with him.

When they returned to the island of Britain, they were without food for a long period of time.  After the captain mocked him for not praying for food, Patrick convinced the sailors to pray with him for food. Shortly thereafter, they came across a herd of swine and had food for days.

Before Patrick could be reunited with his family, he was once again taken into slavery. After being captured, he had a dream that told him he would only be in slavery for two months, and in two months time, he regained his freedom and was reunited with his family.

It was not long before Patrick knew he needed to leave his family again. In a dream, he heard the people of Ireland calling out to him, imploring him to return to them. Patrick knew this meant he was being called to serve as a missionary to the Irish people. After some resistance from his parents and some time spent studying to become a priest, he went as a consecrated bishop to the land of his six years of slavery.

In Ireland, Patrick faced on a daily basis the danger of enslavement, imprisonment, violence, and death. At times, he was thrown into jail and his death sentence pronounced, but he always escaped his peril. Nothing could shake his resolve, and in thirty years he would baptize thousands, establish many churches, schools, and monasteries, and consecrate 350 bishops.

The life of Saint Patrick has noting to do with leprechauns, pots of gold, the color green, or alcohol. It is the courageous tale of a man who desired to bring the Gospel to the pagans in what was then the most remote corner of the known world. Binge drinking and celebrating a country, while ignoring the Saint for whom the day was declared a celebratory one, is a great injustice. 

Is it wrong to celebrate? No. But before you get hammered on green beer, ask yourself "What am I celebrating?" and "What is the proper way to celebrate this?".