OBLATES CELEBRATE ALL SAINTS DAY and ALL SOULS DAYThe Oblates celebrates with the rest of the Church the feast of ALL SAINTS (November 1), but the day is also very important to us for another reason as well. It was on that day in 1818 when the Missionaries of Provence (the name of the Oblates before they became the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate) first made vows. The connection between these two commemorations was drawn by St. Eugene when he spoke of the commitment to striving for personal holiness for the sake of the mission: “Half-measure virtues are not sufficient to respond to all that their holy vocation demands... They are called to an entirely different kind of perfection. They must strive for it; even more is needed: they must walk in this path to become, in God’s hands, the instruments of his mercy. They must know that their ministry continues the ministry of the Apostles and that it is nothing short of working wonders. Hence, they must hasten to become saints...” (From a letter St. Eugene wrote in 1854, speaking of seminarians). When the Missionaries of Provence were asked in 1818 to accept a church in France, St. Eugene used the occasion to write the principal articles of a rule of life for his missionary group. In the last weeks of October, while on retreat with his men, he proposed that they take religious vows. At the end of the retreat on All Saints Day, all but one member made vows of obedience, chastity and perseverance (the vow of poverty was added to Oblate religious profession in 1821.) The vows were made before communion. After Mass the Te Deum was sung, the litany of the Saints was recited before the statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the newly consecrated religious missionaries finished by singing the Sub Tuum. In 1826, the Oblates decreed that this ceremony would be repeated each year. When the annual retreat did not finish on November 1, vows were still renewed during the closing ceremony. All Saints Day was then marked only by the common reciting of the Litany of the Saints before Mary’s statue and the singing of the Sub tuum. Elements of this original ceremony still serve some of the Oblate communities on this day. |
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Early in its history, the Oblates began to celebrate a community Mass for all deceased Oblates on November 3 or within the week after ALL SOULS DAY. Whenever one of the Oblates died, St. Eugene’s first emotion was usually desolation. This was soon followed by consolation as he began sensing the dead brothers’ continued presence to him in the Lord. On one occasion he wrote: “Now we have four in Heaven; this is already a nice community. They are the first stones, the foundation stones of the edifice which must be built in the celestial Jerusalem; they are before God with the sign, the character proper to our Society, the common vows of all her members, the practice of the same virtues. We are attached to them by the bonds of a particular charity, they are still our brothers, and we are theirs; they dwell in our motherhouse, our headquarters; their prayers, the love which they keep for us, will draw us one day to them so as to dwell with them in the place of our rest. I presume that our community must be placed quite close to our Patroness; I see them at the side of Mary Immaculate and, consequently, close to our Lord Jesus Christ whom they have followed on earth and whom they contemplate with delight.” (1828) The community mass on this day includes special prayers for those members of the local community and/or province who have died in the last year. If the Oblate house is near a cemetery in which Oblates are buried, a community visit for prayer at the grave side would be appropriate. PRAYER FOR DECEASED OBLATES |