“IT’S ALL ABOUT HUGS!”

When I think of Saint Eugene de Mazenod the idea of being hugged always comes to mind. Why? Because the event that gave him a lifelong meaning was his encounter with Jesus the Saviour. Looking at Jesus on the Cross, this young man understood how far he had wandered from God’s love: “I had looked for happiness outside of God, and outside of him I found only unhappiness and dissatisfaction.” Looking at the Saviour, Eugene understood the power of God’s love: he saw Jesus’ arms wide open to give all for him and he experienced the loving and life-changing embrace of God. As always happens when someone opens their arms to hug us, we respond by opening our arms in return. This is Eugene’s experience: God gave everything for him, and the only response possible was to give everything to God, “What more glorious occupation than to act in everything and for everything only for God, to love him above all else, to love him all the more as one who has loved him too late!”

Saint Eugene’s practical response to this experience was to give himself fully to God as a priest. Later, when he understood that his vocation was not only to priesthood but also to religious life, he began to use the word “oblate”, meaning totally given. It is here that we find the heart of what the priesthood meant for Eugene. To be a priest meant to be filled with the love of God the Saviour, and to bring others to live this same experience. In particular his efforts were directed towards those who, like himself, “had looked for happiness outside of God ... and found only unhappiness and dissatisfaction,” and whom he referred to as the most abandoned. Thus we can say that priesthood for Eugene meant being “hugged” by God and, in turn, bringing others “to be hugged” by this life-changing encounter.

In practice the ministry of the priest to bring others to experience and live God’s love entailed three things for Eugene. Firstly, to teach people who Jesus the Saviour was through preaching and catechesis. Secondly, to help people to encounter the Saviour through the sacraments, and in particular through the Eucharist and Reconciliation, as well as in a life of personal prayer. Thirdly, to help the people to live the “hug” of the Saviour through the quality of their lives and in their relationships with all in society.

Saint Eugene’s priesthood began as he looked at the Crucified Saviour with His arms wide open, and it was lived in imitation of that gesture of wide-open arms for the rest of his life: as a young priest, as Founder of a Congregation of missionaries, and as Bishop of the second largest city of France. It was all about living in and sharing the love of the Saviour, as he wrote when he was preparing to begin his priestly ministry in Aix en Provence after his ordination: “My chief occupation will be to love Him, my chief concern to make Him loved.” Yes, Eugene’s priesthood was all about hugs!