Carlos José Eugenio de Mazenod

Biography

His father, who was president of the Court, has to leave the country persecuted by the revolutionaries. Thus, Eugenio, from a very young age, knew suffering and exile in Italy during the French Revolution. At the age of 20, becoming aware of the desolation of the Church and the great religious ignorance in popular environments, he decided to do everything possible on his part to respond to the needs of the Church. Returning to his homeland, in Aix, he felt strongly called to the priesthood on Good Friday in 1807. He left everything and entered the seminary of Saint Sulpice in Paris and in 1811 he was ordained a priest. They offered him the position of vicar general of his diocese, but he refused it because he wanted to be “the servant and priest of the poor,” and he returned to Provence. He gathered around him a group of young people, despite Napoleon's prohibition, who would be ordained priests to awaken the faith that was about to become extinct in the hearts of many. On January 25, 1816, he founded the Congregation of the Missionaries of Provence (the future Oblates of Mary Immaculate) to evangelize the lands of Provence de-Christianized by the Revolution. On February 17, 1826, the Pope approved the Congregation and its Rule. Since 1942 it has sent missionaries around the world, first in Canada, then Sri Lanka and Lesotho. He died on May 21, 1861. His congregation spread throughout the world: Corsica, Canada, England, Ireland, the United States, Sri Lanka and South Africa. Saint Eugene possessed a deep sense of spiritual fatherhood and lived intensely in union with his children who missioned far away, in the midst of diverse and sometimes very serious difficulties.