Saint Who?
Saints Who Had Family Challenges
Saint Charles-Eugène de Mazenod
Bishop and founder († 1861) Feast: May 21
Eugène’s father was from an aristocratic family with a fancy title but no money. His mother’s family was wealthy but without any noble blood. It seemed a perfect match. But when the French Revolution erupted, his family had to flee their comfortable life in France to avoid certain death. Eugène was only eight years old.
Eugène’s father was also forced, for the first time in his life, to work for a living. The family moved throughout Italy as his father tried and failed to support them. When the family became destitute, his mother divorced his father, abandoned him and her son, and returned to France to reclaim her property. A priest noticed the bored, lonely teenager and offered to educate him. He taught Eugène about the classics but also about the love of God, a message that the young man greatly needed in his bitterly unhappy family situation.
When Eugène returned to France as a young man, he planned to imitate his father and marry an heiress who needed a title. But the love of God that the priest had communicated to Eugène helped him hear God’s call to the priesthood. Eugène became a priest, dedicated his life to evangelizing the poor, and eventually founded his own order, the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate, to spread the love of Christ all over the world.
Heavenly Father, instill the love
of Christ in our hearts.
