Thought for the Day – 10 March – The Memorial of St Marie Eugénie de Jésus (1817-1898)
Marie Eugenie led the Assumption for fifty-five years. Her life was full. Her first priority was for her sisters: their happiness, their formation, their work. She was concerned for their health – more than two hundred sisters were to die before she did, often young and of tuberculosis.
She was constantly travelling from community to community, encouraging, consoling and challenging. As the Congregation became known, she was invited to start more and more communities. She saw her work as being always in and for the Church and her loyalty to it was absolute.
The last few years of her life were spent in increasing retirement. Gradually her health failed. Her legs refused to carry her and her speech also slowed, so that at the end she could only occasionally say a few words. Those around her were struck by her gentleness and patience. One day she managed to say –
“I am looking at my Lord.
It is in looking at Him, that we learn how to love.”
She died, surrounded by her sisters, on the 10th March 1898.
Credo of St Marie Eugenie of Jesus
I believe that our earth is a place of glory for God.
I believe that the destiny of the world is the Reign of Jesus Christ.
I believe that each of us has a mission on earth.
I believe that the aim of our religion, is not just our own eternal happiness
but to let God use us, to make the Gospel known and loved.
I believe that each one enters into God’s plan by prayer, by action and by the cross
And that to refuse His call, is to refuse our own happiness.
I believe the aim of Christian education, is to make Jesus Christ known
As the liberator and ruler of the world..
AnaStpaul 