Eugène de Mazenod, OMI (born Charles-Joseph-Eugène de Mazenod; 1 August 1782 – 21 May 1861) was a French aristocrat and Catholic priest. Mazenod founded the congregation of the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate.
When he was eight years old, Mazenod's family fled the French Revolution, leaving their considerable wealth behind. As refugees in Italy, they were poor, and moved from place to place. He returned to France at the age of twenty and later became a priest. Initially focused on rebuilding the Church in France after the Revolution, their work soon spread, particularly to Canada. Mazenod was appointed Bishop of Marseille in 1837, and Archbishop in 1851.
Bishop de Mazenod was beatified on October 19, 1975, and was canonized twenty years later on 3 December 1995. The Catholic Church commemorates him with an optional memorial on 21 May, the anniversary of his death.
Three schools are named for him, in the Australian cities of Brisbane, Perth and Melbourne.
Biography
Refugee
Eugène de Mazenod was born on 1 August 1782 and baptized the following day in the Église de la Madeleine in Aix-en-Provence. His father, Charles Antoine de Mazenod, was one of the Presidents of the Court of Finances, and his mother was Marie Rose Joannis. Eugène began his schooling at the College Bourbon, but this was interrupted by the events of the French Revolution. With the approach of the French revolutionary forces, the family fled to Italy.
Eugène became a boarder at the College of Nobles in Turin (Piedmont), but a move to Venice meant the end to formal schooling. With their money running out, Eugène's father sought various employments, none of which were successful. His mother and sister returned to France - eventually seeking a divorce so as to be able to regain their seized property. Eugène was fortunate to be welcomed by the Zinelli family in Venice. One of their sons, the priest Bartolo Zinelli, took special care of Eugène and saw to his education in the well-provided family library where the young adolescent spent many hours each day. Don Bartolo was a major influence in the human, academic and spiritual development of Eugène.
Once again the French army chased the émigrés from Venice, forcing Eugène and his father and two uncles to seek refuge in Naples for less than a year, and finally to flee to Palermo in Sicily. Here Eugène was invited to become part of the household of the Duke and Duchess of Cannizaro as a companion to their two sons. Being part of the high society of Sicily became the opportunity for Eugène to rediscover his noble origins and to live a lavish style of life. He took to himself the title of 'Comte' ("Count") de Mazenod, did all the courtly things, and dreamed of a bright future.
Conversion
At the age of twenty, Eugène returned to France and lived with his mother in Aix en Provence. Initially he enjoyed all the pleasures of Aix as a rich young nobleman, intent on the pursuit of pleasure and money - and a rich girl who would bring a good dowry. Gradually he became aware of how empty his life was, and began to search for meaning in more regular church involvement, reading and personal study, and charitable work among prisoners. His journey came to a climax on Good Friday, 1807 when he was 25 years old. Looking at the sight of the Cross, he had a religious experience. He recounted the spiritual experience in his retreat journal: Can I forget the bitter tears that the sight of the cross brought streaming from my eyes one Good Friday? Indeed they welled up from the heart, there was no checking them, they were too abundant for me to be able to hide them from those who like myself were assisting at that moving ceremony. I was in a state of mortal sin and it was precisely this that made me grieve…Blessed, a thousand times blessed, that he, this good Father, notwithstanding my unworthiness, lavished on me all the richness of his mercy.
Priest
In 1808, he began his studies for the priesthood at the Saint-Sulpice Seminary in Paris and was ordained a priest at Amiens (Picardy), on 21 December 1811. Since Napoleon had expelled the Sulpician priests from the seminary, Eugène stayed on as a formator for a semester. As a member of the Seminary, notwithstanding personal risk, Eugène committed himself to serve and assist Pope Pius VII, who at this time was a prisoner of emperor Napoleon I at Fontainebleau. In this way he experienced at firsthand the suffering of the post-Revolutionary Church.