“Ozanam: that type of Christian, as ancient as his religion, as modern as his time.“
Father Henri Lacordaire O.P. about his friend Blessed Frédéric Ozanam (1813-1853)
For some months I have been reading through biographies on Blessed Frédéric Ozanam (1813-1853), the founder of the Saint Vincent de Paul Society. Only slowly do I make progress in this endeavor, as I do not have too much time and leisure left these days. But it fits well to the vast and deep richness of his only forty years of earthly existence that I cannot get done and finished with the story of his life.
Last words
Just a couple of months before dying on his sickbed with “My God, my God, have mercy on me“ on his lips, Blessed Frédéric Ozanam, married to Amélie, the wife he loved very much, and father to a little girl named Marie, born in 1845, wrote this:
“If you call me, I will come; I have no right to complain. You have given forty years of life to a creature who arrived on earth sickly, frail, destined to die ten times, if the tenderness and the intelligence of a father and a mother had not saved him ten times…. Ah! All the prayers which then were addressed to You in my favour were heard. Those made to You today and in much greater numbers, why should they be lost? But perhaps, Lord, You will grant them in another guise. You might give me courage, resignation, peace of soul, and those inexpressible consolations which accompany your actual presence. You might make me find in illness a source of merit and blessings – and have these blessings fall on my wife, my child, on all my relatives, for whom my works had perhaps served less than would my sufferings. If I express the years of my life with bitterness before You, it is because of the sins that have sullied them; but when I consider the graces that have enriched them, I look back upon them, Lord, with gratitude to You. If You should chain me to this sick-bed for the days that I have yet to live, they would be too short to thank You for the days that I have lived. Ah, if these pages be the last I ever write, may they be a hymn to your goodness!“
Blessed Frédéric Ozanam, quotation taken from: Kevin Kraft O.P.: Blessed Frederic and Amelia Ozanam, Paulines Publications Africa 2018 (e-book), p. 7-8
Among the gifts of his life that always made him praise God‘s goodness, the graces of marriage and family ranked first.
It seems that back in the 19th century, the sons and daughters of the Church still clearly knew that there are exactly two distinct vocations between which one must choose: the religious vocation, and the vocation of marriage and family, each one being in its own shape and form a way of life that prioritizes communion and relationships. And here is how Blessed Frédéric found his calling…
The question of vocation
For some time, Blessed Frédéric considered, as a young man, becoming a Dominican friar. The Dominican priest Father Henri Lacordaire invited him to join him in reestablishing the Dominican community of Paris.
“I shall see the Abbé Lacordaire on his return from Rome (…) assure myself whether divine providence may not be willing to open to me the doors of the order of Saint Dominic.“
Blessed Frédéric Ozanam, quotation taken from: Rev Ronald Ramson C.M.: Hosanna! Blessed Frédéric Ozanam: Family and friends, WestBow Press 2013 (e-book), p. 40
Blessed Frédéric asked his friends for their prayers during his process of discernment. From Abbé Noirot, who had been mentoring him for many years already, he received the answer:
“Get married, mon cher, get married.“
Abbé Noirot, quotation taken from: Rev Ronald Ramson C.M.: Hosanna! Blessed Frédéric Ozanam: Family and friends, WestBow Press 2013 (e-book), p. 40
But why? Abbé Noirot was convinced that Blessed Frédéric, a very sensitive soul, was in need of a tender companion for life.
Blessed Frédéric got engaged to his future wife Amélie at the age of 27. They married some months later, on the 23rd June 1841. Until his death, Blessed Frédéric would always honor their wedding anniversary each and every month – giving Amélie flowers on the 23rd.
The beautiful hymn on marriage which Blessed Frédéric wrote, while being only 20 years of age, in a letter to a friend who was about to get married completely confirms Abbé Noirot‘s knowledge of the true makeup of his soul…
The young Frédéric Ozanam on marriage
“The great action you are contemplating at present will only serve to redouble your zeal and your strength. ‘When two or three are gathered together in my name,’ says the Saviour, ‘there am I in the midst of them.’ It is in that divine name that you will prepare to unite yourself to a wise and pious wife: the promise will be accomplished in you both. In giving your love to someone who will be justifiably dear, you will not withdraw it from the poor and miserable whom you loved first.
Blessed Frédéric Ozanam, quotation taken from: Kevin Kraft O.P.: Blessed Frederic and Amelia Ozanam, Paulines Publications Africa 2018 (e-book), p. 18-19
Love possesses something of the divine nature, which gives itself without diminishing, which shares itself without division, which multiplies itself, which is present in many places at once, and whose intensity is increased in the measure that it gains in extension. In your wife you will first love God, whose admirable and precious work she is, and then humanity, that race of Adam whose pure and loveable daughter she is. You will draw comfort from her tenderness on bad days, you will find courage in her example in perilous times, you will be her guardian angel, she will be yours.
You will then no longer experience weakness, discouragements and the terrors which have seized upon you at certain times of your life; for you will no longer be alone.
You will never be alone again, your virtue will be shared in legitimate hope, the alliance you are about to contract will be an immortal alliance: what God joins together, what He has insisted no man separate, He will not Himself separate, and in heaven He will invest
with the same glory those who here below were companions in the same exile.“
Blessed Frédéric Ozanam and his wife Amélie
Blessed Frédéric Ozanam, pray for us!
Post scriptum: Blessed Frédéric, sick and close to death, in his last will…
“My supreme prayer to my wife, my child, my brothers and brothers-in-law, and all those who may be born of them, is to persevere in the faith, in spite of the humiliations, the scandals, and the desertions they will be witness of. To my tender Amélie, who has made the joy of my life, and whose devoted care has consoled my long sufferings, I address a farewell – short, like all earthly things. I thank her, I bless her, I await her. It is only in heaven that I shall be able to give her back all the love she deserves. I give to my child the blessing of the patriarchs, in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. It grieves me not to be able to carry on further the dear labour of her education, but I confide it without fear to her virtuous mother.”
Blessed Frédéric Ozanam, quotation taken from: Kevin Kraft O.P.: Blessed Frederic and Amelia Ozanam, Paulines Publications Africa 2018 (e-book), p. 44