The oblates of OMI Lacombe Canada have experienced many life changing journey’s in the history of this organization. Each month INFO Lacombe updates the community of their trips and stories hoping to educate and enlighten others.

There is SO much great content treasures buried in this site! We are going through the INFO Lacombe archives page by page to pull out those great stories to organize them in this blog. You will soon be able to easily search for stories of interest and learn from the world travelers.

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Icons are pictures of Holy Ones or scenes from Scripture. Holy Icons date from earliest Christianity and Saint Luke the Evangelist (patron saint of artists and iconographers) is considered to have been the first iconographer. 

About Saint Eugene de Mazenod

St Eugene was born a French nobleman on August 1, 1782 in Aix-en-Provence.  Following the French Revolution, his aristocratic family was torn apart by years in exile, debt and divorce and his beloved Holy Catholic Church was in tatters and under continued attack. 

He might have chosen to marry well and use his connections to gain wealth or political power, but he experienced a profound conversion of spirit on Good Friday of 1807.  While praying before a crucifix, “Jesus called him forcibly to feel the strength of his love.  Eugene wept, he lamented his sins and felt immense joy at discovering the meaning of his life—that he was destined to give himself totally to Jesus Christ”. (“Living in the Spirit’s Fire”, p vii)  St Eugene had received the spiritual gift of “Holy Tears”, of boundless love and compassion.   He was ordained in 1811 and chose to minister to the poor, abandoned and sick as well as a special ministry to youth and prisoners.  Later on he was called serve the Church as Bishop of Marseilles for many years.

St Eugene founded his fledgling group of missionary priests in 1816 and the Rule of the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate was approved by Rome in 1826.  Some of his first missionaries went to Canada in 1841and Oblates are now present throughout the world. Along with and under the patronage of the Most Holy Virgin Mary of the Immaculate Conception, he worked tirelessly his entire life as Co-Redeemer and Apostle of Christ and lover and upholder of the Church.  St Eugene died on May 21, 1861.  In his final words to his beloved Oblates, he urged that they continue always to be and to practice love or “charity, charity, charity”.Fr. Jack Lau writes about a beautiful new Icon of the Oblate Founder, St. Eugene de Mazenod.??

The genesis of this project came from discussions I had with local iconographer, Suzanne Massie Manchevsky, who lives near the Oblate retreat house, Galilee Centre in Arnprior, Ontario. After we worked together to launch the Spiritual Retreat and Icon Workshop program here at Galilee, our discussions turned to the life and charism of St. Eugene de Mazenod as the 150th anniversary of his “dies natalis” (birth into heaven) approached. 

Suzanne asked if she could write an Icon of St. Eugene, so we conducted research at the archives of St. Paul’s University in Ottawa and came away with many books, photos and DVD’s about his passionate faith and love of God, our Blessed Mother, his beloved Oblates and compassion for all, especially the lowliest. Following our initial research and a number of study and prayer sessions, we focused on listening to the Spirit and what St. Eugene was saying to each of us and we each heard the voice of the older, wiser, matured and burnished St. Eugene calling.

And so the sketching and drawing process began and Suzanne would send me photos of the Icon throughout the painting that now can be seen as a YouTube video: