By Fr. Ron
Ramson, CM Dallas 2013
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Father Ron Ramson is a Spiritual Director at Holy Trinity Seminary. His most recent book, "Hosanna!: Blessed Frederic Ozanam: Family and Friends" can be found on Amazon.com.
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At Christmas, on home visits to the poor, Frederic
would give a small gift: a book, a picture, or something he thought that they
would like.[1]
On New Year’s, Frederic would visit the poor and
give little presents to their children.[2]
Frederic wrote a letter to Francois Lallier, his
close friend and his daughter Marie’s godfather:
“Christmas Day we took the dear child
(Marie) to church where she stayed for one and a half hours, delighted in the
lights, the music, and sang at the top of her voice ‘Jesus I give you my
heart.’ We also took her to homes of the poor small children where she had the
joy of giving some of her older toys.” [3]
One New Year’s Eve (1852?), he told his wife Amelie
about a poor family who had known better days. They had made dramatic changes
in their lifestyle. They were forced in pawning their prize possession, a chest
of drawers. Frederic said that he was tempted to go and redeem it and give it
to them as a gift for New Year’s. Amelie didn’t encourage him to do it.
The Ozanams spent the day greeting visitors. In the
evening, after all the visitors had left, Frederic won’t touch the bon-bons that his daughter Marie offered
him; he sat there watching her play with the large number of toys that she had
received that day from family and friends. Frederic became overly quiet and introspected.
Amelie pressed him: what was he thinking? He confessed: his concern for the
family without their prized possession and sight of all the money spent on
Marie’s toys. Amelie told him to go and do what he had to do for peace of his
heart. Frederic hurried out the door and returned with a big smile on his face;
he had redeemed the chest of drawers and gave it back to the family![4]
In early December (1852), the Ozanams travelled to
Toulouse by mail-coach. Here they visited the tomb of Saint Thomas Aquinas. The
conferences of the Society didn’t want him to go and insisted that Frederic
spend more time with them. Frederic was delighted to see how busy the
conferences were and the same at Montpellier.[5]
The Christmas holidays of 1852 found the Ozanams in
the south of France; here near the Mediterranean Sea weather would be in the
low to mid 50’s, more favorable than up north in colder Paris. Frederic’s mother-in-law joined them at Marseilles
where his wife Amelie had been born and where there were a number of Magagnos
family members (her mother’s relatives) lived. Amelie was delighted to have her
mother with them and she enjoyed her cousins.[6]
There was a great gathering of the family at Christmas.
Frederic mentions receiving Holy
Communion that morning at Mass:
“We spent the Feast Day
together. I remembered you in my prayers at the altar, and ask you to do the
same for me; you will find that, with the help of your prayers, we shall have a
good journey. We are starting tomorrow for Toulouse which we should reach in
five hours. We shall place ourselves under the protection of Notre Dame de la
Garde, whom we visited a short time back.”[7]
Frederic was excited about seeing the French naval
base at Toulon and the vast fleet. In Toulon there was another band of Magagnos
to visit! [8] He spoke of swollen feet, frequent spasms of pain,
and dilation about the heart, which he had had before and for which he took
digitalis.
“I hope that this
little check will not last, and that God may have sent it to me as a New Year
gift, so that I may say: ‘I will what you will, when you will, in whatever way
you will, because you will.’” [9]
“A special carriage took
us to Cannes … passing on the way, Frejus, the Esterel mountains, Antibes, a
delightful route fringed with olive trees and orange trees, all laden with
their golden fruit, and palm trees waving over a Roman ruin in the distance, at
a chapel gate, or by the side of some modern villa.”
There
“We found Mr. Coste, an
old cousin, almost blind, a dear relative of our fond mother, with whom we
celebrated the arrival of the New Year. Indeed, my dear friends, I part company
with the year of grace 1852, which had separated us, without regrets, and I
welcome 1853, which will bring us together again.”
“We are to set out
tomorrow morning at four o’clock from Nice for Genoa by the splendid Corniche
route.” [10]
From Genoa the Ozanams crossed by the ship
“Marie-Antoinette” to Livorno, Italy; it was a rough sea. A downpour drenched
them on their arrival. It was January 10, 1853 when they settled at Pisa;
Frederic was suffering from rheumatic pains and weakness, but still full of
hope; he saluted Italy.[11] This would be Frederic Ozanam’s last Christmas and
New Year’s on earth.
For Frederic Ozanam service of the poor held a top
priority in his life. It was essentially a service of love. (Ozanam in His
Correspondence, Louis Baunard, p. 343)
As brilliant as he was, as refined and spiritual as
he was, he treated the poor and illiterate as equals. It was his custom to
remove his hat when he entered their home however dilapidated it might be. His
greeting was always the same: “I am your servant.” (Ibid.) He never preached to them. After meeting their needs
as best as he could, he would sit and chat with them and strove to cheer them
up. (Ibid.)
[1]
Frederic Ozanam, Professor at the Sorbonne, Kathleen O’Meara, pp. 173-174
[2]
Ozanam in His Correspondence, Louis Baunard, p. 344
[3]
Letter #775, Paris, December 31, 1847
[4]
O’Meara, p.176
[5]
Baunard, p. 370
[6]
Ibid.
[7]
Letter #1217, Alphonse Ozanam, Marseille, December 26, 1852
[8]
Letter #1219, Charles Ozanam, Nice, January 2, 1853
[9]
Ibid.
[10]
Ibid.
[11]
Letter #1221, Alphonse and Charles Ozanam, Pisa, January 11, 1853
