In Auteuil, in the oratory of the General Community of the Religious Sisters of the Assumption, stands the tabernacle from the first Mass celebrated in a community of the Religious Sisters of the Assumption. And in the museum, the curtain that adorned that tabernacle. Inside the tabernacle is this inscription: “It was in this tabernacle that, on November 9, 1839, Our Lord came to take possession of His Assumption. He did not disdain this humble dwelling, looking only to the love with which our Mothers offered it to Him.” The first Mass took place on November 9, 1839. The small community, then consisting of four sisters, having spent the summer outside Paris, had settled a few weeks earlier on Rue de Vaugirard, in an apartment that Mr. de Lamennais had occupied before the sisters.
A letter from Marie Eugénie to Joséphine de Commarque (Sister Marie-Thérèse) attests to her deep desire to feel the Lord’s presence. She writes: “Upon our return to Paris, if we are fortunate enough to find a suitable home, we will be able to have a chapel in our home. It has been promised to us, and God will not deny it in answer to our prayers; yet if this blessing were to be delayed, Our Lord would compensate us by at least becoming the master of our hearts and all their desires.” Hope and wisdom.
The Lord was pleased to make Himself present, and Marie Eugénie recounts: “On November 9, the first Mass was celebrated there in the chapel, and from that day on we had the joy of having Our Lord in our midst.” The account in *The Origins* shows just how deeply moving that day was. Much later, in 1888, Marie Eugénie, in a chapter dated November 18, recalls that day. She writes: “Mother Thérèse-Emmanuel and I had prepared the first tabernacle, the first altar, that first chapel! A poor and humble chapel, it is true, but one that seemed very beautiful to us then, because we had adorned it to the best of our ability and with all our love!” Poverty and love.
In that same chapter, she speaks of Zacchaeus and his eager desire to see and know Jesus, and his joy at welcoming Him into his home… She invites the sisters to take great joy in the thought that “our Lord deigns to come and dwell in our houses”! She calls on them to reawaken their faith and to always remain grateful for the call they have received to dwell in the house of God, to live under the same roof as the Lord. Faith and Joy.
In the chapter dated June 6, 1880, Marie Eugénie writes: “He, (in the Tabernacle) must be the centre of a Religious house, the place towards which everything is directed and from which everything comes. A man’ heart is the centre of his body, as it is from the heart that everything starts and to which everything goes: as every time we breathe the blood flows to the heart and then spreads to the whole body to give it life so it must be with our Tabernacle where Our Lord makes Himself our very own. He must be the canter, the heart of the Congregation to which we belong, and of the Convent where we live. And in this Our Lord has chosen to be wholly dependent on us.” The center and heart of our life: the Eucharist.
The anniversary of this first Eucharist also reminds us that our life, as Saint Marie Eugénie says, can be “a continual Mass,” a joyful and living offering to the Lord. Everything within us can adore the One who makes Himself present at every moment.
Sister Véronique Thiébaut, RA
Archivist of the Congregation