Saint Charles de Foucauld E-Book

LSJ Cathy Wright

• Herausgeber: anna ruggieri
• Kategorie: Religion und Spiritualität
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Beschreibung

An early life of wrenching loss, unbelief, and rebellion preceded Charles de Foucauld’s unlikely journey to holiness. After an encounter with God’s mercy, he devoted his life to seeking “Nazareth.” Charles’ search led him to follow Jesus in humility and prayerful solidarity with the Muslim people of Algeria, making him a prophetic witness of communion today.

Author Cathy Wright, a Little Sister of Jesus living out the spirituality of Charles de Foucauld, offers a moving portrait of this twentieth-century saint.

Leseprobe

“Perhaps the most accessible introduction in English to Saint Charles, Sister Cathy’s beautifully illustrated book provides a clear and astute account of his life and times, as well as guided meditations that invite the reader to imitate the saint. One finishes the book with a deeper understanding of how we are to ‘preach with our lives.’ Highly recommended.”

—Bonnie Thurston, author of Hidden in God: Discovering the Desert Vision of Charles de Foucauld

“In her wonderfully readable study, Cathy Wright offers readers an empathetic and fresh picture of the complex, compelling journey of Charles de Foucauld: Viscount, adventure seeker, God-besotted lover, and uncompromising disciple whose immersion in the depth of divine love discovered in Jesus of Nazareth led him into often wild uncharted territories, both geographical and spiritual. A series of artfully guided meditations cap off the narrative and allow readers to explore Brother Charles’ unique spiritual insights and nurture their own journeys.”

—Wendy M. Wright, Professor Emerita of Theology, Creighton University

“In the simple and unpretentious voice of the Little Sisters of Jesus to which she belongs, Cathy Wright tells of the life and spirit of the saint who abandoned himself into the hands of the God present among the last, the lost, the little, and the least. In a divided and worn-torn world not unlike our own, de Foucauld’s ordinary, indeed mundane, holiness patterned on the hiddenness of Jesus at Nazareth is altogether resonant with the keynotes of Pope Francis’ call to missionary discipleship: presence, encounter, humility, accompaniment, mercy.”

—Michael Downey, Theologian; North American Editor, Spirituality

SAINT CHARLES DE FOUCAULD

HIS LIFE AND SPIRITUALITY

BY CATHY WRIGHT, LSJ

Library of Congress Control Number: 2021950596

CIP data is available.

ISBN 10: 0-8198-9132-0

ISBN 13: 978-0-8198-9132-7

ISBN 13 (ePub): 978-0-8198-9133-4

Expanded from original edition, Charles de Foucauld: Journey of the Spirit, Pauline Books & Media, 2005.

Scripture texts in this work are taken from the New American Bible, Revised Edition © 2010, 1991, 1986, 1970, Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Washington, D.C., and are used by permission of the copyright owner. All rights reserved. No part of the New American Bible may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Excerpts from papal and magisterium texts copyright © Libreria Editrice Vaticana, Cittá del Vaticano. All rights reserved. Used with permission.

Permissions information is on page 169.

Cover design by Ryan McQuade

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

“P” and PAULINE are registered trademarks of the Daughters of St. Paul.

Copyright © 2022, Sr. Cathy Wright, lsj

Published by Pauline Books & Media, 50 Saint Pauls Avenue, Boston, MA 02130–3491

www.pauline.org

Pauline Books & Media is the publishing house of the Daughters of St. Paul, an international congregation of women religious serving the Church with the communications media.

Contents

Foreword

General Introduction

PART ONEUnderstanding the Mind and Heart of Charles de Foucauld

Introduction

Early Years: A Time of Tears and Confusion

From Playboy to Explorer

Questions and Conversion: Seeking the Face of God

The Discovery and Call to Nazareth

Life as a Trappist Monk: Still Searching for Nazareth

Hermit in the Holy Land and the Decision for Priesthood

Beni Abbès, Algeria

The Call of the Hoggar

Nazareth in Tamanrasset

The Visitation

Tamanrasset

Imitation of Jesus and Presence to the Muslim World

The Final Years

PART TWOPraying with Charles de Foucauld

Introduction

1 Finding a Home in Jesus

2 Receive the Gospel

3 The Presence of Jesus

4 The Restless Heart—Called to Nazareth

5 The Visitation

6 Into Your Hands . . .

Epilogue Miracles Obtained Through the Intercession of Saint Charles de Foucauld

Acknowledgments

Appendix Letter to Henry de Castries

Bibliography

Foreword

The heart of Christian life is ultimately not a matter of believing certain doctrines about Jesus but endeavoring to follow him. Many of the great saints in history devised new ways of doing this, inspired by his example of poverty, obedience to the Father’s will, mercy, and charity. Yet, aside from the circumstances of his birth, our knowledge of Jesus’ example is generally determined by the period of his public ministry, as recorded in the Gospels. But this was only the final chapter, so to speak, of his life. What of the many hidden years before his baptism at the Jordan?

For Charles de Foucauld, these years when the Son of God lived quietly among his neighbors in Nazareth, were the workshop in which the mystery of the Incarnation and its message for Christian disciples originally took root. This insight came to him while on pilgrimage to the Holy Land. He was overcome by the thought that Christ had spent so many years in his hometown, fully embodying God’s love while working as a carpenter and living among his poor neighbors. At a later stage, Charles attempted to replicate this life in a literal fashion, actually living in Nazareth and working as a janitor for a community of Poor Clare nuns.

But eventually, he decided to take this mission “public.” Nazareth, after all, could actually be anywhere. With this understanding, he set out to implement a new model of religious life and mission by living as a contemplative amidst his poor neighbors in North Africa. He was drawn there by his early experience as a French officer, when his encounter with Muslim piety had played a great role in reawakening his own dormant faith. He was determined to proclaim the Gospel from the rooftops—not with words, he said, but by the way he lived.

So Brother Charles lived and died in the desert of North Africa, waiting for followers who never arrived. But the power and attraction of his spirituality eventually spread, inspiring communities like the Little Sisters of Jesus, to which the author of this book belongs. They have taken Brother Charles’ insight about Nazareth to the far corners of the world. But in fact his spirituality can speak to all Christians.

All situations—even a global pandemic—can be our “Nazareth.” What would it mean to carry and reflect the love of God and charity for our neighbors in the ordinary setting of our daily lives? It is no wonder that Pope Francis ended his encyclical Fratelli Tutti (On Fraternity and Social Friendship, no. 287), with a reflection on Charles de Foucauld, who “wanted to be, in the end ‘the universal brother.’” As the Pope noted, it was “only by identifying with the least did he come at last to be a brother of all. May God inspire that dream in each one of us.”

Charles de Foucauld, the universal brother, died over a hundred years ago, in obscurity, and apparent failure. Yet many have regarded him as one of the great spiritual masters of modern times. Through his witness, countless people have rediscovered the face of Jesus in their neighbors and among those who are poor. And now that he has been named a saint, perhaps his message will be heard and heeded more widely.

In this invaluable guide to his life and his spiritual lessons, little sister Cathy Wright has penetrated the heart of his timely message. More than ever, the world has need of his compassionate spirit.

Robert Ellsberg

Robert Ellsberg is the publisher of Orbis Books. He has edited many volumes of the writings of Dorothy Day and written numerous books on saints and holiness. He is the editor of Charles de Foucauld: Essential Writings.

General Introduction

Some years ago I was asked to share about the life of Brother Charles de Foucauld with a group of priests. At the end, one of them said something to the effect of, “That’s all very interesting, but what does it have to do with us today?” It’s a fair question. From several points of view Charles de Foucauld is a complicated figure, and he could easily be dismissed because of his association with French colonial power in Algeria in the early 1900s.

As I have read and tried to write about Charles’ life, I have found different layers of answers to that question, each of which may appeal to different people.

On one level, Brother Charles was a marabout, someone whom everyone—Christian and Muslim alike—recognized as a man of God, not because they watched him praying for long hours of the day and night, but because they witnessed the fruit of that prayer: his down-to-earth goodness, his kindness, his openness to others, his joy. They sensed that he looked at them with love—a love that he had experienced in Jesus, a love that he knew Jesus had for them, too.

He was far from being a plaster saint. As most of us do, he struggled with faith and prayer and life—a fellow traveler along the journey. This encourages me to see that, through his faithfulness to his relationship with God and to the journey, he became more human as he became more holy, more settled, and at peace with himself and the world around him. Fortunately, that peace did not depend upon some elusive image of success, which he never found.

Brother Charles’ experience of Jesus and his reading of the Gospel continually took him beyond his preconceived ideas. He called on the Spirit of God, asking to be led in the ways of the Gospel. Among other things, he moved from an idealized conception of giving his life to God through radical, personal poverty, to understanding what it meant to give his life by concretely standing with and sharing the life of the poor, the life of a particular people, as Jesus had done in Nazareth. Pope Francis mentions Charles in the recent Encyclical Fratelli Tutti, calling him, as many do, “the Universal Brother.” It’s a phrase that Charles de Foucauld used of himself, wanting to be that brother who was truly there for each one he met.

In Fratelli Tutti, Pope Francis writes about another important aspect of Brother Charles’ spirituality, the culture of encounter: “Isolation and withdrawal into one’s own interests are never the way to restore hope and bring about renewal. Rather, it is closeness; it is the culture of encounter” (Fratelli Tutti, no. 30). Charles discovered that when one dares to draw near to the other, to live in actual proximity with the other, and to allow friendship to grow, the presence of God reveals itself. It is a presence that transforms. We are in desperate need of pathways to hope amid the shadows of the violence, division, and racism that grip our world. Charles’ respect for the other, for the person right in front of him however different in background and point of view, has a message for us. He wasn’t perfect, but he was a man who was open to growth, and this was a saving grace.

Another timely intersection of Brother Charles’ life is with the world of Islam in which he immersed himself. It was the sight of Muslims at prayer which began to reveal his own hunger for faith and a way to make sense of the world and his place in it. He welcomed this and allowed it to lead him until he eventually discovered through the Gospel that presence and encounter were ways to approach the Islamic world. The relationship with Islam is one of the critical issues facing not only the Church, but also our global community today. How are we going to work this out? Charles de Foucauld found a way through his understanding of God’s deep love for all people, especially as expressed through the Incarnation. He called this “Nazareth.” He understood it to be that simple meeting place within the context of the ordinary where God chose to dwell; where God took flesh and learned to be human too; where, in taking our flesh, Jesus helped us to recognize the common humanity that calls us together in love and has the power to put enmity to death. It is through the flesh of our daily lives that we are called to continue his mission and to reach for communion.

If our encounters with the other are to be the basis for hope, they must be rooted in our encounter with God. It is our knowledge that we are created in the image of God—not an intellectual but a deeply experienced knowing though prayer that we are children of God—which grounds us. In fact, this identity is so grounding that we are enabled to step into another’s world. I was so struck by the first chapter of John Lewis’ recent book, Over That Bridge, where he spoke of faith. He said it was the knowledge that he was a child of God that freed him and enabled him to call the man who beat him his brother. Dr. Howard Thurman, mentor to many in the Civil Rights movement, spoke in a video interview about his grandmother telling him never to forget that he was a child of God. It was a powerful and grounding memory for him as he left home for the first time. His grandmother knew that he would meet many persons who would call him other names. This is the faith of Charles de Foucauld. It’s with faith—not something static or rigid but a dynamic faith open to growth—that we can begin the journey to appreciate the difference and discover the beauty in one another: to be the brother or sister.

I began by asking why anyone would be interested in the life of this man. He was eccentric to say the least. He was a mystic. He was a lover. He was a friend. He was a brother. But to answer that question, I think Charles de Foucauld learned how to give an account of the hope that was within him (see 1 Pt 3:15), hope rooted in his faith in Jesus of Nazareth. It is a hope that our world needs today, a hope within the grasp of each one of us, wherever we are called to live our Nazareths.

In the first part of this book I will try to trace the major lines and themes of Charles de Foucauld’s life and death. This summary is not exhaustive by any means. The second part is a series of guided meditations based on themes that were present in Brother Charles’ life and which could touch any life.

Charles de Foucauld has been canonized. I resist calling him Saint Charles de Foucauld. He would not have appreciated the title. He took great pains to try to simply be a brother to all, the Universal Brother.

Part One

Understanding the Mind and Heart of Charles de Foucauld

Introduction

On the evening of December 1, 1916, Charles de Foucauld was killed in a raid on the bordj, or small fort, where he was living alone in Tamanrasset, in the Hoggar region of Algeria. He had been tricked into opening the small door of the bordj and was immediately pulled outside, where he was ordered to kneel against a wall with his arms bound behind his back. While some of the insurgents ransacked the bordj, a 15-year-old boy held Charles at gunpoint. After some time, two Algerian soldiers, bringing the mail, were spotted approaching on horseback. In the ensuing confusion and panic, the boy guarding Charles pulled the trigger. A single shot behind the ear and the marabout (holy man), as he was called, died instantly. The two soldiers were also killed.

***

Two popular misconceptions exist regarding the life and death of Charles de Foucauld. The first is that he set out to live in the Sahara as a hermit, and the second is that he died a martyr for the faith. Both are understandable stereotypes of a priest living alone and being killed in the Sahara Desert. We easily conjure up images of the ancient desert monks who fled their cities to seek God in the solitude of the desert wilderness, but Charles de Foucauld did not fit into that mold, nor indeed into any other. We have trouble classifying him, just as he himself lacked the vocabulary to adequately express his intuitions within the models of religious life or evangelization of his day. Even his own understanding of “Nazareth”—the basic intuition which remained the bedrock of his life—evolved to respond to the real-life situations that he encountered.

The truth is that Brother Charles went to the Sahara not to flee from others, but to draw near to a group of people who were considered geographically and culturally inaccessible. In the process, his life became intimately bound with theirs. He died a casualty of the violence of World War I, the effects of which reached even those remote corners as vying armies enlisted local tribes in the struggle for power.

Some have speculated that the raiders had intended to take him hostage and use him as a pawn in the political upheaval sweeping the land. To the insurgents’ way of thinking, eliminating this Frenchman’s presence would further weaken the loyalty of those who had sided with the French colonial presence, such as the Tuareg with whom Charles lived—thus leading to greater destabilization in the region.

The bordj in which Charles lived had been newly built according to his own design. It was meant to serve as a safe haven for the poor of Tamanrasset, who did not have the means to flee to the mountains should an attack occur. Within the bordj’s sturdy walls were a well, provisions, and even some weapons that could be used in self-defense. Charles had just moved there, at the insistence of his neighbors, so that everything would be ready in case the people needed to take shelter from the growing threat of violence.

Charles knew the risks of living in Tamanrasset, and he could have protected himself by taking refuge with the military. Likewise, he could have fled into the mountains with the richer nomads instead of remaining in such an isolated spot. Although a number of options were available to him, Charles decided to remain in Tamanrasset in solidarity with the people with whom he had shared so much and who had become his friends. It was this solidarity, a solidarity born of friendship, which ultimately cost him his life. It was the consequence of a choice he had made many years before his death: to reach beyond the boundaries of culture, race, religion, and language, to embrace the other as brother and sister. The way he did this and his underlying faith can provide insights into the culture of encounter that Pope Francis calls for in Fratelli Tutti (see nos. 215ff.).

***

Charles had first visited the Hoggar region of Algeria twelve years before, in 1904. He had prayed a long time over his decision—whether to settle in that part of Algeria or remain farther north in Beni Abbès. He had also needed to discern where he would live. Should he settle in a remote area where his prayer and meditation would not be interrupted; where he could be a hermit, alone with the God whose love had so deeply touched his life? Or should he settle on the edge of Tamanrasset? It was a small and isolated hamlet where he would have contact with the Tuareg nomads of the region. As he wrestled with the question, in a written meditation he imagined Jesus speaking to him:

It is love which should recollect you in me, not distance from my children. See me in them and, like me at Nazareth, live near them, lost in God.1

From a letter written shortly before his death, we gain further insight into Charles’ thinking:

I believe that there are no other words of the Gospel which have made a deeper impression and transformed my life more than these: “Whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me.” If we imagine that these words are those of uncreated Truth and come from the mouth of him who said, “This is my body, this is my blood,” how strongly are we impelled to seek and to love Jesus in these little ones, the sinners, and the poor.2

Charles stressed the fact that “no other words of the Gospel” had made such an impression on his life as these. He read them in the light of the Eucharist, of Jesus’ total gift of himself and abiding presence among us. Charles’ reading of the Gospel, and of the events that life presented to him, impelled him to make certain life-changing choices. “Nazareth,” a word charged with many layers of history and meaning for Charles, is one of the keys to understanding his life from 1888 until his death in 1916. Nazareth represented a life of deep intimacy with his beloved brother and Lord, Jesus. His desire to imitate Jesus drew him ever closer to a people with whom he wanted to share that experience of love.