Charles de Foucauld

Charles de Foucauld was born in Strasbourg, France on September 15, 1858. He was orphaned as a child and raised by his maternal grandparents. The recipient of a large inheritance, Charles lived a worldly life that resulted in the gradual loss of his faith.

Charles served in the French Army and was stationed for a time in Algeria. This was the beginning of his fascination with North Africa. After serving in the army, he traveled throughout Morocco. A book he wrote on his explorations earned Charles a gold medal from the Geography Society of Paris.

Conversion

His contact with devout Muslims in Morocco stirred Charles' heart:

Islam really shook me to the core. The sight of such faith, of these people living in the continual presence of God, made me glimpse something greater, truer than worldly concerns. I started studying Islam, and then the Bible.

Back in Paris, Charles felt a need to renew his own religious commitments. On October 29, 1886, Charles spoke with Father Huvelin at St. Augustine's Church. After confessing his sins and receiving holy communion, Charles experienced a new horizon opening in his life:

As soon as I believed there was a God, I understood that I could not do anything other than live for Him. My religious vocation dates from the same moment as my faith. How great God is! There is such a difference between God and everything that is not Him!

Fr. Huvelin encouraged Charles to make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. The journey inspired Charles to imitate the "hidden life" of Jesus of Nazareth. This was the life Jesus lived before His public ministry, a life characterized by silence, obscurity, humble work, domestic charity, and simple joys.

The idea of "Nazareth," of finding holiness in the everyday, became essential to Charles' spirituality. His understanding of Nazareth would evolve throughout his life.

Charles entered a Trappist monastery, but after several years realized that his vocation was leading him elsewhere. He lived for a while as a gardener and handyman for a convent of Poor Clare nuns in Nazareth.

His search to live the hidden life of Jesus eventually led him back to the Sahara Desert. In 1901, Charles was ordained a priest of the Diocese of Viviers in France and received permission to establish a hermitage in Beni-Abbes in Algeria. He later built a second hermitage far to the south in Tamanrasset, a tiny settlement in a remote region of volcanic mountains called the Hoggar.

Out in the desert, Charles led an austere life, marked by prayer and an unassuming ministry of friendship to the nomadic tribes of Bedouin Muslims known as the Tuaregs. To them, he became known as a "Marabout," a holy man.

Cry the Gospel

Charles welcomed all who came to his outpost: the indigenous people, French soldiers, and anyone else traveling across the forbidding landscape of the deep Sahara. He offered whatever charitable assistance his means allowed. His motivation was simply to imitate the generous love of Jesus.

From his writings:

Our entire existence and being should shout the Gospel from the rooftops. Our entire person should breathe Jesus. All our actions and our entire life should proclaim that we belong to Jesus.

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We do good, not by what we say and do, but by what we are, by the grace which accompanies our actions, by the way that Jesus lives within us, by the way that our actions are Jesus' actions, working in and through us.

Charles also voiced his protest against slavery and other acts of injustice inflicted upon the poor of the desert.

Hopes for a New Community

Charles hoped to start a new religious community based on the life of Nazareth. He wrote a basic rule for the "Little Brothers of the Sacred Heart of Jesus," but he had no followers during his lifetime.

His life would have a much greater impact in years to come, inspiring religious orders and secular fraternities around the world.

From his journal:

Jesus speaks:
Your vocation: Preach the Gospel silently as I did in My hidden life, and as also did Mary and Joseph.

Your rule: Follow Me, do what I did, in every situation ask yourself: What would Our Lord have done? Then do that. That is your only rule, but it is absolutely binding on you.

The Heart and Cross

Charles designed a "Heart and Cross" insignia to be worn on the front of his religious habit.

From his writings:

The emblem of Jesus' Heart reminds you that you must give God the same love He gives you . . . and that you must love your neighbor as yourself . . . because God loves him as He loves you.

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I am translating the four Gospels into the Tuareg language. I am trying with all my strength to demonstrate and prove to these poor lost brothers that our religion is nothing but charity and fraternity, and that its badge is a HEART.

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What is there in common between heaven and me -- between its perfection and my wretchedness? There is your Heart, O Lord Jesus. It forms a link between these two so dissimilar things.

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Through the cross we are united to Him, who was nailed on it, our heavenly spouse. Every instant of our lives must be accepted as a favor, with all that it brings of happiness and suffering. But we must accept the cross with more gratitude than anything else. Our crosses detach us from earth and therefore draw us closer to God.

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It was not by His divine words, not by His miracles, not by His good works that Jesus saved the world; it was by His cross.

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The more we embrace the cross, the more we become one with Jesus.

On December 1, 1916, Charles was shot and killed by a young member of a rebel Tuareg tribe. In a notebook he carried with him, Charles had written:

Live as though you were going to have to die as a martyr today.

Beatification of Charles de Foucauld

On November 13, 2005, Charles was beatified at the Basilica of St. Peter in Rome. He is now honored with the title of "Blessed."

Here is an excerpt from Pope Benedict XVI's address at the Beatification Mass:

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

Let us give thanks for the witness borne by Charles de Foucauld. In his contemplative and hidden life in Nazareth, he discovered the truth about the humanity of Jesus and invites us to contemplate the mystery of the Incarnation; in this place he learned much about the Lord, whom he wanted to follow with humility and poverty.

He discovered that Jesus, who came to join us in our humanity, invites us to universal brotherhood, which he subsequently lived in the Sahara, and to love, of which Christ gave us the example. As a priest, he placed the Eucharist and the Gospel at the heart of his life, the two tables of the Word and of the Bread, source of Christian life and mission.

The beatification of Charles, a step along the way toward sainthood, is official recognition of his life of heroic virtue. He is a guide for men and women on their journey to God.

The spread of industrialization creates many "deserts" in our world today. More and more people must contend with harsh environments that seem lonely, barren, and meaningless. Globalization is also mixing together people of different beliefs and cultures.

In this changing world, we can receive the silent witness of Charles as a beautiful gift, a source of hope and inspiration for all of us.

A Timeless Spirituality

Sister Magdeleine, who was inspired by Charles and founded the Little Sisters of Jesus in 1939, wrote an eloquent reflection on what it means to "Cry the Gospel with your Life." Her thoughts show the depth of this simple phrase:

To cry the Gospel by your whole life means trying to live as Jesus lived, with the Gospel to give you light.

It means living His self-surrender as a tiny child in the crib in Bethlehem, His poverty and His very ordinary life in Nazareth, both His contemplative life and His active charity on the roads during His public ministry, His surrender to God, His Father, in the pain of the passion and of the crucifixion.

It means trying to love as He loved, living in the spirit of the beatitudes: in poverty, in gentleness, in a thirst for justice, being merciful, being pure of heart, and rejoicing when you suffer persecution out of love for Christ.

-- Little Sister Magdeleine
 

Charles de Foucauld

Charles practiced a ministry of hospitality to everyone. On a visit to France, Charles introduced his cousin, Marie de Bondy, to a young Tuareg, Ouksem Ag Chikkat.

Charles painted an image of the Sacred Heart for his desert chapel. He had a great love for the Heart of Jesus.

Charles was beatified in 2005. A statue in our chapel is a reminder of his presence in our life and spirituality.