Spirituality
 
A Spirituality for our Times
 
A brief Chronology of the life 0f Charles De Foucauld

1858: born 15th September, Vicomte Charles de Foucauld at Strasbourg.
Left an orphan at the age of six, with a large fortune. 1876: Enters the Military Academy of St-Cyr.
Loses his faith during his preliminary studies: "For 12 years I denied nothing, but believed nothing. I lived as one can live when the last spark of faith has gone out."
1881: de Foucauld is placed on the non-active list "for notorious misconduct,"
reinstated on his insistent request to be allowed to take part in an important
expedition in Algeria -- his first contact with a non-Christian civilization.
1883-4: At great risk, makes a second contact with a non-Christian country by
exploring Morocco, disguised as a poor rabbi : " When you start out to accomplish something, you must not come back until you have done it."
1886: Undergoes so total a conversion that he begins a long search for the vocation
to which he feels destined by making a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. " The moment I realized that God existed, I knew I could not do otherwise than to live for him alone." 1890: Enters La Trappe (Notre-Dame-des-Nieges, in France) because of his conviction that it is the Order closest to the life led by Jesus at Nazareth; then, at the end of a short time, asks to be sent to an extremely poor monastery in non-Christian Syria.
1897: Withdraws from the Order after much soul-searching and prayer, "having
come to think that it is not possible for me to live here the life of poverty, hiddenness and abjection…and humility.. of Our Lord at Nazareth." Goes to Nazareth where, hiding his identity under the name of 'Brother Charles of Jesus,' he becomes a sort of handy man to the Poor Clares : " I cannot conceive of loving you(Jesus) without feeling a contsraining need to do and be like you.."
1900: Returns to France to be ordained to the priesthood.
1901: Leaves for Beni-Abbes, an oasis in Algeria near the Moroccan border.
"I must go, not where the soil is most holy, but where souls are in the greatest need."
1905: Settles at Tamanrasset in the Hoggar, among the Tuareg.
"to carry the Gospel to the most abandoned, not by preaching it but by living it."
1916: Murdered at Tamanrasset 1st December: …" if you only knew how I desire
to finish my poor, miserable life as Jesus said : 'This is the greatest love a man can show, that he lay down his life for those he loves.'"

     

     Brother Charles from the moment of his conversion set out 'to live for God alone'. The means he chose was to live his life in imitation of Jesus, the poor workman of Nazareth. He wrote, " I could not imagine love without a longing, a compelling longing, to imitate, to resemble the Beloved, and especially to share all his life's pains, difficulties and burdens." Elsewhere he wrote, " All we are trying to do is be one with Jesus, to reproduce his life in our own, to proclaim his teaching from the rooftops in our thoughts, words and actions, to let him rule and live in us."
      The long search of Brother Charles' life was to imitate as perfectly as possible the Lord's hidden life at Nazareth.  This spiritual journey led him to embrace humility, poverty, abandonment, humiliation, solitude and suffering in imitation of Jesus of Nazareth, 'his beloved brother and Lord'.
The ultimate sacrifice came with his death; he was shot outside his hermitage in the Sahara on 1st December 1916. One of his favourite Gospel text's was, " Unless a wheat grain falls on the ground and dies, it remains only a single grain; but if it dies, it yields a rich harvest." (Jn.12.v24)
      Brother Charles was a man of profound faith and a passionate lover of the Lord.  His faith was centred on Jesus in the Gospels and was nourished by hours of adoration of Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament; and at the same time he sought to find Jesus in every human being especially the poorest and most abandoned, those furthest from Christ.
The last ten years of his life he lived among the Touareg tribes of the Sahara.  He wanted to be the ' Universal Little Brother of Jesus' to all. Another of his favourite Gospel text's was, " in so far as you did this to one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did it to me." (Mt.25 v.40)
      The life and writings of Brother Charles have had a great influence and impact on the Church in the 20th century.  Years after his death, there has grown up in the Church a whole spiritual family of Brother Charles, the Fraternities of the Little Brothers and Little Sisters of Jesus, and other lay groups.
From the human point of view, his life was a failure because he always wanted to establish little groups, fraternities living the life of Nazareth, but he died alone in the desert.
      How can Brother Charles' life and writings be a 'spirituality for our times ?  He can help us to centre our lives, on Jesus in the Gospels, in the Blessed Sacrament, and  on Jesus in our neighbour.  Jesus lived thirty years of his life in the poverty and obscurity of Nazareth and that 'way of life' is the ordinary everyday existence of the vast majority of mankind, and of the People of God.  Ordinary family life, with all its joys, sorrows and hardships is the normal way to God, and in Jesus of Nazareth we have the perfect guide.  Love seeks imitation.
Our catholic faith is a 'way of life' not just a 'rule' of life, and for the majority of people this 'way' is one of imitation of Jesus of Nazareth.  Brother Charles says, " Cry the Gospel with your whole life."

Charles de Foucauld   1858 - 1916.

The beatification of 'Brother Charles' took place in Rome on the 13th November 2005.  Among the thousands present in St Peter's Basilica were two people from Hartlepool, the Parish Priest of St. Cuthbert's, Stephen Johnson and the Parish Secretary, Veronica Morrell.