BROTHER CHARLES DE FOUCAULD
Like Jesus, a Brother to Everyone.

(Katulad ni Hesus, Kapatid ng Lahat)

+ Gaudencio B. Rosales
Archbishop of Manila

(Homily given during the Thanksgiving Mass commemorating the Beatification of Brother Charles de Foucauld, Our Lady of Perpetual Help Shrine, Baclaran, 02 December 2005)

Brother Charles de Foucauld of Jesus had a special devotion to Our Lady of Perpetual Help. This is one special reason why we celebrate this thanksgiving Mass at the National Shrine of the Mother of Perpetual Help in Baclaran.

Brother Charles de Foucauld was declared Blessed in Ceremonies done at St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome last 13 November 2005. At the end of the Ceremonies His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI spoke of this man of many paradoxes that perhaps personified the many contrasts in our life and person. Charles de Foucauld was born of a noble family, but he lived and died a poor man; he loved celebrations and sought adventures and yet settled for quiet and simplicity later in life. Strong and powerful that he was Charles would discover God in his weakness.

It was human weakness that made him rethink his life. Suspended from military duty and at the verge of losing his revered rank, he knew he was weak and he accepted that he was corrupt. His vice and wicked personal conduct was driving Charles to a turning point. He wrestled with the “possible” truth and asked the question many times, “is there a God”? He knew that there is such a thing as goodness; he admired virtue in others. How do I know (whether) “there is God”? Charles de Foucauld was nearing conversion and he did not know it; he felt it in his heart but could hardly whisper it (the prayer) on his lips, “My God, if you really exist, let me know you.”

But how does one know God? How does one recover a sense of goodness, the knowledge of God? Father Henri Huvelin of the Church of St. Augustine in Paris did not enter into a debate or discussion in theology with Charles when early in the morning of October 30, 1886, he wandered into that Church. The priest did not even entertain the idea of just explaining some truths of the faith to Charles. “What is wanting in you in order for you to believe is a pure heart … go down on your knees and make your confession.”

"But I did not come here to make a confession…” Charles remonstrated.

"That does not matter … Go down on your knees and make sorrow for your sins.” The priest insisted. That was Charles moment of grace!

This part of Blessed Charles de Foucauld’s life shows us that in order to believe what is needed is not the clarity of mind, or the reasoning that has understood phases of theology; purity of heart is what this humble man needed in order to believe in God.

This was only the beginning of a revealed treasure in the life of this humble and simple person. His turning away from a sinful life and his coming back to God was only the beginning of a life that would one day be totally committed to God. Everything in Charles’ life received its finality from his conversion, because he would always refer back to this moment of grace when he said, “as soon as I came to believe there was a God, I understood that I could not do otherwise than live only for him.”

Everything changed in his life from the moment of conversion. He would seek God in the silence of prayer. Charles would be at ease and be in peace in solitude, in the monastery, in the desert, in Nazareth and everywhere and every time he sat, knelt or simply was at rest, before the Lord Jesus, his brother, in the Blessed Sacrament. Here was a man who literally brought the Blessed Sacrament with him in the desert; he did not leave Jesus in the tabernacle of chapels and churches. He made shelter (tent) for him wherever he went. Next door to him in his tent quarter was the tabernacle.

Charles felt Jesus in the depths of his simple prayer before the Blessed Sacrament, but he saw the face of Christ in his brothers and sisters, particularly the very poor. People were close to him specially those in need; he shared food with those with nothing to eat, but he did not spoil them. He encouraged many to work, saying that “they have to work in order to live.” Charles was not only present to the poor; but he felt Jesus’ present to him through them.

The message to us through the experience of this holy man is that in the poverty of so many in our cities and towns, Jesus is making His presence felt by us; nay, in the need and suffering of so many, Jesus is crying to us for company, compassion and communion.

The poor may not say it, but they look to us for accompaniment. This will take place when we respond with awareness of their presence. Can we put a “spirit” to this hunger of the poor that transcends the longing for (only) food? But company is more than accompaniment. In the example of Jesus accompaniment or being with others is really brotherhood. (Fraternity). We are brothers of the poor.

More than brotherly love, we are asked to have compassion which is more than accompaniment, but a sense of “feeling with”, suffering with our brothers. Compassion is to share more than one’s needs, but to feel the same pain, giving, as it were, the name of love to our sharing in the misery of the other. It is to love others as one loves himself.

Communio leads us beyond simple unity. Among Christians communion is the sharing not just of what one has but of one’s own self, like “the love which springs from the heart of the eternal Father and is poured out upon us through the Spirit which Jesus gives us, to make us all `one heart and one soul’”. (Novo Millennium Ineunte, 42).

Blessed Charles de Foucauld discovered that a person can share more with others when life is simpler, lowly and unnoticed; and all these were made known in Nazareth where he stayed and worked as the handyman for the cloistered nuns of the poor Clares. The little town fascinated this newly repentant pilgrim who was then seeking more of Jesus where he grew up and lived in the simplicity and ordinariness of the surrounding.

The town is home to Mary, the original Nazarene, for whom God, her saviour, is so great because he has looked upon her lowliness (Luke 1: 46-48). It is in Nazareth that she heard of the mighty deeds of God pulling down princes from their thrones and raising up the lowly. It is also in the Nazareth home where Jesus learned the trades of the lowly workman and the loss of good name. Jesus was a “nobody” in that little town. “Can any good come out of that place?” Nathaniel remarked with certainty. (John 1: 46).

Nazareth was the place that Brother Charles was looking for. The silence that would one day reverberate in his life in the desert Brother Charles discovered had a home in Nazareth. So sure was he that both Nazareth and the desert were important parts of simplicity, solitude and humility which the man for God brought with him wherever he went. He made the two --- Nazareth and the desert --- unmistakable landmarks of the spirituality that had directed and animated his life and ministry of presence among the poor and the non-believers. It is for the same reason that any of those, who were inspired by Brother Charles, were also attracted to the reality of Nazareth and the desert.

To find Jesus one must love the solitude of the desert; and to love Him the searcher must be at home with the humility and simplicity of Nazareth.