The Hidden Life of Blessed Charles de Foucauld

Blessed Charles de Foucauld may be steps away from being declared a saint and we have much to learn from his road to holiness. 

Foucauld sought to imitate the hidden life of poverty when Jesus “lived the gospel” for 30 years before he “preached the gospel” for 3 years.  He said, “I greatly thirst to lead the life that I glimpsed while walking in the streets of Nazareth, streets which had been trod by the feet of Our Lord, an unknown poor workman lost in abjection…”

Yet, seeking Jesus in his poverty was not always Foucauld’s goal.  He was born into French Aristocracy in 1858 and baptized two days later.  His life changed at age 6 when his parents and grandmother died causing his sister and him to live with their grandfather. “I always admired the great intelligence of my grandfather whose infinite tenderness enveloped my childhood and youth with an atmosphere of love, whose warmth I still can feel.” 

At 14, Foucauld reverently made his 1st Communion and was Confirmed the same day, but the fervor lasted six months.  Three years later, he was expelled from school and entered Military School.  There he began to lose his faith and gain a “playboy” reputation with a nickname of “Fats Foucauld”.  “I was totally selfish, full of vanity and irreverence, engulfed by a desire for what is evil. I was running wild.” “I was in the dark. I no longer saw either God or men: There was only me.”

At 20, his grandfather died leaving him a large inheritance.  Foucauld continued his wild lifestyle, including an affair with Mimi, a prostitute.   He graduated from cavalry school at 22 and his first assignment was in North Africa.  He sent Mimi ahead trying to pass her off as his wife.  When he got caught, he chose Mimi over the army.  He returned to France to find that his family had locked his money up in a trust because they were scandalized by his behavior.

Soon after, he left Mimi to rejoin his former army unit when they were sent to battle.   He fought valiantly and rehabilitated his honor.   He discharged himself from the army and then did a geographical study of Morocco.  Surprisingly his work was published and awarded the gold medal of the French Geographical Society!

Yearning for the religion of his youth, he returned to Paris when he was 28 years old repeating, “My God, if you exist, make your existence known to me.”  He sought spiritual direction from Abbé Huvelin, who advised him to make a confession, receive communion, and then he would believe.  Huvelin was right. Foucauld regained his faith immediately and said, “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.”  

A trip to the Holy Land gave him a desire to follow the footsteps of Jesus.   “After spending Christmas of 1888 in Bethlehem, having heard Midnight Mass and received Holy Communion in the Holy Grotto, at the end of two or three days, I returned to Jerusalem. The enchantment that I felt praying in this grotto which had resounded to the voices of Jesus, Mary and Joseph was indescribable.” 

 He soon embraced a life of prayer, renounced his fortune, and was drawn to live a contemplative life among ordinary poor people.  He joined the Trappist and lived in their most remote community – yet found he was “not as poor as Our Lord was.”  He left after 7 years. 

The call of the hidden life of Jesus came to him again and he moved to Nazareth to served at the Poor Clares Convent where he had the “profound happiness of raking manure.”  After 3 years, at the urging of the nuns, he returned to France to become a priest.

At 42, he was ordained and realized “the hidden life of Nazareth” could be anywhere.  He built a hermitage in the French colony of Algeria and celebrated Mass for the French troops.  He offered a Christian presence.  He dressed in a coarse white robe with a sewn red heart with a cross over it. He planned to start a monastic fraternity of “Little Brothers” to live among the poor, but no one joined him. 

He had a personal notebook that he kept with him always.  Written on the first page were these three sentences:

1.    “Live as though you were to have to die as a martyr today.”
2.    “The more we lack in this world, the more surely we discover the best thing the earth has to offer us: the cross.”
3.    “The more firmly we embrace the cross, the more closely we are bound to Jesus, our Beloved, who is made fast to it.”

At 49, he found Algeria crowded and settled in the Saharan Interior.  He was the only priest within a 60-day desert trip.  When he was 58, the French stronghold in Northern Africa fell during WWI.  Rebels broke into his home.  He offered no resistance as he was bound and shot to death, but this is not the end of his story.  

17 years after his death, 5 young French priests arrived in North Africa with copies of Foucauld’s Rule. More fruits came with the establishment of the Little Brothers of Jesus, the Little Sisters of Jesus and Lay Fraternities.  
    
Foucauld did not create a new spirituality.  He simply lived like John the Baptist in the desert and humbly sat like Mary Magdalene at Jesus’ feet.  In some ways his life resembled other spiritual giants before their conversions.  Like Augustine, he was a playboy; like Ignatius of Loyola, he was a military man; and like Francis of Assisi, he came from an affluent family.  

And like the spiritual giants, Foucauld’s insights still inspire us.
Scriptures: “Let us return to the Gospel.  If we do not abide by it, Jesus will not live in us.”   
Eucharist: “You were not nearer to the Blessed Virgin during the nine months she carried you in her womb that you are to me when you rest on my tongue at Holy Communion.”  
Holy Orders: “The priest is a monstrance.  His role is to show Jesus.” 
Reconciliation: “If there is joy in heaven at the repentance of a sinner, then how great joy there must have been when I entered the confessional!”

And there has been great joy ever since his conversion.   Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI said, “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.” 
    
Yes, Foucault sought the “poverty that leaves no attachments at all to temporal things, but completely empties the heart, leaving it whole and entirely free for God alone.”  He said, “My God, I do not know how it is possible for some souls to see you in poverty and themselves voluntarily remain rich, to imagine themselves so much grander than their Master.”

Foucauld understood God as the “Essence, the Infinite, Perfection, Creator, All-Powerful, the Great Sovereign Lord of all” therefore one should be “busy with one thing only, with contemplating and loving our Heavenly Father and doing his Will.”  

In fact, he is still known for his Prayer of Abandonment based on Luke 23:46, "Father, into your hands I commend my spirit."  

PRAYER OF ABANDONMENT
Father, I abandon myself into your hands; do with me what you will.  Whatever you may do, I thank you: I am ready for all, I accept all. Let only your will be done in me, and in all your creatures.  I wish no more than this, O Lord.  Into your hands I commend my soul; I offer it to you with all the love of my heart, for I love you, Lord, and so need to give myself, to surrender myself into your hands, without reserve, and with boundless confidence, for you are my Father.