FD of Bd Charles de Foucauld, shot by Tuareg rebels in Algeria on Dec 1 1916. A spoiled playboy and soldier until his experience of Muslim piety prompted his conversion: “As soon as I believed that there was a God, I understood that I could not do anything other than serve him.”
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A pilgrimage in the Holy Land impressed him with the realization that Jesus had spent most of his life as a carpenter in Nazareth. He conceived a new form of religious life based on this “hidden life.”
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He set out for Algeria to put this vision in action, seeking to live a contemplative life among his poor neighbors. “The whole of our existence, the whole of our lives should cry the Gospel from the rooftops . . . not by our words but by our lives.”
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“Jesus came to Nazareth, the place of the hidden life, of ordinary life, of family life, of prayer, work, obscurity, silent virtues, practiced with no witnesses other than God, his friends and neighbors. Nazareth, the place where most people lead their lives....
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“We must infinitely respect the least of our brothers . . . let us mingle with them. Let us be one of them to the extent that God wishes . . . and treat them fraternally in order to have the honor and joy of being accepted as one of them.”
He waited for followers who never came. When he died it seemed his entire was an utter failure. Yet 20 years later new communities of men and women, inspired by his message, would set out to fulfill his mission.
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With his beatification in 2005 the church at last extended recognition to his significance as one of those seekers who, periodically, manage to reinvent the “imitation of Christ” in a manner suited to the needs of their age, and thus invite others to read the gospel in a new way.
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