Spero News
Jan 28 2007
Commentary:
A story for our times: Blessed Charles de Foucauld
It was at that time that he came to admire the exotic Islam of the
desert and, for a time, according to his early biographer, even
considered converting to that religion
by TCR
Many Catholics today have heard—at least in outline— the story of
the "Universal Brother," Charles de Foucauld (1858-1916), the
Frenchman who, after living the life of an aristocratic dandy as a
youth, with all that that entails, at age 28 encountered Jesus Christ
in a life-changing way and would eventually spend the rest of his
life in imitation of Jesus in service to Muslims of the Touareg tribe
in Tamanrasset, in the midst of the Sahara desert, southern Algeria.
Charles had previously been acquainted with the austere beauty and
mystery of the desert through French army life, and, after his first
unsuccessful tour, he won a measure of fame by mapping uncharted
territory in Morocco, being awarded a medal for the work by the
French Geographic Society. It was at that time that he came to admire
the exotic Islam of the desert and, for a time, according to his
early biographer, even considered converting to that religion; but
with more experience he was later glad he did not, even if his love
for the people—not a few of whose ancestors were Christians before
being conquered—- never wavered, but only increased in radically
new ways.
Dr.Marcellino D’Ambrosio in a brief sketch of Foucauld’s life, writes
at his website:
His insistence that his mistress Mimi accompany him to social events
for other officers and their wives earned him the contempt of his
colleagues, leading to his defiant resignation from the military.
While living among the Muslim population of North Africa, he had
developed a fascination with Islam and the Koran, but nevertheless
remained an agnostic.
Once back in his native France, he embarked on a religious quest that
led him frequently to stop in Catholic Churches to make this prayer:
"God, if you exist, let me know it."
Finally, in 1886, he experienced a profound conversion to Christ,
went to confession, and began discerning a vocation to some sort of
religious life. In 1888, he visited the Holy Land, and developed a
profound love of Nazareth and devotion to the hidden, ordinary life
of Mary, Joseph and Jesus. In 1890, he entered the French Trappist
Abbey of Our Lady of the Snows. Not long after, he was assigned to a
monastery in Syria where his work was to supervise a crew of Muslim
manual laborers who worked for the monastery. He realized at this
point that he was called not to be a boss, but a servant and laborer
himself, to be last as Jesus was, not first."
Missionary
Brother Charles, as mentioned, tried to live the Trappist monastic
life for some seven years but in time felt called to greater poverty
and identification with Christ’s poor. Like His Lord he wanted to
serve the poorest and, imitating Christ’s hidden years at Nazareth,
to manual labor and suffer with them, offering them the incomparable
Hope of One who was more than a mere prophet and Greater than Abraham
(Jn 1:1, 8:58; cf Exo 3:14, & more). With permission, then, he chose
a quasi-eremitical life (life as a hermit) amidst the Touareg in
Tamanrasset during the French colonial period.
Above all he wanted to be a witness to Jesus in serving the poor,
imitating the Word made flesh (Jn 1:1), the God-man who therefore was
the fulfillment of all the prophets; he wanted to ensure the
salvation of the Muslims, who he was convinced must accept Jesus
again in the biblical sense (Jn 1:12), and who had departed from the
way of the prophets and the teachings of Christ.
Brother Charles wanted this witness to be with his life more than
with his words. And to that end he spent decades opening his door to
the hungry, clothing the naked, giving drink to the thirsty, and,
being a proficient linguist, painstakingly assembling a
French-Touareg, Touareg-French dictionary.
The Colonial Project
While there is no question that Brother Charles was often critical of
French colonial rule—the proto-globalization of his day—he by no
means opposed it.
In Ali Merad’s book Christian Hermit in an Islamic World: A Muslim’s
View of Charles de Foucauld (Paulist Press, 1975) the translator, Zoe
Hersov, says of Foucauld, "His devotion to the army and to the ideal
of French supremacy never wavered". (P.82). That is because the
Universal Brother widely observed the Islamic civilization in his day
which he was acquainted with to be a brutal reality and came to
believe its desert forms were especially "babarous" compared to
Christianity at the roots. Some of his later followers, like Louis
Massignon, tried to sanitize this conviction of the holy hermit by
confusing their own changed politics with the spirituality of
Foucauld, but as, Merad suggests, it is unconvincing.
This is clear especially in the light of spiritual projects initiated
by Brother Charles himself precisely for the conversion of Muslims
which Massignon later suppressed. Projects like the Easter 1908
Confraternity dedicated to the Sacred Heart called the Catholic
Colonial Union (updated in 1914), which in its 9 planks explicitly
asked Catholics to dedicate themselves through prayer, good works,
and alms for the "conversion" of Muslim’s who he saw as lost souls,
strangers to the true God of biblical revevelation—people who had
departed from the Way or never known it— and who desperately needed
conversion back to Jesus. Those who quote a few later secondary or
Protestant sources to the contrary miss or are offended by the
essence of Charles de Foucauld. He was a missionary, but knew that,
especially with Muslims, education must come first.
"It is necessary," he told a friend, on June 4, 1908, "for the whole
continent to be covered with monks, nuns, and good Christians
remaining in the world to make contact with these poor Muslims, to
draw them in gently, to educate and civilize them, and finally, to
make them Christians. With Muslims you cannot make them Christians
first and then civilize them; the only possible way is the other,
very much slower one: to educate and civilize first, and then
covert…" (ECR. Spir. quoted by Merad, ibid P.61)
Merad says "Like other liberal and idealistic minds of his
generation, Charles de Foucauld identified the colonial enterprise
with a mission of human emancipation and civilization" (ibid). He
also writes, "…he had a preference for a "democratic" policy
conceived in the interest of the common people, the working classes,
rather than the privileged class of nobles and ajwad, that Muslim
chivalry who were more in love with glory than fortune, and for whom
the code of honor took the place of moral and political law" (P.62).
When Brother Charles looked around him he saw, besides deep piety,
warring tribes, "addicted to raiding and feuding, [who] were known to
the French for their cunning and treachery" (ibid. Translator’s
forward p. 5). All the more reason for these peoples to see Jesus in
the French and not corruption or sheer dominance. There was no end to
Charles de Foucauld’s urging that Christian virtues be seen in the
colonial forces in order to attract the Muslims he was patient to
convert, rather than to stir up their natural desert wrath. He was
often disappointed in this.
It was a burning love and desire for the salvation of souls which
supremely motivated Foucauld; the colonial project was useful as a
"civilizing influence" on desert dwelling peoples. But salvation came
through Jesus Christ, the Sacred Heart, His teachings and Church,
without which all would come to nothing. He was convinced Muslims
were steeped in grave errors which gave rise to barbarity too often.
It was the salvation of the people—and not just political peace—
for which he lived, prayed, suffered. He knew that the work of
conversion might take "centuries" but it would be necessary for
Christians to show Jesus Christ if it were ever to happen at all.
A Difficult Matter
Colonialism is a difficult matter today and charged with controversy,
however one looks at it. But whatever its faults, and even at times
crimes, it gave as much as it took. This is not acnowledged often
enough in our time, however wrongheaded colonialism may have been. It
was its "taming" influence that Merad says made it a valuable
preparation for the Gospel in Charles’ eyes. He saw Armenian
Christians massacred by the Turks, and in Beni Abbes he saw outright
slavery practiced by Muslims, according to Charles Lepeitt.
Yet Foucauld knew Christians must enter into the self-emptying love
of Jesus for sinners if Muslims were to see Him in them. To see, more
than hear. He wrote in a letter:
With goodness and kindness, brotherly affection, a virtuous example,
with humility and tenderness which are always impressive and
Christian…To some without ever saying to them a word about God or
religion, being patient as God is patient, being good as God is
good…speaking of God as much as they are able to take; Above all to
see in every human being a son of God, a person redeemed by the blood
of Jesus…We have to get rid of a domineering spirit…What a
difference there is between Jesus’ way of acting and talking and the
domineering attitude of those who are not Christians, or who are bad
Christians…" (ibid. Lepetit, 103)
This is what it meant to be Universal Brother. Adoration of the
Blessed Sacrament, Liturgy, prayer, the works of mercy, that was the
way men are converted, according to Charles de Foucauld, "without
books and without words".
Danger
In Tamanrasset Brother Charles lived amidst many dangers always. He
was considered an "infidel" and "savage" by many of the Muslims
there, except for those he directly helped and who experienced his
Christic way, and they were not a few. Moreover he was loyal to the
French army and to the colonial project which to many Muslims meant
he was a spy. That, of course, could mean death—even a horrible
death—at any minute. Charles Lepitetit said Brother Charles knew
well those Muslims whose idea of glory "was to die with one’s weapons
in one’s hand against the enemies of God," those "who wanted no mercy
for infidels". Some of these cases were extreme, even for the
Universal Brother who was used to the desert. There were those whom
he considered outright pirates and demanded the French army summarily
shoot upon locating, "without any kind of trial," and not take
prisoner. Charles was a peacemaker but not a pacifist. (ibid,
Lepetit, p.93).
Ever since his conversion he prayed for the grace of martyrdom for
the sake of the people he loved. In the end he seems to have been
killed by a Muslim bandit’s gun. That would have been good enough for
Charles de Foucauld who, like His Lord, prayed to offer His blood for
those souls who opposed him.
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