St. Charles de Foucauld: Meditations on Genesis (Part I)

 

 Introduction

St. Charles de Foucauld (1858-1916) was a French cavalry soldier before deciding to resign from the military in order to go explore Morocco.  After publishing a well-received book about his travels, he returned to France and rekindled his childhood Catholic faith, deciding to join the Trappists in 1890.  His time with the Trappists led him to Syria, but he eventually left the order in order to become a hermit, in 1897.  After being a porter for Poor Clares in Nazareth and Jerusalem, he returned to France for ordination in 1901, then headed back to Africa, this time Algeria, to continue this eremitic life.  Though he hoped to attract others and form a community, none came.  Instead, he remained a hermit, living among the Tuareg people of Algeria, collecting their poems and writing a dictionary of their language.  A bandit raid on his hermitage--considered a martyrdom--claimed his life.  After his death, his writings and example inspired communities like the one he hoped to create.  He was beatified by Pope Benedict XVI on November 13, 2005, and canonized by Pope Francis on May 15, 2022.

Besides his travelogues and books on the Tuareg people, he wrote many meditations of various kinds, which are the main vehicle of his spirituality.  Translated here is the first part of an incomplete set of meditations on Genesis; they were written at the end of his time with the Trappists, roughly between November 1896 and January 1897: their incomplete state is due to his departure for Nazareth.  The second part of these meditations can be found here.

Meditations on Genesis

(Part I)

St. Charles de Foucauld

(1858-1916)

Genesis 1:1-19

My God, how much I ought to love all creatures, animate and inanimate, since all have departed from Your hands: one cherishes, one kisses, one adores the work of him whom one loves, it’s something of his: how much more ought one to cherish Your works, which are made such as You will them, while those of men are always beneath their will…Your works, which You “find good,” while those of men are so imperfect! The work of Your beloved will, of Your power, of Your love, of You, finally, God blessed and loved in all the ages! With what love, with what respect, ought He be surrounded! With what moved eyes ought He to be regarded! With what respectful, trembling hands ought He to be touched! How much ought our indignity be felt before each of them, not an indignity from nature, but an indignity from our sins! How much ought I to respect myself, body and soul; “this would be to kiss one’s own hand,” says Mgr. Gay! How much ought one’s neighbor be respected! How much ought our brothers the animals, our sisters the inanimate creatures, all departed from your blessed and adored hands, be respected! With what an atmosphere of love have You enwrapped us, my God, and how much ought my heart to love, I who live in my Beloved, penetrated, co-penetrated by Him, and enwrapped by His cherished works! How good You are! How blessed am I! What kind of fortune is mine! How much ought I to melt with love! How good You are! Saint Francis of Assisi, in the name of Our Lord Jesus Christ, pray for me, so that I might love God, His Christ, and His works with you! Amen.

Genesis 3:13-end

My God, how good You are! At the very moment when You punish Adam, You give him hope, and the hope of the greatest glory and of the greatest blessedness: You let him see, from afar, that “seed” and that blessed women through whom the head of the serpent will be crushed…How good You are, my God! How You are always the same! How You are always He Who “does not crush the half-split reed, and Who does not quench the yet-smoking wick” (Mt 12:20). And do You not still do the same every day? Do You not cry out, through the voice of Your Church, that, whatever our crimes, however long our infidelity, we have but to return to You, to repent, to be saved, to be, not merely delivered from evil, but rendered heirs of all glory and of all blessedness? My God, how good You are! There is no sinner so great, no criminal so old, to whom You do not offer Paradise with a loud voice, as You gave it to the good thief, for the price of a moment of good will. And this truth, You proclaim it, You cry it out through all the world, from all the pulpits of all the Churches, in all the books of Your doctors, in all the catechisms. My God, how good You are!…O my God, render us recognizing, we to whom You offer this infinite favor which You gave to the good thief; and make it that we imitate You, in never despairing of ourselves, nor of our neighbor, but in always hoping, with all our soul, that he will be saved; and in never despairing our neighbor, that is to say, when, for the good of souls, we punish him, in making him see how he can, how he ought to correct himself, for this punishment is not a sign which forever marks him as evil, but a means for him to re-enter into the good, and making him see that, however culpable he be, he can, despite the chastisement and the grace of the chastisement, re-enter into the good, into perfection, and become a saint; he can do it, he ought to do it, we hope for him, God opens His arms to him for this. The Heart of Jesus, which has so suffered for him, desires him, hopes for him, thirsts for him, and makes it easy for him.

Genesis 8:13

My God, how good You are! That You would do good upon good, grace upon grace, for us, does this not suffice? Why do You still engage Yourself in doing this for us, in doing such and such a benefit for us? My God, how paternal is Your Heart, how divinely good It is, how It overflows with infinite love! If it were still in the face of our acts of adoration, of recognition, of obedience, that You made these promises to us: but, no, it is to Adam, at the very moment when he sinned; how good You are! How gratuitous are Your benefits! All Your Scriptures are full of nothing but benefits and promises, even greater than Your benefits: You take please in engaging Yourself in a thousand ways: promises of the Messiah to Adam, promise of not sending a deluge again to Noah, Messianic promises without number and material promises to the patriarchs and to the prophets…Your joy is to bind Yourself with multiplied promises: there, indeed, is love: it does not suffice it to give the present, it is necessary that it give the future, it is necessary that it give, as much as possible, all that it has and all that it is and that it is engaged in, through the strongest bonds, for a time whose end it does not wish to see… It is this that You do: You give, You promise, You give Yourself Yourself, You promise Yourself Yourself, even with Your kingdom, and this for entire eternity. My God, how good You are! And is there not a practical conclusion to draw from this, beyond that of the infinite gratitude and of the infinite love that we owe You? That conclusion is the excellence of vows, the excellence of perpetual engagements: to take on these engagements, to bind oneself by such chains, is a need of love, a pledge of love that every loving heart has need to give, to such a point that You Yourself willed to bind Yourself to us with a thousand engagements, a thousand promises: thus, let us hold vows in great esteem, let us regard making them as a great blessedness, let us desire to make them, and let us make, when our directors permit us, all those which would more tightly unite us to God, all those which we know are agreeable to Him… O my God, make me make the vows to You that You will that I make to You, and make me be faithful to them!

Genesis 14:1-12

My God, why do You recall to us those kings, those wars of times past?

My child, they have been, and they are no more: they seemed great, and you see their nothingness…such are the great ones of today: power, birth, fortune, these are the equivalent of those poor ancient kings who are, you see, a bit of dust; all the goods, all the consolations, all the beauties that pass away are so…All is equally small, equally nothing, the equal of those poor kings who fell asleep so long ago…One single hard thing, God and souls…Hold, then, as nothing, as absolutely nothing, all the grandeurs, all the contempts, all the elevations, all the abasements, all the consolations, all the sorrows, all the delights, all the sufferings that pass away. Attach yourself to Me alone, to loving Me, to doing that which pleases Me, and to the souls in My sight, desiring their salvation and laboring with all your forces…You see here, among other things, how much you ought to throw your body into mortification, since, on the one hand, you ought to fear nothing in it, since it passes away, and, on the other hand, you ought to seek it with ardor, unto folly, since it pleases Me, since it consoles Me: I see in it an act of love for Me, and a sacrifice in view of the salvation of neighbor…To mortify yourself is to obey My word, to follow My example, to make Me a declaration of love, to aid Me in bearing My Cross, to labor with Me for the salvation of My children, to tell Me that you want to truly be My faithful spouse, to share all My pains and to bear the crown of thorns with Me. Do you think that this pleases Me?…If you doubt this, ask it of Saint Magdalene and of Saint John the Baptist: they had My spirit; they loved Me enough, glorified Me enough, they have the grace to answer you…Or, better, ask it of Me: My crèche, Nazareth, the Forty Days, the journeys without a stone on which to lay My head, the praetorium and the Cross will answer you: they will tell you what I think of mortification.

Genesis 17:1-16

It is to all of us, my God, that You say, as to Abraham: “Walk in My presence, and be perfect.” To keep oneself in Your presence is the means, the cause: to be perfect is the result, the effect, the end. “Be perfect as Your heavenly Father is perfect” (Mt 5:48). You tell us to be perfect and, at the same time, You show us the means to become so, which is to keep oneself ceaselessly in Your presence…When one is under the eyes of him whom one loves, can one do otherwise than tending, with all the powers of one’s being, towards pleasing him in everything?…If we constantly dream that we are under the eyes of God, before Him, with Him, could we do otherwise than constantly trying to please Him as much as possible? And to please Him as much as possible, what else is this but being the most perfect as possible? One is so hot, so courageous, so strong, so attentive, so careful to do all that which will please, all that which will be agreeable, approved, one keeps such a watch over one’s words and one’s actions; as to thoughts, they are so suspended, so sunk into contemplation of the beloved being, when one is under the eyes of him whom one loves. And, at all the moments of our life, we are under Your eyes, my God, much closely, much more intimately, than we can be with it matters not which human being, in the most intimate tête-à-tête…You, You are not only near us, You are around us, and You are in us; You envelop us and You fill us, You, You do not only know our words and our actions, but even our most secret, our most fleeting thoughts…O my God, make me think, without cease, on this blessed truth: if one moment in the company of him whom one loves seems so sweet and has a higher price than the entire earth, which, with all that it contains, is nothing and is less than nothing beside one look from the beloved being, beside one moment in his presence, what is our infinite felicity, we, who, all the moments of our life, enjoy the presence of our Beloved? O my God, make me feel this presence, make me enjoy it, and think without cease, and be perfect through it! Amen.

 

Source: Œuvres spirituelles de Charles de Jésus pẽre de Foucauld (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1958), 55-61.

 

 Translation ©2023 Brandon P. Otto.  Licensed via CC BY-NC.  Feel free to redistribute non-commercially, as long as credit is given to the translator.