ST. CHARLES DE FOUCAULD: A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS.

It is impossible to move through the corridors of life without one or two mentors whom you cherish for giving finality to the spirituality you have created over the years. St. Charles de Foucauld is one of many inspirations whom I tried to emulate in my contemplative life and lifestyle, not as he lived his life of total abandonment, but as I perceived him “Having in him the mind of Christ Jesus.” (Phil 2:5)

This conversation with you is about how I have received inspiration from the ideas of St. Charles de Foucauld, as I know them, and have brought his idea of being present to Christ in ordinary living into my Lay Cistercian Spirituality. I will let you look up Charles de Foucauld on AI or YouTube as foundational preparation for my comments.

What follows is an excerpt from a talk given by Father Cassian Russell, O.C.S.O. at our Lay Cistercian day of reflection on August 22, 2026, on Zoom. Please reflect on the text of St. Charles and write down three things that stood out to you in this quote. Once you have read the text and written down the three words or phrases that come to mind, reflect for fifteen minutes on one of them, doing nothing but waiting for Jesus and what he wants to tell you about your idea. Then Do What He Tells You.

REFLECTION BY ST. CHARLES DE FOUCAULD.

On November 9, 1897, during his retreat in Nazareth, aware of his wretchedness and of God’s great majesty, he prayed:
“Speak to me, my God, of Hope! How can thoughts of Hope have their
origin in this wretched world? Do they not spring from Heaven? All we see, all we
feel, all we are, show us our nothingness. How could we know, unless you had told
us, that we were created to be brothers and co-heirs with Jesus? . . . I would see the
vision that Hope shows me, of being one day in Heaven, in company with the
Blessed Virgin and the Saints, seeing you, loving you, possessing you for all
eternity. My God and my all. . . . You grant us this vision of Hope. You ever enjoin
it upon us. It carries us far above ourselves, above our very dreams. . . . However
great may be my sins, it is my duty to hope. You forbid me to despair. However
ungrateful and tepid and cowardly I may be, however much I may abuse your
graces, my God, you forbid me to be discouraged at the sight of my misery and to
say to myself, ‘I can go no further, the road to Heaven is too steep, I must go back
and roll like a stone to the bottom of the hill.’ You forbid me to say when I see
myself renew my faults every day (I ask pardon for them every day, and every day
I fall into them again) . . . . What have I in common with Heaven? I am not worthy
to enter.’ You forbid me to say when I look at the infinite graces with which you
have loaded me and at the baseness of my own present life, that I have misused
these graces too often; that I ought to be a Saint and I am a sinner; that I cannot
cure myself: it is too difficult. That I am nothing but pride and misery. That after
all that God has done for me there is no good in me and I shall never get to
Heaven.
“You bid me hope always, despite all, that I shall get enough grace to
change my life and attain to glory. What is there in common between Heaven and
me, my misery and its perfections? There is your Divine Heart, my Lord Jesus,
which is the link between these two things so unlike one another.”