Meditations of a hermit

by Charles de Foucauld, Charlotte Balfour (Translator), M. Rene Bazin (Introduction)

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186 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 1981

About the author

Blessed Charles Eugène de Foucauld was a French Catholic religious and priest living among the Tuareg in the Sahara in Algeria. He was assassinated in 1916 outside the door of the fort he built for protection of the Tuareg and is considered by the Catholic Church to be a martyr. His inspiration and writings led to the founding of the Little Brothers of Jesus among other religious congregations. He was beatified on 13 November 2005 by Pope Benedict XVI. Charles de Foucauld was an officer of the French Army in North Africa where he first developed his strong feelings about the desert and solitude. On his subsequent return to France and towards the end of October 1886, at the age of 28, he went through a conversion experience.
In 1890 he joined the Cistercian Trappist order first in France and then at Akbès in Syria, but left in 1897 to follow an undefined religious vocation in Nazareth. He began to lead a solitary life of prayer, near a convent of Poor Clares and it was suggested to him that he be ordained. In 1901 at the age of 43 he was ordained in Viviers, France and returned to the Sahara in Algeria and lived a virtually eremetical life. He first settled in Beni Abbes, near the Moroccan border, building a small hermitage for ‘adoration and hospitality’, which he soon referred to as the ‘Fraternity’.
Later he moved to be with the Tuareg people, in Tamanghasset in southern Algeria. This region is the central part of the Sahara with the Ahaggar Mountains (the Hoggar) immediately to the west. Charles used the highest point in the region, the Assekrem, as a place of retreat. Living close to the Tuareg, and sharing their life and hardships, he made a ten-year study of their language and cultural traditions. He learned the language and worked on a dictionary and grammar. His dictionary manuscript was published posthumously in 4 volumes and has become known among Berberologues for its rich and apt descriptions. He formulated the idea of founding a new religious institute, which became a reality only after his death, under the name of the Little Brothers of Jesus.
On December 1, 1916, he was shot to death outside his Tamanrasset compound, by passing marauders connected with the Senussi Bedouin; this act is to be seen against the general background of the uprising against French colonial power, World War I and famine in the Hoggar. He was beatified by Pope Benedict XVI on November 13, 2005 and is listed as a martyr in the liturgy of the Catholic Church.

Reviews

[Clement · Rating 5 out of 5]

Rene Bazin prefaces Charles de Foucauld's writing by saying that "the hermit was writing for himself" and to not expect a grand poetic style in Foucauld's writing but, rather humility. With that said, beautiful phrases do occur throughout Foucauld's writing like this incredible phrase from a letter written hours before his martyrdom,

"Your sufferings, your past and new anxieties which you have suffered and offered to God in union with the sufferings of Jesus, are not only the sole things, but the most precious that God gives you in order that you may come before Him with hands full.  Our own effacement is the most powerful means we have of uniting ourselves to Jesus and doing good to souls... When one can suffer and love at the same time one can do much, it is the utmost one can do in this world. - Charles de Foucauld, December 1, 1916 (Meditations of A Hermit, pg. 184)

Foucauld's lifestyle of embracing voluntary Christian suffering with a deep love for the poor and a personal instance upon living out Gospel poverty is a message that is incredibly timely for our current generation. Foucauld's words have a prophetic ring to it that we would be wise to heed when he writes,

"We must come back to the Gospel; if we do not live by the Gospel Jesus does not live in us.  We must come back to poverty and to Christian simplicity.  After nineteen years spent out of France, what struck me most, in the few days I spent there, was that in all classes of society, even in very Catholic families, the habit and taste for costly and useless things had greatly increased, and I noticed an amount of worldly frivolity that was much out of place at such a grave time of religious persecution, and seemed out of keeping with the Christian life.  The danger lies in us, and not in our enemies.  Our enemies can only make us win great victories.  But sin has its source in ourselves.  The only remedy is to return to the Gospel." - Charles de Foucauld, June 30, 1909 (Meditations of A Hermit, pg. 181)

"The best way of always having enough is to share generously with the poor, seeing in them the representative of Jesus." - Charles de Foucauld (Meditations of A Hermit, pg. 146)

If there were two themes throughout all of Foucauld's writing one would be humility and the other would be his incredible devotion and discipline to consistently fix his eyes, thoughts, and heart upon Christ in ever circumstance, from the death of his sister's child to persecution to seeing a lack of people turning to Christ in his missionary endevours. The final page of Meditation Of A Hermit reproduces the first page of a notebook which Charles de Foucauld always carried with him and its contents desperately need to become the cry of our generation if we are to see revival and be prepared for the return of the Bridegroom; Foucauld writes,

"Live as though to-day you may die a martyr's death.

The more we lack everything in this world, the more we find the best the world can give us: the Cross.

The more we embrace the Cross, the closer we hold in our arms Spouse Jesus, who hangs upon it." - Charles de Foucauld (Meditations of A Hermit, pg. 205)

[Kelly Yoder (Ostergren) · Rating 5 out of 5]

I do not agree with significant aspects of the author’s theology or the ways he writes about Africans. However, there are many beautiful meditations present here that are well worth reading. An example: “The deeper your agony, the deeper you must bury yourself in the Heart of your Beloved, and cling to his side with ceaseless prayer.”