Blessed Charles' Evangelical Counsel

Badaliyya Lesson 001, Series 2015

Blessed Charles de Foucauld’s Evangelical Counsel

Charles de Foucauld wrote his Evangelical Counsel known as his "Directory" in 1908 not only for religious who are living a consecrated life as priests or Sisters and monks but for anyone, married or single, who wished to share in his vision of Christians living their everyday life in the world as silent witnesses to the gospel message as he understood it.

He called his apostolate his "Nazareth", living in the world as he imagined Jesus, his Savior and God, chose to live for 30 years, his love and goodness shining through his life as a poor carpenter.

His call was to the Sahara in southern Algeria doing all that he could to demonstrate Jesus' love for all people in his prayer and constant attention to the needs of the Touareg people who lived in that region.

His Directory was meant as a guide for all who would live their own "Sahara" in prayer and through caring for others, especially the poorest and most marginalized, non-Christians and those he called "the most abandoned ones".

His lay Association had 48 members at his death in 1916 and now includes religious communities of Sisters, Monks and Priests all over the world as well as the 1000 members of the Union Sodalité and groups of priests or lay persons known as the "Fraternities" of Charles de Foucauld with as many as 6000 members in each region of the world.

Louis Massignon and Mary Kahil, the Egyptian woman,  established the Badaliyya in Cairo in 1934. It was through the encouragement of Louis Massignon that Little Sister Magdeleine of Jesus founded the Little Sisters of Jesus.

Louis Massignon was clearly influenced by Charles de Foucauld's vision of a network of praying Christians world -wide when he wrote the statutes for the Badaliyya prayer and at the same time the context for his prayer, as Arab Christians living as a minority in an Islamic country, coupled with his deeply felt prayer of substitution, added the dimension that speaks so loudly to us today. In this spirit we are challenged to learn to open our hearts and our minds to all those believers in other faith traditions than our own, especially our Jewish and Muslim neighbors who share our Abrahamic roots.

In his statutes Massignon always turns back to Foucauld's writings as well as St. Francis when he suggests prayer and reflections for the Badaliyya gatherings.

I offer the following meditation written by Foucauld in 1897 as food for thought as we pray together and discern where our prayer will lead us to bear its fruit in the silence of our own hearts and in our prayers with and for our brothers and sisters of all faiths both here in the Southern Philippines and in the Middle East and especially the Holy Land. Praying to Jesus he writes:

"You tell me that I will be happy with the blessed happiness of the last day... that as miserable as I am, I am like a palm tree planted beside living waters, the living waters of the Divine Will, Love, and Grace...and that in due season I will bear fruit.

You deign to console me: you tell me that I shall bear fruit when the time is right. And when will this time be? For each one, this time will be at the Judgement. You promise that as long as I keep trying and stay on the battlefield, even as poor as I may seem in my own eyes, I will have born fruit on that last day.

And you add: you will be a beautiful tree with leaves that are eternally green: and all your works will prosper and bear fruit for all eternity. My God how good you are". (Who can resist God? p.109)

Blessed Charles died alone in the Sahara. No one came to join him and there were only 48 members of his prayer Association all of whom expected that it would not survive. What would he say to the thousands who are now members of his spiritual family?

Pace e Bene!

Fr. Jun Mercado, OMI

Cotabato

January 2015