And for your convenience, here is a link to contact the Curator!
http://www.papalartifacts.com/contact-us/
The Papal Artifacts’ Collection is primarily dedicated to artifacts connected to the papacy. Individual popes, their biographies and multiple items belonging to them, including first and second class relics, make up the majority of this Collection. But that isn’t all it is.
Father Kunst has a deep devotion to the saints as can be readily seen in viewing the Saints & Blesseds section of this site. We invite you to visit Papal History/Saints & Blesseds to view the many canonized and beatified men and women who make up this section of the Collection.
Saint Charles de Foucauld is one of them. He was canonized May 15, 2022.
St. Charles de Foucauld, pray for us.
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- Letter from Saint Charles de Foucauld
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- Page Two of Letter from Saint Charles de Foucauld
Translation of this December 1, 1916 Letter of Charles de Foucauld
Jesus
(Heart)
Charity
Tamanrasset, par In Salah via Biskra
15 July 1915
Very dear friend,
Thank you for your pleasant letter of 20 April. I thank God for your good health, that of Mrs. Lutoslawski and of your son. Along with you I am praying for Poland, so afflicted (in this conflict), and that God will keep safe all of your loved ones, and that He will ensure a victorious peace founded on justice and right, and that a great calm will follow this storm.
Here the country is experiencing great tranquillity, as is Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, the French Soudan, and all of French Africa. We are far removed here among the Touaregs from the war in Europe.
Ouksem (a Touareg friend of Foucauld) has left for far-off pastures. He is at more than 600 kilometers from here for an undetermined length of time…this is neither favourable to family life nor to instruction. Nomadism and barbar
ity are inseparable; barbarity can exist without nomadism, but nomadism does not exist without barbarity.
My close family (and friends), who are in action (in the war) are well. God has kept them from harm for the present. Of the various regions of France where I have relatives, none is occupied by the enemy.
I receive mail every 18 days, which brings telegrams, the most recent of which dates from a month ago, and letters and newspapers much older. You can understand with what impatience I await these rare arrivals and how at every hour I wonder how everything is going in this war, on which the fate of our countries, Europe, the world, the freedom of peoples and civilization depends.
From my younger days spent in the army, I still have close friends who have remained soldiers and who are all at the front. Their confidence in victory is unanimous, but not one among them will hazard a guess at a date. This war is a war of attrition, in which time is on our side and where it is to our advantage to play for time.
Goodbye for now, dear friend and brother in Christ. Let us pray together for our countries, for victory for our armies, and that justice and right will prevail.Please pay my respects to Madame Lutoslawski.
Your affectionate and devoted brother in the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
Charles de Foucauld
Thank you very much for the very interesting documents from the Chamber of Commerce in Paris that you were so good as to send me.
Papal Artifacts gratefully acknowledges the contributions of Dr. Jennifer Walski, PH.D, translator.
Tomb of Blessed Charles de FoucauldEra: 1858-1916
Our entire person must breathe Jesus, all our actions. Our whole life must cry out that we belong to Jesus, reflect a Gospel way of living. Our whole being must be a living proclamation, a reflection of Jesus.
CHARLES DE FOUCAULD (Brother Charles of Jesus) was born in Strasbourg, France on September 15th, 1858. Orphaned at the age of six, he and his sister Marie were raised by their grandfather in whose footsteps he followed by taking up a military career. He is considered to be among the most remarkable of 20th-century holy men: an aristocrat, immensely rich, and an explorer and soldier, forever disdainful of his superiors, who argued forcefully for the French colonization of North Africa. In his youth he played a key role in this endeavor.
As a young man, he was so taken with a rare wine that he bought the entire stock for 18,000 francs at a time when the average Frenchman earned perhaps 2,400 francs a year.
He undertook a risky exploration of Morocco (1883-1884). Seeing the way Muslims expressed their faith caused him to question his lack of faith, and he began repeating, My God, if you exist, let me come to know you.
On his return to France, the warm, respectful welcome he received from his deeply Christian family made him continue his search. Under the guidance of Fr. Huvelin he rediscovered God in October, 1886. He was then 28 years old. As soon as I believed in God, I understood that I could not do otherwise than to live for him alone.
A pilgrimage to the Holy Land revealed his vocation to him: to follow Jesus in his life at Nazareth. He spent seven years as a Trappist, first in France and then at Akbès in Syria. Later he began to lead a life of prayer and adoration, alone, near a convent of Poor Clares in Nazareth.
Ordained a priest at 43 (1901) he left for the Sahara, living at first in Beni Abbès and later at Tamanrasset among the Tuaregs of the Hoggar. He wanted to be among those who were, the furthest removed, the most abandoned. He wanted all who drew close to him to find in him a brother, a universal brother. In a great respect for the culture and faith of those among whom he lived, his desire was to shout the Gospel with his life. I would like to be sufficiently good that people would say, If such is the servant, what must the Master be like?
On the evening of December 1st, 1916, he was killed by a band of marauders who were struggling against the imposition of French rule.
He had always dreamed of sharing his vocation with others: after having written several rules for religious life, he came to the conclusion that this life of Nazareth could be led by all. Today the spiritual family of Charles de Foucauld encompasses several associations of the faithful, religious communities and secular institutes for both lay people and priests.
In between his devotions, he compiled a scholarly dictionary and grammar of the Tuareg people with whom he lived in a remote part of southern Algeria.
Perhaps the simplest, most profound statement ever uttered by Father Charles de Foucauld is the one on which a person could live his/her whole life: No matter what is being encountered, he said, It is JESUS in this situation.
Pope Benedict XVI beatified Charles de Foucauld on November 13, 2005. His feast day is celebrated on December 1.
You Are Not Alone in an Empty Church
Here is a little Catholic Theology 101: We don’t know much about heaven, and even if we did, we could not comprehend it anyhow, but we do know that heaven is a state of being in full and complete union with God. We will not lose our identity, we are not assumed into God, but we will be in complete union with him.
As Catholics we have professed from biblical times forward that the Eucharist is the fullness of God the Son’s divine presence. The fullness of the deity of God the Son is hidden in the forms of bread and wine. It is, as the Second Vatican Council said, “the source and summit of our faith,” which means, as I have written in columns past, that when we go to Mass, we are not alone.
When we go to Mass, or even go into an empty Catholic church with the reserved Eucharist in the tabernacle present, all the saints are there as well. If heaven is complete union with God, and God the Son is present in the Eucharist, then necessarily that means that the saints (and even the angels) are there as well. That is worth pondering for a while.
Like most priests these days, I am the pastor of more than one church. I have St. James the Less in Duluth, which I am convinced is the most beautiful church around, and I have St. Elizabeth, a much smaller parish in the far West End of Duluth. St. Elizabeth in its very design reflects this reality that the saints are among us while we celebrate the heavenly liturgy of the Eucharist. All up and down the nave of this pretty little church are stained glass windows of different saints. It acts as a tangible reminder that these very people who are the Gospels lived are worshiping right along with us.
One of the windows, as you might expect, is of St. Therese of Lisieux, “The Little Flower,” since she is still one of the most popular saints in the church. Therese, who died of tuberculosis on Sept. 30, 1897, at the age of 24, famously said, “I will spend my heaven doing good on earth.” And she has kept that promise. Saints, in order to be declared saints, have to do good things on Earth from heaven, because there have to be verified miracles through their intercession before they can be canonized.
But there are few saints who are better known for having prayers answered through their intercession than St. Therese! When I was growing up, I remember my grandmother getting “Leaves Magazine,” which is a small, 20-page booklet published every other month by the Mariannhill Fathers out of Michigan. This magazine, which is still published, reports stories of prayers answered through the intercession of the saints. Though I have not read this little magazine for a while, it seemed to me as I looked at my grandma’s copies that over half of the stories were about St. Therese’s intercession, making the point that The Little Flower has indeed been spending her heaven doing good on Earth.
At this point, if you are a Protestant and reading this column, you might be thinking, “Those silly little Catholics praying to the dead to do favors for them.” But it is not just the Catholics! Even our older brothers and sisters in the Jewish faith believe the same thing, and it is right in the scriptures. In the 48th chapter of the Old Testament book of Sirach, the author praises the greatness and glory of the two greatest prophets, Elijah and Elisha. Speaking of Elisha, the author says this: “Nothing was beyond his power; beneath his flesh was brought back into life. In life he performed wonders, and after death, marvelous deeds” (Sirach 48:14).
If God worked marvels through the intercession of the Prophet Elisha (even before Jesus rose from the dead), then why would we think he doesn’t allow it anymore? The saints are in complete, perfect union with God in heaven and are with us at every Mass. Of course it just makes logical sense that they would pray for us. After all, we are all members of the same body, the church.
If you do not have a favorite saint, you should get one. Saints are our companions on our pilgrim journey. They are our models of the Gospels lived, and they are our intercessors. And because there are thousands of canonized saints, there is one for everyone. Learn about their stories and find one that draws you in and one that you can identify with, and next time you are in Duluth, go and visit St. Elizabeth’s parish to see the tangible way the saints are with us at Mass.
