Origins and development
| The beginnings | The growth | The extension |
 |
7th September 1936 : First retreat at the Girl's School. 8th September 1936 : Marthe asks Father Finet to be her spiritual director. From 1940 to 1948 : Building of the big Foyer for receiving retreatants despite the difficulties entailed in wartime. 1943 :Opening of the second "Foyer de Charité" in La Léchère-les-Bains, in Savoie.3rd October 1953 : Opening of the Boy's School in Saint Bonnet-de-Galaure. 1954 : Opening of the school in Les Mandailles. |
1959 : First fruits of the first Foyer in Latin America, in Colombia.
1961 : Foundation of the first Foyer in Africa, in Togo.
1968 : Foundation of the first Foyer in Asia, in Vietnam.
1971 : Foundation of the first Foyer in North America, in Canada.
1979 : The inauguration of the sanctuary "Holy Mary, Mother of God" in Chateauneuf-de-Galaure marks a new stage in the spreading of the "Foyers de Charité" throughout the world.6th February
1981 : Death of Marthe Robin.
1st November 1986 : Recognition of the Work of the "Foyers de Charité" by the Pontifical Council for the Laity.
From 1981 to 1988 : Father Finet visits the foundations throughout the world.
14th April 1990 : Death of Father Finet at dawn on Holy Saturday.
26th March 1991: The Cause for the canonisation of Marthe Robin is opened.
1995 - ... : Foundation of the first Foyer in Eastern Europe.
The beginnings of a new community
On 10th February 1936, Father Georges Finet meets Marthe Robin.
For years Marthe has been ill. She lives this suffering as an offering and in great intimacy with the Lord.
In this context she carried the desire for a Work for the training of lay people, and on this day she asks Father Georges Finet to help her to realize it. With the agreement of Bishop Pic, the bishop of Valence, he accepts to preach a first retreat for "ladies and young girls" on the premises of a little school which had been running for 2 years.
During this retreat, two teachers were to answer the call of the Lord to make up the little kernel of this new-born community.
There, then, were the first fruits of this Foyer of Light, Charity and Love.
In the first years, Father Georges Finet, Marthe Robin and these two girls, helped by their friends, little by little, organized this new type of community life.
Father Finet was still in Lyon most of the time and Marie-Ange Dumas and Hélène Fagot took charge of the life of this little school. There were 24 pupils of which 14 boarders that year. The days were well filled. Father Faure, the parish priest, came from time to time to give a hand and see that everything was going well; in the evening there were often fraternal gatherings at Marthe's. She liked to follow the life of the school, she knew the families of the pupils; there were also good times of relaxation, and they never took leave of each other without praying.
As the community grew, Father Finet was concerned with the inner formation of each one. He gave teachings to assure the necessary doctrinal bases. Communal prayer anchored this fraternal life in Christ. In addition to that a call was made to the creativity of each one, to animate the family gatherings with the pupils or the times of prayer for the retreatants.
In daily life Mary, Mother of God, Mediatrix of all graces, was often invoked. She is the mistress of spiritual life since she leads to Jesus; in the Foyer she is also the mistress of the house. In order to invoke this presence it was decided from the first school year to "import" to Châteauneuf the festival of the Immaculate Conception as celebrated in Lyon on the 8 December. The procession which now starts at the parish of Châteauneuf on the 8 December began modestly: the pupils gathered together in the dormitory, candles in hand, to sing to Mary whilst processing amongst the beds.
The retreats lasted five days and they were preached during the holidays: one at Christmas, one at Easter, five during the summer.
At this moment the dormitories and classrooms were transformed into reception areas for the retreatants. The oldest members of the community remember with humour these periodic removal ventures in which neighbouring friends took part.
At the beginning the retreats were only for women. One day, Georges Fagot, brother of Hélène, asked to take part. Can one refuse a member of the family? Over the years priests also came, and it's in this way that, with the agreement of Bishop Pic, the retreats became mixed, encouraged by circumstances and the thirst of the retreatants.
This little
team was encouraged by the fecundity of the retreats. It understood
that the preaching of the Word of God, the prayer and offering
of its daily life favoured conversions and the opening up of hearts.
The growth of the Work and its service in the Church.
The first building was rapidly no longer sufficient and construction was planned to give more room for the reception of retreats. From 1939, "in spite of the difficulties of the hour", the construction began. It took a lot of perseverance in these war years. In autumn 1947 part of the community consecrated itself to serving retreats. Father Georges Finet had been definitively released by Cardinal Gerlier for the Work of the Foyers de Charité. The finished building was to be inaugurated on Pentecost Monday 1948, in the presence of Bishop Pic, the bishop of Valence, who had followed with solicitude the development of the Foyer. It had always been an exigence of Father Finet and Marthe Robin to be in obedience to the Church.
They also had in common the urgent preoccupation to make known to all, without exception, the Plan of infinite love for men of God our Father. During the years which followed the retreatants became more numerous. It was truly the aim of Marthe Robin and Father Finet to bring together, in the same Church community, men and women with different pasts and activities. In the silence, and listening to the Word of God, a fraternity was established, carried by the active presence and daily offering of all the community, united to that of Marthe Robin. It was truly "retreats of Christianity" as they were called.
Already in 1943 a priest had discerned the call to found another Foyer de Charité; it was Father Beton of the Foyer la Léchère-les-Bains, in Savoy. This foundation was to be followed by many others. At Châteauneuf itself other schools were founded at the request and with the help of families of the Galaure Valley. In 1953, the boys' school, in 1954 the Mandailles technical school.
1961 is an important year : the 25th birthday of the Foyer is celebrated. The presence of Cardinal Gerlier, archbishop of Lyon, alongside Bishop Vignancour, the bishop of Valence, marked the attention of the Church of the region for a Work whose fruits had been recognized during the past years.
When Vatican
Council II gathers together in 1963, Father Finet and Marthe Robin
understand that their initiatives, like many others in the Church
in France, are going to find a new momentum. They rejoice at the
call which is made to the laity to take seriously their vocation
as baptized, active members of the Church. The vocation of the
Foyers de Charité was confirmed for them.
Extension throughout the world
This new momentum was to be made concrete by the extension of the Foyers de Charité outside Europe.
In Latin America it's a woman, Laeticia van Hissenoven who, following a retreat in 1959, decides to carry the grace of the Foyers to her country, Columbia. With audacity and great docility to the Church, she made known the retreats preached in the Foyers de Charité. She died in a plane crash in 1968. Today there are ten Foyers in Latin America, four of which are in Columbia. In 1961, a priest from Ardèche, Father Marcel, after having lived at the boys' school of St Bonnet, left to found a Foyer in Africa. He was to begin with a little community in Togo. Now the Foyers are already present in seventeen French speaking and English speaking African countries.
The rooting of the Foyers in Asia began in Vietnam from 1968. Japan was to follow a few years later, then India, the Philippines and Taïwan. In North America the Foyers were to begin by a foundation in Canada in 1971. There are now three in Canada and one in the United States.
Progressively the Foyers form a big Family with an international character.
The 6th February 1981 Marthe Robin dies after having seen grow this Work which she had sustained for so many years by her prayer, her offering, her counsel, in a very great spiritual union with Father Finet, her spiritual father. In the crowd which was present at her funeral could be seen representatives of many new communities in France. They came to show their gratitude for what they had received in their encounters with Marthe Robin.This "blade of wheat" which dies, continues to bear visible fruit in the foundation of Foyers which is going on.
Appreciating the work of apostolate of the "Foyers de Charité", the Pontifical Council for the Laity recognizes, on the 1st November 1986, the Work as a "private association of the faithful, of an international character".
Until 1985, Father Georges Finet tirelessy visited all these foundations to tighten the family bonds which are the particularity of these communities. He died on Holy Saturday, the 14th April 1990, in the light of the death and of the Resurrection of Christ.
During the
first meeting with Father Finet in 1936, Marthe Robin spoke to
him of a profound renewal of the Church marked by a missionary
leap where numerous lay people would commit themselves to the
apostolate. Today, 60 years later, the face of the Church corresponds
in part with this intuition.Throughout the world Bishops continue
to request the creation of Foyers de Charité.