The "Foyers de Charité"

The Community : heart of the Good News Father Jacques Beaudry (Foyer de Charité of Port-au-Prince, Haïti)

The Community : heart of the Good News

The formation of hearts who love in truth

Jesus wanted the Foyers of Charity to be the "House of His Heart", open to all. He also wanted them to be called Foyers of Light, Charity and Love, because the Light of Truth and the Charity of Love are the great riches which inhabit His open Heart, and which He wants to make pass into our hearts and those of our retreatants, silently, drop by drop, through the six day retreats.

Our mission with regard to the retreatants is a work of Mercy, which aims itself, first and foremost, at the heart: the conversion of hearts and mentalities starting with our own, through living the mystery of the communion of saints.

I often say to retreatants :"The secret of Foyer retreats is that there is a mouth which speaks, but it is the hearts of the members of the community which pass through it". It's what comes from the heart which reaches and touches the heart. H's the heart which must be reached in order to change something in the world in a lasting way. Otherwise, as they say in Haïti : "H's washing your hands only to wipe them on the ground".

When one sees the huge crowds in want of food and instruction, one feels well enough that that must change, as John Paul II said during his visit to Haïti in 1983. Certain people propose revolutions or five-year plans to this end, but in truth it's the heart which must change first, for the deepest cause of misery, both of body and spirit, resides in the lack of true love.

The Earth and the sea can produce enough to nourish the whole world. There are sufficient technical and human means to alphabetize and instruct the poor. But what blocks or makes the efforts to solve these problems deviate is the lack of true love in hearts.

That is why it is hearts which must be nourished first though not exclusively. That is the reason which has caused the blossoming of each Foyer of Charity in the world. Our mission is the: to form hearts which love the truth. Then only will bodies and intelligences find the food they need, because hearts will accept to share and to help people grow. Jesus brings the Kingdom of Love. He comes to pour the new wine of Charity, of a "Love greater than Love", from His own open heart into the hearts and mentalities of all. And like the servants at Cana obeying the advice of Mary on the order of Jesus we participate in this outpouring of divine love on the world.

"Christ is within us"

So our communities must be, above all, Foyers of Love and Charity, in order for the Light to be received there. It is only on this condition that the teaching will be a warm, vivifying and contagious light. In this task of announcing the Word, the community and the father have an indissociable role, like the flame of a torch: you can't separate the light from the heat. We are Foyers of Love through our union with God, through all that nourishes it, through all that puts us in communion with Love which inhabits us, through all that makes us live "within". "Within" as Marthe said repeatedly. Saint-Exupéry said: "the essential is invisible to the eyes". It's true for trees, we see their foliage, but we don't see the essential, their roots. It's true for the human body: we see its shape, the face, but the essential, the blood, the heart, the brain... if we see them, it's that we are in danger of not seeing it much longer. It's even more true for our soul, which gives a sense to human life. Everything which happens to our intelligence must go down as far as our heart to make us become truly ourselves. And to plunge more deeply within us, in order to nourish our soul more solidly, to give more meaning to our life as a man or as a woman, there is faith. Faith is like our third eye, the eye of the heart. Faith is the third eye which permits us to see and live things in depth, as God sees and lives them, to search for and to find the hidden treasure Jesus speaks of: "The Kingdom of Heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field which a man finds", (Mat. 13,44). And this hidden treasure is within us. "The Kingdom of God is within us". (Luke 17,22). What is this hidden treasure to be discovered? None other than Jesus Himself. As Saint Paul said to the Colossians: "This mystery which has remained hidden for centuries... and which now has been revealed to saints... is this: Christ within you". (Col. 1,27).

It's this mystery spoken of by Elisabeth of the Trinity: "Believing that a Being called Love dwells within us, at every moment of the day and of the night, and that He invites us to live in communion with Him, this is what has turned my life into a Heaven in advance". There is the most fundamental truth: God who is Love, incarnate in Jesus, is within each man and each woman, already on this Earth, since the Resurrection and Ascension of Jesus. Jesus resurrected, with the Father and the Spirit, is present in each human being whether he knows it or not, whether he be the greatest saint or the most terrible villain. What a peremptory reason to love everyone! What a decisive reason that each one should believe in his own unimaginable value! For, in this way, prayer and the apostolate are transformed. Prayer is no longer lived as a cry flung out to a far away God. It is the personal, intimate contact with God dwelling within us, through the veil of faith. And the apostolate is no longer to take Jesus to the world as if we had Him ourselves and were going to give Him to others who didn't. No! The apostolate consists in going to announce to all what a treasure they carry within them: "Christ is inside you!" and in helping them to meet Him, to enter into communion with Him, He who is calling them and waiting for them in their own hearts.

"Love one another"

We are indeed then, above all Foyers of Charity. Not only does the offering of our fraternal life give a hand to the fathers in their preaching by virtue of the communion of saints, but directly, we know it from what retreatants say, our way of life in an incessant effort of fraternal charity is a light which confirms the preaching of the fathers. When I speak of the members of the community that includes the fathers, who are also members of the Foyer. The way in which the father lives with the lay members of the community is also a witness to the Foyer. Yes, fraternal Charity is the heart of all our apostolic work. It is the seal which makes our love of God authentic and manifest; "If someone says : 'I love God' and he doesn't love his brother (or sister), he is a liar". (1 John). Charity is the sign that we are really disciples of Jesus, it is thus the light of the preaching, which is not only light for the head, but for the heart and for life. It is the heart of our mission.