For Him Alone

Advent is here! We look forward to Christmas but also to Christ's Second Coming, hence today's Gospel message: Stay Awake.

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Charles de Foucauld is one of those saints who I confess I don't often think about but when I do he 'hits different' as the phrase goes. I feel a pang of something - I think it is a mixture of things: a yearning to know more about him, to know him better, to follow his way, maybe, but whatever it is, he has an attraction that makes him relevant to me in a way that I know I must explore in however small a way. Maybe Advent 2025 will be my time for doing that.

With the above in mind, I must record how the quotation from St. Charles on the front page of Fratelli Tutti struck me when I wrote it out this morning. 

"The moment I realised that God existed, I knew that I could not do otherwise than to live for him alone."

Do you know, it is only this year, after nearly 30 as a Catholic, that I am really beginning to realise, appreciate, and make a conscious attempt to live for him alone. I'm still far, very far, from achieving this, but if Charles realised this the moment he saw that God existed, well, no wonder he is a saint.

St. Charles de Foucault - pray for us

image: sant'egidio