St Charles de Foucauld meditates on the Psalms : The tool shed in Nazareth

by Charles de Foucauld, Leonard Tighe (Editor), Kathyrn Fairbanks (Translator)

(June 6, 1897)

In Nazareth, in the tool shed of the Poor Clare Nuns, St Charles


My Lord Jesus, this evening I begin my meditations on the Psalms and the Prophets. Thank you for this particular grace which you give me in letting me start these prayers this evening blessed above all, when for the first time bread is changed into your Body at the voice of a man, in this blessed evening after which you have not ceased to live with us on earth, O beloved Emmanuel.

Sacred Heart of Jesus, I consecrate these meditations to you. I want to make them, not for myself nor for any creature, but like all the acts of my life, like all my thoughts, words and actions, I want them to be done only to glorify you, to console you as much as possible.

Mother of Perpetual Help, grant me your all-powerful help and the grace to ask ceaselessly for it, that by this means I may make these small prayers in the manner most pleasing to our Lord Jesus.

My father St. Joseph, my mother St. Mary Magdalene, my good guardian angel, St.

John the Baptist, St. Peter and St. Paul, St. John, St. Stephen, holy apostles, holy women and holy disciples, St. Ann and St. Joachim, St. Benedict, St. Bernard, St. Augustine, St. Francis of Assisi, St. Alexis, St. Peter of Alcantara, St. Charles Borromeo, St. Francis Xavier, St. John

Chrysostom, Blessed Benedict Labre, St. Monica, St. Teresa, Blessed Margaret Mary, St. Claire, my patron saints, all of you who are my special protectors, assist me in these prayers so that in making them I may please our beloved Jesus as much as is possible.

I will meditate first on the Psalms, then on the Prophets. The subject of each meditation will be one half of a Psalm or half a chapter of prophecy. Each meditation will be made up of two in the first part I will try to find out in what way the love of God for us stands out most clearly in the subject; in the second I will ask myself what lesson is to be drawn from it.
June 6, 1897 Feast of Corpus Christ
Dedication

Katherine Fairbanks turned 88 this year and lives in a nursing home in Massachusetts. [ Update Kathy’s age as necessary? Maybe just say she lives in Massachusetts; the nursing home detail is her private information.] She labored over these translations with Jean-Jacques Rivard, a Canadian archeologoist and highly educated renaisscence man. Kathy taught elementary school for many years. Her interests included Native American and Biblical archeology; she spent two summers in Israel working on archeological digs and research. She was a faithful member for many years of the Boston Lay Fraternity of Charles de Foucauld. Her wonderful sense of humor and all-around goodness were a light to all of us who knew her.

These translations of the Psalms were dormant for several years. Although Kathy tried with great effort to get a publisher, she was always told that nobody knew Charles de Foucauld and the translations would be a bad investment.

It is a privilege and an honor to dedicate this book and its beautiful contents to Katherine Fairbanks of Roslindale, Massachusetts.

347 pages, Kindle Edition

Published February 18, 2022

About the author

Blessed Charles Eugène de Foucauld was a French Catholic religious and priest living among the Tuareg in the Sahara in Algeria. He was assassinated in 1916 outside the door of the fort he built for protection of the Tuareg and is considered by the Catholic Church to be a martyr. His inspiration and writings led to the founding of the Little Brothers of Jesus among other religious congregations. He was beatified on 13 November 2005 by Pope Benedict XVI. Charles de Foucauld was an officer of the French Army in North Africa where he first developed his strong feelings about the desert and solitude. On his subsequent return to France and towards the end of October 1886, at the age of 28, he went through a conversion experience.
In 1890 he joined the Cistercian Trappist order first in France and then at Akbès in Syria, but left in 1897 to follow an undefined religious vocation in Nazareth. He began to lead a solitary life of prayer, near a convent of Poor Clares and it was suggested to him that he be ordained. In 1901 at the age of 43 he was ordained in Viviers, France and returned to the Sahara in Algeria and lived a virtually eremetical life. He first settled in Beni Abbes, near the Moroccan border, building a small hermitage for ‘adoration and hospitality’, which he soon referred to as the ‘Fraternity’.
Later he moved to be with the Tuareg people, in Tamanghasset in southern Algeria. This region is the central part of the Sahara with the Ahaggar Mountains (the Hoggar) immediately to the west. Charles used the highest point in the region, the Assekrem, as a place of retreat. Living close to the Tuareg, and sharing their life and hardships, he made a ten-year study of their language and cultural traditions. He learned the language and worked on a dictionary and grammar. His dictionary manuscript was published posthumously in 4 volumes and has become known among Berberologues for its rich and apt descriptions. He formulated the idea of founding a new religious institute, which became a reality only after his death, under the name of the Little Brothers of Jesus.
On December 1, 1916, he was shot to death outside his Tamanrasset compound, by passing marauders connected with the Senussi Bedouin; this act is to be seen against the general background of the uprising against French colonial power, World War I and famine in the Hoggar. He was beatified by Pope Benedict XVI on November 13, 2005 and is listed as a martyr in the liturgy of the Catholic Church.