Angelus News | June 3, 2022 | Vol. 7 No. 11

NEW WORLD OF FAITH
ARCHBISHOP JOSÉ H. GOMEZ
Loving and imitating the Lord
Recently, Pope Francis canonized
10 men and women, including
a priest that I have long admired
and talked about in my preaching and
teaching, now St. Charles de Foucauld.
He was a French man, born into a
noble, extremely wealthy family in the
late 19th century. He lost his faith early
and his story reads like the prodigal
son in Jesus’ parable.
His parents died when he was very
young, and Charles squandered all of
his inheritance in a lifestyle that was
filled with excesses.
But then Charles found God. Or better,
God found him. He had prayed:
“O God, if you exist, let me know of
your existence.”
Charles came to feel God’s presence
in the beauty of nature, in the beauty
of creation. He joined a geographical
expedition to the deserts of Morocco
in Africa. When he saw the stars in
the sky at night, millions of stars extending
as far as his eyes could see, he
said he realized that this world must
have a Creator.
Back in France, his awareness of
God continued to deepen. Charles
joined the Trappist religious order. “I
love our Lord Jesus Christ,” he said,
“though it be with a heart that wishes
to love more and more perfectly.”
His desire to love Jesus more perfectly
led him to leave the Trappists to
live as a hermit in Nazareth. There
he sought to imitate the “hidden life”
of Jesus, living as Jesus did in the 30
years when he worked as a carpenter
before beginning his public ministry.
In his journal he wrote the words of
Jesus that he heard: “Your vocation:
Preach the Gospel silently as I did in
my hidden life, and as also did Mary
and Joseph. Your rule: Follow me.
Do what I did. In every situation ask
yourself: What would our Lord have
done? Then do that.”
He lived from his daily contact with
Jesus in the Eucharist and in the
pages of the Gospel, and he spent his
days in both prayer and in manual
labor, working tirelessly to serve his
brothers and sisters, especially the
poor.
In June 1901, Charles was ordained
as a priest, and he asked permission
to minister among the Muslims in
the Saharan Desert. He served there
for 15 years among the native people,
learning their language, performing
works of mercy, and defending them
against the injustices of European
colonial rule.
In one of his last diary entries, he
wrote: “Loving others as Jesus has
loved us means making the salvation
of all souls our life’s work, if need be
giving our blood for them, as Jesus
did.”
He would die a martyr’s death later
in that same year, in 1916.
I am so grateful to the Holy Father
for this canonization because I believe
St. Charles’ story and his beautiful
writings should be widely known,
especially by every new priest.
I have been reflecting on this as we
approach our priestly ordinations on
June 4 at the Cathedral of Our Lady
of the Angels. This year I will be ordaining
eight fine men to be spiritual
fathers to the family of God here in
the Archdiocese of Los Angeles.
It is a beautiful time to be alive, and
a beautiful time to be a priest!
This class of new priests has been
training for many years, and these
final years of their formation were
under the conditions of a pandemic,
a time of fear, uncertainty, and death,
and also during a period when there
has been widespread social unrest in
our country and in the world.
Now, God has called them, each one
personally, by name, and he is sending
them out, just as he called and sent
out St. Charles, to do what Jesus did,
to live with the simplicity of the Gospel,
and to proclaim his kingdom, a
culture of life and civilization of love.
In all times, the priesthood is
a great adventure of following
and living with Jesus.
In all times, the priesthood is a great
adventure of following and living with
Jesus. In our times, the priesthood is
an especially beautiful calling to walk
in an intimate way with Jesus and to
share in his mission, to carry our cross
and offer our lives for those he loved
and came to save.
Pray for me and I will pray for you.
And let us pray for our new priests.
St. Charles used to pray: “Let me
love him, obey him and imitate him
as much as I can at every instant of my
life.”
Let us make that our prayer. And let
us ask Blessed Mother Mary to walk
with our new priests and help them
to open their hearts to follow and love
her Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ.
June 3, 2022 • ANGELUS • 3