Eucharistic Witness: Bl. Charles de Foucauld

It's fitting that someone who enjoyed life's pleasures to the highest degree, only to find that they left him hungry, bored and unsatisfied, would discover the real secret of satisfaction in the Eucharist. And it makes sense that someone who plunged wholeheartedly into what was passing would then plunge completely into the eternal. That's Charles de Foucauld in a nutshell.

"The Holy Eucharist is Jesus, it is the whole Jesus! […] Oh, Let us never stay away from the presence of the Holy Eucharist even for one second in which Jesus permits us to be there!"
According to the Postulator for his Cause, Mons. Maurice Bouvier, Blessed Charles expressed his love for the Blessed Sacrament "in long hours of silent adoration, as well as in all the forms of Eucharistic devotion of his era. Above all else, in the Eucharist he contemplated the presence of Jesus, a presence so real in the tabernacle that he saw it spreading like rays over the country, becoming a fountain of sanctification and of salvation for all the people in the surrounding area, the way in the past, the silent, hidden prayer of Jesus at Nazareth was a source of grace for his fellow citizens.
Bouvier continues: "But the Spirit of Jesus taught him that Eucharistic service and service of the "little ones" is one single act of worship of the Body of Christ. The loving intimacy spent at the feet of the one he loved, the long hours of silent (and often dry) adoration, prompted him to go out towards the least of his brethren....and finally prompted him to leave for Tamanrasset, where he lived as the only priest--the only Christian--among the Tuareg people who accepted him, and among whom he would be a witness of Jesus-Love. From that lonely hermitage, he wrote to his cousin 'I do not suffer at all in this solitude, but find it most sweet; I have the Blessed Sacrament, the best of friends, with whom to speak day and night.' "



Read more about Bl. Charles in this book by one of his spiritual daughters. Find a complete listing of Chicago Adoration Chapel locations and hours online!