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Marthe Robin And the Foyers de Charité
Daphne Kilner, who has been involved in the Catholic Charismatic Renewal for many years, talks about the influence on Marthe Robin, the founder of the Foyers de Charité, on the Catholic Church, the new movements and on her own life. |
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When I was eighteen, an Anglican and staying with a French family in the Auvergne, I began learning about the Catholic Church, what it believed and why. Sometimes my French friends would say: “if you really want to understand about “x”, you should make a retreat at Chateauneuf de Galaure, in south-east France. It was a retreat house and lay community, founded by Marthe Robin and the Abb? Georges Finet, who was the Father of the Foyer and preached most of retreats. Marthe Robin lived nearby in the family farmhouse where she was born. She had been bedridden since she was in her early twenties. She had had the stigmata for many years. She relived the Passion of Christ each week and neither ate, nor drank nor slept. I found this a bit scary at the time but my friends spoke of her with such respect and affection that my initial reaction soon wore off. She had made a total offering of herself to the Lord and could say, with Paul: “I live, yet not I but Christ lives in me.” Before she received the stigmata, Jesus said to her: “Do you want to be like me?” Her only nourishment was the Eucharist, which she received once a week. “My flesh is food indeed…”. The Lord had spoken to her about the many Catholics who struggle to make sense of an adult world with a faith that stopped developing when they were still children. He wanted the Foyers to provide an adult, coherent understanding of the Good News, based on the love of God, on scripture and open to the work of the Holy Spirit. Today there are nearly seventy Foyers world wide and the number keeps growing. I made two six-day retreats at Chateauneuf. There were four talks each day, covering all the basics of the Catholic Faith and the retreatants kept silence “so we could hear the Holy Spirit.” Pere Finet was such a gifted speaker, with such a fund of good stories, that his talks never seemed too long. At twenty-one, I decided to become a Catholic. It was shortly before Vatican II and converts were still given “conditional baptism” I asked one of my French friends to be my godfather and he persuaded me to ask Marthe to be my godmother. To my surprise and joy, she accepted. I was received as a Catholic at Chateauneauf, during a Night of Adoration over the New Year. “She made the kingdom of God seem more real” After that, when I was at Chateauneuf, I got to see Marthe for forty minutes instead of the usual ten for those on retreat. I often wish I had written down all the things we talked about but I know that every time I saw her I left feeling that the Kingdom of God and the things of heaven were even more real than the things of earth. That makes sense because they are certainly more enduring, but it is not how one always feels! What Marthe said about the love of God was always very convincing. When some people talk about the love of God and how unfailing it is, one can be tempted to think: “It’s all very well for them” but no one thought that about Marthe. Her suffering made her a very authentic witness. Some words from Marthe I particularly like are the following: “I would like to be everywhere at once to tell the world again and again how good God is. How much He loves men and women and shows Himself tender and compassionate for all, to what extent He is Father and Father full of goodness and mercy, that nothing is easier either because even our smallest actions done through love are enough to charm His Heart.” “New Pentecost of Love” In May 1939, Marthe prayed a beautiful prayer for a New Pentecost of Love and she played a significant part herself in the formation of many of the new communities that would emerge during the 20th century. She was a friend of Little Sister Madeleine, who founded the Little Sisters of Jesus (inspired by Charles de Foucauld) and of Chiara Lubich, foundress of Focolare. She prayed with and guided the founders of the Emmanuel Community and the Beatitudes, two of the largest charismatic communities in France. When Per? Marie Dominique Philippe, was trying to resolve the dilemma of how he, a Dominican, could lead the community of St Jean, formed by his students, he turned to Marthe. She said simply: “You cannot leave the sheep without a shepherd”. He took this to be the will of God for him and now the Community of St Jean is one of the fastest growing orders in the Church providing many priests and nuns. The cause for Marthe’ beatification is proceeding and new books about her come out about every year in France and elsewhere. One of these is translated into English (“The Cross and the Joy” by Raymond Peyret published by Alba House 1983) and there is also a CTS booklet called “Marthe Robin – A Chosen Soul”. Marthe was very much inspired by the spirituality of St Louis-Maire Grignon de Montfort. He emphasized that Jesus was born of the Holy Spirit and of the Virgin Mary and that the surest way for Jesus to be formed in each of us was to follow His pattern. Each Foyer has Mary as its mother and encourages a great openness to the Holy Spirit.
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