‘Be ye holy, as your Father in Heaven is Holy’ Mathew 5: 48
Everything passes away, only God remains. In the mysterious economy of grace we know that a person’s state of holiness is not solely for their own benefit, but that it impacts other specific souls, and the Church overall. We know by faith that a hidden act of love, an unspoken suffering united to our Lord’s, can affect the course of events, causing conversions and an increase in good in this world. But there is also a more practical and obvious way that the benefits accrue to others and a shining example of this is seen in the life of Père Jacques, a French Carmelite priest who died in 1945.
Père Jacques was born Lucien Bunel on January 29, 1900 in Barentin France. He was ordained a priest in the Roman Catholic Church at the age of 25 and joined the Carmelite order in 1932, taking the name Jacques of Jesus. He was the headmaster of a school in Avon and was arrested by the Nazis on January 15 1944 for harboring Jewish students. He spent the next 17 months in the horror of the Nazi prison system and died shortly after being liberating, in May 1945, his body broken and starved, poured out for his fellow men.
It is impossible to plumb the depths of another soul, particularly one of the caliber of Père Jacques’ so we will content ourselves by observing what was evident from the outside. His personal holiness had a direct and dramatic impact on countless men though his burning charity, his strength of will and his inner peace. He was the only priest in the camp of 20,000 men and immediately became a beacon of hope and a source of spiritual and material help to many.
His holiness and proximity to God also had the effect of enkindling in him a great love for his fellow man. Upon hearing that he was being transferred from an internment camp to a ‘death camp’ he rejoiced, for his said that surely, this is where the men would need him most. He had no thought of himself, only of how he could help the men amongst whom he moved, bringing them Christ in his persona. This kind of love is not human. It comes only from God and only with an advanced level of holiness has been attained.
The years spent in fasting and mortification made Père Jacques strong and able to face hunger, cold and sickness. Like a good soldier or athlete, he had trained hard and his will was master of his flesh. He was able to give away a portion of his meager, subsistence rations to his fellow prisoners who were even weaker and hungrier than he. But even more important, he was able to rise above the inhumane physical conditions of the camps because his will was accustomed to being master of his flesh and not the other way around. There were many prisoners who benefited from receiving a portion of Père Jacques rations but countless more benefited from his endurance and equanimity in the face of starvation and suffering that would break the will of most people.
Contemplation and silence are at the heart of the Carmelite vocation, entering into the ‘inner cell’ of one’s heart to be alone with the Beloved. As a Carmelite, Père Jacques had spent years deepening his prayer life and by the time he arrived at the death camps, his outward demeanor reflected his interior peace. His biographer notes that ‘from that inner communion there radiated an air of peace and calm that left a deep impression on all his fellow prisoners.’ One of his fellow prisoners later reported that Père Jacques was so calm and peaceful that ‘just to speak with him made the camp seem to vanish’. In such a dark, evil place, the light of Christ shone comfort and peace for the solace and comfort of those poor suffering men.
What an inspiring example another’s holiness also provides. It was recounted that Fr. Jacques did his morning routine in his freezing cell in just his shorts, to mortify his flesh. Since I have read his biography, there have been countless times that I have been grumbling about a little tiny inconvenience and I have thought of Père Jacques freezing and starving in his death camp, and I have been inspired to be better. To put up with the small sufferings that I am being given. And may it please God, that I grow strong enough to endure worse, should they come.
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