NAZARETH

The first Fraternity in Nazareth was founded by Little Sister Magdeleine of Jesus during her stay in the Middle East (22 August 1949 – 1 January 1950). Together with some Little Sisters, she arrived in Nazareth on 17 September to make the necessary arrangements. She wrote in her diary:

Our arrival in Nazareth, the town of the beloved Lord, was a wonderful day. We greeted, just as we made them out in the distance, the hills where he had walked and we admired the sky which he had contemplated. Nazareth is unique in the world, his town, the town of the Blessed Virgin…

And for us, it is, in addition, the town where our father, Brother Charles of Jesus, prayed so much, loved poverty so much, practised lowliness so much. So we decided to be poorer here than in any other place whatsoever…

That evening we met Mother Philomène, the Abbess of the Poor Clares. How good and how open! She would like to give back to us all the precious mementoes of Father de Foucauld in order that we may keep them in our chapel and she tells us that, on Monday, she will see that the part of the monastery where Brother Charles of Jesus lived is vacated in order to give it to us (17 September).

Since yesterday, Little Sister Hélène is carrying planks of wood through Nazareth just as our Lord must have done in his days. People looked at her in amazement… but they ended up getting used to it.

The Poor Clare Sisters have worked with so much love for us. This friendship between our two communities is a beautiful thing! (1 October).

Exactly forty years later, 17 September 1996, the Little Brothers of Jesus Caritas replaced the Little Sisters of Jesus.

In April 1996, at the meeting of the Spiritual Family of Charles de Foucald, held in Haiti,

the brothers who represented the Prior General, together with all the other participants, received an invitation of the Little Sisters of Jesus: they asked who would feel like accepting the Fraternity in Nazareth for at least two years, given that they were required to serve elsewhere.

With the approval of the Patriarch of Jerusalem, Monsignor Michel Sabbah, and of his vicar, Monsignor Giacinto Boulos Marcuzzo, the new Fraternity was made welcome by the whole Christian community of Nazareth. The Prior, Brother Gian Carlo wrote in his diary:

What a beautiful, fraternal welcome also for us, the Little Brothers of Jesus Caritas of Charles de Foucauld on the part of the Poor Clares; from the Little Sisters of Jesus, who so generously have placed at our disposal all that they had and to whom we give in exchange the presence here of the Spiritual Family of Father de Foucauld; from the local Church, represented by the vicar of the patriarch Bishop Giacinto Boulos Marcuzzo; and from the friends of the Nazareth Fraternity. At the end of the Eucharist which inaugurated our venture, the bishop delivered this message: “For the greater glory of the Most Holy Trinity, for the building up of the Kingdom of God and of his Church, in the spirit of Jesus of Nazareth, of Blessed Mary of the Annunciation and of St. Joseph the Just Man, of the monks of the Holy Land, and of Father Charles de Foucauld, in the name of his Beatitude the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Monsignor Michel Sabbah, and of the other pastors of the Holy Land, and with the affection and prayer of the local church, I welcome you to Nazareth with joy and with gratitude to the Lord.

Your arrival in Nazareth takes place in an extraordinary religious and ecclesial context: the Universal Church is preparing for the great Jubilee of the year 2000, the local Church is celebrating a diocesan synod of conversion and of updating, the synodical exhortation Vita consacrata is in the hands of the religious and of their communities. That you and we are invited to recover the freshness of the beginnings, the roots of our Salvation History, and the wellspring of our Christian life are most beautiful occurrences. And this is what you are doing by your return to Nazareth where you have been reared spiritually…’and he returned to Nazareth’ (Lk 4,26).

Charles de Foucauld and Nazareth

In seeking his true vocation, Charles de Foucald twice spent time in Nazareth. The first time was between the end of November 1888 and February 1889 during a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. Charles was then 30 years old and the Abbé Huvelin, his spiritual director, had advised him to travel to Palestine in the footsteps of Jesus. He made this journey under obedience but with a certain perplexity. He made a stop in Jerusalem and then travelled through Galilee and Judea, no longer the man of science as in Morroco – even though he did collect and catalogue herbs, flowers and leaves – but as the “fool for God.”

He arrived in Nazareth at the beginning of January 1888. He stayed at the Casa Nova of the Franciscans where the brother responsible for receiving guests could not help noticing his elegance and generosity. Then he visited Cana and Mount Tabor and returned again to Nazareth. It was here that he discovered the humble and hidden life of the divine worker. At the end of this journey, he wrote to his cousin: “You know the pilgrimage to the Holy Land has done me infinite and incomparable good (…) what an influence it has been in my life.”

Brother Charles was in Nazareth again from March 1897 until August 1900. This time, however, not as a pilgrim. He arrived after seven years spent as a Trappist, first in France and then in Syria. He had dreamed of a poorer and more hidden life like that of Jesus in Nazareth. In January 1897 he was dispensed from his vows, which he renewed privately, and he embarked for the Holy Land where he arrived on 24 February 1897. He journeyed on foot, dressed as a poor man, along the road from Jaffa to Ramallah, then to St. John of the Desert, Bethlehem, Jerusalem, Sichar.

He reached Nazareth on 5 March worn out and unrecognizable. He offered himself to the Mother Abbess of the Poor Clares as the servant of the monastery, asking in payment only a little dry bread and time for prayer, without revealing his identity and, in fact, passing himself off as foolish and ignorant.

On a plot of land next to the monastery, he was assigned a poor, abandoned hut to which he took his straw mattress and a blanket.

He passed the time doing odd jobs but, whenever possible, he would go to the chapel to pray. In 1899 he wrote: “It is the good God himself who has brought me by the hand to this nest which seems to have been prepared for me. I have found here a place of recollection, a retreat for which I cannot bless him enough, with this poverty, this lowliness of a worker so long desired.”

To See

The upper church. It is dominated by the great cupola, which rises forty meters and measures, at the base of the drum, eighteen meters in diameter. The mosaic of the major altar is inspired by the Franciscan tradition of Maria, mediator of Grace and by the proclamation of the Vatican Council II of Maria, Mother of the Church. On the lateral walls, there are images of the most significant sanctuaries to Maria.

The archeological zone. Leaving by the northern door, one finds the square which serves to protect the archeological zone, in which one can observe a series of caves which made up the original village, still inhabited in the time of Jesus. One can see millstones, cisterns, vases for oil and wine, silos, and small grinders for grain.

The museum. Here are gathered the most interesting remains - frescos, marbles, mosaics - indicative of the phases of construction of the various churches over the centuries.

The church of S. Joseph. Beneath this are yet visible a cistern and various caves dating from before the first century, which were part of the ancient village. In the crypt one can see a vessel with the characteristic elements of the baptism as they were in the Judeo-Christian churches.