His Life and Work
“For me, there is a before this month of March 1923, and an after this month of March 1923. It marked me, and since that day I have had only one desire: to enter more deeply myself into this intimacy with Christ, and this other desire to lead others to it, because it was decisive in my life; it gave me the joy of living, the grace of living, the impetus to live. Therefore I cannot but wish for others this encounter with the living Christ, this discovery that God is love.”
Henri Caffarel, Conference, March 25, 1973
Henri Caffarel
His beginnings
Henri Caffarel was born on July 30, 1903, in Lyon. He was baptised on August 2, 1903, and ordained a priest on April 19, 1930, in Paris. He died on September 18, 1996, in Beauvais, and is buried in the cemetery of Troussures.
“Come and follow me!” These words of the Lord are inscribed on his tomb because, in March 1923, the event occurred that would shape his entire life, as he explained, “At twenty, Jesus-Christ, in an instant, became Someone for me. Oh! Nothing spectacular. On that distant day in March, I knew that I was loved and that I loved, and that from then on, between him and me, it would be for life. Everything was decided.”
The young Henri Caffarel encountered “Someone.” Thus, everything he went on to found and organise would be done little by little, as the Lord would show him. Cardinal Jean-Marie Lustiger speaks of Father Henri Caffarel as “a prophet of the 20th century.” He was thus aware of doing “something new for the Church.”
Henri Caffarel was touched by the Lord’s love. The ministry of Father Henri Caffarel would be at the service of love, “to be loved, to love.” For him, the Lord’s love was a source of dynamism and life. From the outset, he was in harmony with couples who wanted to help their love flourish in the light of the Lord…
Whatever the work undertaken, Father Henri Caffarel had a single aim: to place each person before the Lord, who is the source of every vocation.
Henri Caffarel concluded, “Everything was decided.” And this is indeed how he summed it up … “There is nothing else to say; one obeys, one works, one does not become puffed up by the services rendered, and, when it is over, one leaves…”
He was rigourous, had high standards, was precise in details, had the will to carry through to the end, had a concrete view of events and people, and the ability to let go of everything that was not part of what he “saw”…
