Carlo Carretto

[CARLO CARRETTO (1910-1988) WAS A FASCINATING MIXTURE OF WORLDLY POWER AND MYSTICAL PRAYER. CENTERED FOR YEARS IN THE WORK OF THE CATHOLIC YOUTH MOVEMENT, HE WAS RESPECTED THROUGHOUT THE WORLD FOR HIS DEDICATION TO YOUTH AND TO SOCIAL CHANGE. IT WAS NOT UNUSUAL FOR HIM TO VISIT A WIDE VARIETY OF COUNTRIES IN A SHORT PERIOD OF TIME. HE SHOCKED HIS COMPANIONS AND PEERS BY SUDDENLY RESIGNING ALL AND JOINING THE 'LITTLE BROTHERS OF JESUS.' THIS WAS A GROUP WHO LIVED AMONG THE MOSLEMS OF THE AFRICAN DESERT, FOLLOWING THE EXAMPLE OF CHARLES DE FOUCAULD. CARRETTO'S WORKS INCLUDE 'LETTERS FROM THE DESERT' AND 'THE GOD WHO COMES.' THEY ARE BEAUTIFUL WORKS OF SIMPLICITY AND DEEP FAITH. HERE IS A BIT FROM 'THE GOD WHO COMES.']

By way of encouragement, God tells me in scripture: `I will remove the stony heart from their bodies, and replace it with a natural heart . . .' (Ezek. 11:19)- But I'm still waiting, asking myself when and how this will happen.

In our community the other day there wasn't much coffee.

-Coffee does me good down here in the desert ... it helps me . . . I am old.

I was worried about not having any, about spending a few hours feeling dull and weak, and without perceiving the evil I was doing-I went into the kitchen before the others and drank up all that was left.

Afterwards, having suffered all day and made my confession, I thought in shame of my selfishness, of the ease with which I had excluded my two brothers from those black, bitter remains.

It seems a tiny thing, yet in that cup of coffee, taken and not shared with my brothers, is the root of all the evil which disturbs us, the poison of all the arrogance which selfishness, riches, and power create.

The difference between me and Jesus is right here n an affair that seems simple but isn't at all; after a whole life time it is still there to make you think. Jesus would have left the coffee for His brothers; I excluded my brothers.

No, it isn't easy to live with hearts like ours, let us confess it.

• See:
  Carretto Spritual Vignette