218 years ago...

218 years ago...

 

 

On 27 October 1793, Pierre Bienvenu Noailles was born in Bordeaux.  He was born into a family of merchants and was baptised immediately after his birth, a practice that was not so commonplace at that time which was one of the most tragic periods in the history of France and especially in the history of Bordeaux.  He began his life at a time when the world seemed to be collapsing into total chaos.   Bernard Peyrous, in the introduction to his book: “Father Noailles, a Prophet for Today”, says of him: 

 

“This is the story of an exceptional person, a saint, not the wax or porcelain type, but a living one, a man of flesh and blood, of plans and struggles.  Something or someone greater than he, dwelt within him – God, Jesus Christ.  The inner personal adventure he had embarked on became a collective one, the foundation of the Holy Family, whose branches would spread to the ends of the earth”

Today 218 years after his birth, one of his sons, a Lay Associate of the Holy Family, exclaims joyfully:

 

“The life of the Good Father still vibrates throughout his Family”