avant

Raoul ... and the Monasteries

by Marie-Paule

When he was three years old Raoul's mother took him to a shrine. It was an experience that seemed to have left its mark on him for life. His soul became sensitive to the beauty, to the harmony of the pipe organs, to the majesty of those places. This fascination of his soon ran up against the contradiction of a passionate, ardent temperament which obliged the adolescent to master himself in order to make a success of the willful, interiorly lacerated adult, often characteristic of those in whom genius is erupting to either soar to the heights or to sink into a sort intoxication that soon becomes extinct. Raoul was to enter upon a path along which sublime joys were mingled with acute sufferings, to such an extent that, with the years, whenever difficulties arose in his work or with his own, he would disappear. His first such "flight" led him to the shrine, Notre-Dame-de-la-Garde, in Marseille.

Brother Raoul
At the age of 81, Raoul Auclair
consecrated himself to God and
became Brother Raoul within the
Community of the Sons of Mary in
Quebec.
Another time, he went alone to Notre-Dame-des-Dombes, to the monastery of the Cistercians where he remained some days. He wife Suzanne went to join him and said to him, "If you want to become a monk, then I'm quite willing... I give you permission." Suzanne, an attentive and loving spouse, never realized how significant her words were: she had just "foretold" Raoul what he would later become. Raoul returned home and, amid the ups and downs of life, often had the occasion to return to monasteries, at times for long stays. And so, while bearing his cross, he acquired documentation and even managed sometimes to write a book, which he put away on the shelf, quite ignorant of its importance.

He made visits to La Salette, Châteauneuf-de-Galaure where Marthe Robin told him of his future mission, to San Giovanni Rotondo with Padre Pio, to Rocca di Papa with Father Lombardi of "Le Monde Meilleur" ["the better world"]; he went a number of times to Lourdes, Fatima, Garabandal and to many other shrines such as those of the Sacred Heart, of Saint Michael, etc.

It was while bearing the cross – which often he thrust upon himself, involuntarily – and with faith and the desire to serve that Raoul was able to produce a number of eschatological and Marian works. He could never furnish a number for the conferences he gave during his lifetime.

A specialist in radio and television broadcasts, and well acquainted with the famous shrine of Portugal, Raoul first commented the events of that place, and then the conference was followed by the presentation of a feature-length film in color entitled "Prodiges et Prestige de Fatima" [literally, "marvels and wonder of Fatima"]. It was a "work of faith, of art and of perfect authenticity", concerning which Most Reverend Venancio, Bishop of Leiria, to which Fatima is subordinate, was able to write, after having viewed it in Paris:

"... I most heartily congratulate Father Onfroy and his collaborators, Messers Wagner, Auclair and Loriquet, whose work I had blessed at Fatima itself. Thanks to them, many, even far off, willbe able to receive the beneficent shock of Fatima and find for themselves an immediate introduction to both the pilgrimage and the message of Our Lady. As for those already familiar with these, I think they will more readily discover the profound meaning of Fatima, thanks to Mr. Auclair's text..." (L'Yonne républicaine, Auxerre, June 14, 1967).

Twenty-four films form a collection on different Marian apparitions, well illustrated and commented by experienced artists, a series of religious recordings produced by Raoul Auclair, as well as the plays he produced for the O.R.T.F. [the French radio and television network] were keenly appreciated.

Here are some of those plays: Les Maléfiques ["the malefics"] – Le Chemin de la Croix ["the way of the cross"] – L'Annonce fait par Marie ["the announcement made by Marie"] – Pont-Main, ou l'Arcane de la Nuit ["Pont-main, or the arcanum of the night"] – La Chaîne et les Roses ["the chain and the roses"] – Si grande est sa beauté ["so great is her beauty"] – Vêtue de soleil ["clothed in the sun"] – La Vierge du Second Noël ["the Virgin of the second Christmas"] – Le Visiteur de la Chandeleur ["the visitor of Candlemas"] – Celle qui vécut l'Histoire (A.-C. Emmerich) ["she who lived history" (A.-C. Emmerich)].

A music-lover, artist, botanist, poet, writer, etc., Raoul had the sense of beauty. He had first to fight against himself, ridding his spirit of the profane, the better to perceive the light that filters from Scrpture. With the years, the Spirit, heretofore wrapped in obscurity, voluntarily, became transparent after Raoul had broken the seals that, until then, bound the words of Mary, the Lady of All Peoples, or those of Scripture. Raoul opened for his readers and his audiences the locks holding back the superabounding waters enclosed in the Apocalypse. Blessed are they who have known the quivering awakening on seizing the spark of love which leads to the supernatural ways that foster the nobility of the human being and its spiritual fruitfulness.

Marie-Paule


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