Who was Madeleine Delbrêl, whose three birthdays we are celebrating this year?

Madeleine was born in Dordogne on October 24, 1904. The only daughter of a loving but not very religious bourgeois family, Madeleine nevertheless attended catechism and made her first communion. As a teenager she went through a period of radical atheism. Writing and poetry, his traveling companions since childhood, will serve him to express his disillusioned vision of the world. She goes so far as to write: “Only death holds good” and titles one of her texts which has become famous “God is dead, long live death”. However, she is a young girl full of life who takes classes at the Sorbonne and loves dancing in these crazy years where you have to have fun.

Frequenting a circle of young Catholics, she falls in love with a brilliant student from the École Centrale, and under their influence, she begins to doubt. His conviction of a world without God is losing its strength. When her almost-fiance announced her entry into the Dominicans, this brutal break led to her conversion in March 1924: “I could no longer leave God in the absurd.” This revelation upsets her, she says she is “dazzled by God”, in a total change of heart.

Scouting gave her the rebirth she needed and she returned to writing. His talent was crowned by the Sully-Prudhomme prize for young poets. She briefly thought about entering Carmel, but decided to stay in the world by devoting herself to the poor with her scout troop. Around Father Lorenzo, its spiritual director, a group of leaders was formed and opened a social center to welcome and evangelize the population of the working-class neighborhoods of the parish of Ivry-sur-Seine (Val-de-Marne).

At the same time, Madeleine trained as a nurse and then as a social worker. She chooses celibacy to devote herself to her mission and discovers the gap that separates her from these secular and communist neighborhoods. In order to better understand the activists of the suburbs, Madeleine attends meetings, reads Lenin but also The Gospel. She suffers from seeing that “God does not seem to be lacking, neither in anything nor in anyone” and understands that following Christ also means loving those who are sometimes furthest from him. Over the months, she realizes the “incompatibility” of the Christian faith with Marxism and finds her vocation: to bear witness to the charity of Christ with her team of committed young women. Choosing to live together, they gave their secular community the name “Charity of Jesus.”

Madeleine forms sincere friendships with those she helps and protects. After the years of war where she showed deep professional dedication, she resigned from the social services of the town hall to refocus on her community of “Charity” with contemplative and apostolic missions, and on her writing. His fight against all misery continues and enriches his texts, always vibrant testimonies of his faith. She allows the very young Mission of France to benefit from her field experience in Ivry. His book Marxist city land of mission published in 1957 tells the story of his journey and earned him many articles and conferences. She is still the one consulted during the preparation of the Second Vatican Council.

Exhausted by a life of commitments and having always had fragile health, she died at almost 60 years old in 1964. She left behind her, in addition to her writings, a spirituality which continues to radiate and inspire younger generations.

To go further

-Its House at 11 rue Raspail in Ivry, can be visited.

-His complete works and its correspondence are published by Nouvelle Cité.

On October 9, Ephata will publish, in pocket format, a compilation of three works by Madeleine Delbrêl commented by Fathers Gilles François and Bernard Pitaud “Madeleine Delbrêl Listening to the Word Suffering and joy The Eucharist lived.”.