Jesus Caritas

1939 Touggourt

Extract from the CONFERENCES of Little sister MAGDELEINE of Jesus, September – December 1940. Text preceding her little film about her life with the Semi nomads of Touggourt, Algeria.    

Speaking with a group of Refugees:

“Before leaving for my distant Sahara, I want to speak to you about brotherly and sisterly love.  My dear refugee friends, these are the words of a Little Sister who has herself suffered a lot and who understands you so well after having seen her poor old grandmother disappear, massacred, her two brothers killed, her dear family home burned and destroyed, all of this during the war of 1914-1918. You have to have gone through such things to really understand what suffering is and especially to be able to guess what suffering would be like without love!  

War and hatred are so horrible.  It is so horrible to think that human beings put themselves at the service of hatred when two million years ago Jesus died on the cross to teach humankind to love one another.  

At least, love one another.  War has mixed you together from all different regions.  Forget your differences of temperament and of origin.  It is so hard to feel like a “stranger” in a country that does not know you or love you, especially when you have left behind your region, your dear home, your old furniture, the tomb of your parents, the very soul of your entire past, thinking that perhaps you will never see them again!  

1945 Touggourt If I were not called by God to the Sahara, I would like to live amidst those who no longer have neither home nor roof, in order to say to them, “Love one another”.  That is the greatest commandment of Jesus and the one we most often forget!  

In my film, I am going to show you some human beings who are even more unfortunate than you, poor wandering beings, dying too often from misery and hunger, not liked by anyone.  And you will see to what degree love can transform them.”