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Words of Hope

Talks given by Father Dominic Faure around the world.

Born and raised in Paris, Father Dominique Faure is now a member of the religious community Verbum Spei (Word of Hope). After completing three Masters degrees in the fields of chemical engineering and business administration, and during a succesful, promising career with a reputable firm, God called him to the priesthood. He answered the call to be a "priest forever" on the Feast of Our Lady of Lourdes, 11 February 1990. He was chaplain of Catholic Discipleship College in New Zealand for 8 years before moving to the USA in April 2019, where Verbum Spei has been invited by the diocese of Boise to open their fourth house.

One of the priests overseeing the spiritual formation for the Missionaries of Charity worldwide, Father Dominique also teaches and preaches to lay people, religious, priests, and bishops. Every year Father Dominique gives a retreat on the Island of Patmos where St. John wrote the Book of Revelation.

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The Resurrection of Christ      

"The joy of the resurrection is a very hidden joy, probably only lived really by Our Lady and maybe John besides her, and even John started to really believe when, running to the tomb because of the request of Mary Magdalen, he finally believed. But a very hidden manifestation of the victory of Christ. The Resurrection is first of all for Christ and the Father, and for Mary. And, at the same time, we should remember that we were created in order to be glorfied, body and soul. God didn't choose as a Creator and Father to bond together a spirit, which is totally light, to matter, which is obscure, if He didn't have at the same time the intention to transform in a radical way this matter which is dark into light, and therefore to perfectly cooperate with the beauty, the splendour of a human soul glorified. So we were created for a total glorification body and soul."

[Talks 34 mins + 7 mins of Q&As]

The Gift of Mary      

"I was really reflecting on what was taking place during Holy Week, this institution of the Eucharist in a very hidden way while the disciples were all in fear and probably most of them didn't really understand what was going on, including the washing of the feet, Christ in such a poverty, a liturgy that was done so poorly, and at the foot of the Cross to see that there were so few faithful. There was Mary, there was John and a few women, and in relation to this I was reflecting on what St Louis Marie de Montfort tells us that at the end of the Church the apostles of the ending Church will have to be apostles according to the heart of Our Lady, in a certain way they will have to be following John, the one who was faithful and who received Our Lady."

The Way of Trust, the Way of Love      

"The expression of keeping the word, that we see on several cases in the Gospel of St John, is obviously not simply a question of memorising but it's keeping a word giving life, a word of love giving life to the heart. Mary was keeping everything in her heart. And as Jesus kept the word of his Father he demands from his disciples to keep his word. It is in fact really the way a friend keeps in his heart all that his friend shares with him."

[Talks 8 mins]

Friendship with Christ      
1st Talk at a day retreat for Lent

"Do I really desire to recover this simplicity for which I have been created? The simplicity of being a child of God, the simplicity of a beloved son,  ... Do I really desire to recover a life where I listen to one, I love one, I find security in one? Sure, from there we are going to love many, from Christ, in Christ, for Christ, but the simplicity of a life where I have one reference and only one. In the same way as Jesus has only one reference: to the Father - a son can only do what he sees his father doing, I can only say what I hear from my father, the father loves me because I always do what pleases him - only one reference. It's clear that when we have recovered this simplicity then we become a rock for others .. in the sense that you can count on them, they are faithful."

[Talk 50 mins, given in NZ]

The Mystery of Mary
& the dignity of woman      

"I wanted during this talk to see how the mystery of Our Lady helps us better understand the dignity, the goodness, the beauty of woman. And it seems that it is especially important today when, for different ideological reasons, there is so often a misunderstanding of this dignity. And sure enough, Mary, as the Fathers of the Church looked at her, already in a certain way prefigured in the Old Testament, the woman is already shown, for example in the Book of Genesis, as the masterpiece of creation."

[Talk 55 mins, followed by Q&As; given in NZ in 2010]

Sharing in Mary's Joy      
Talk 3

"St Catherine of Siena doesn’t hesitate to say that what is best in our life of charity on earth is the desire and you remember how St Therese was really a woman of incredible desires, she desired to be everything, And of course a life without desire is very bland, a life without desire is very poor, while people who have changed the world have been people who have huge desires, those who have really made a difference were people with a great desire, at any level. And of course the greater the desires the more we need to hope, because it would be foolish to desire something that you know you will not be able to reach. So if indeed we have been created for this fullness - to know God and to see Him as He is - knowing that by ourselves we are incapable of doing it, if God has put in each one of us, in our intelligence, in our heart, therefore the best in us which is our spirit, by nature and by grace this unquenchable desire to stay with Him and see Him face to face, then He needs to give us what will sustain us in hope, otherwise we would fall in despair. … And there’s this joy of desiring in hope and even more when we recognise that God responds to our desires by allowing us to anticipate what He wants to give us. Or, said otherwise, He would not give us the desire unless He was already planning on giving us what we desire."

[Talk 50 mins, given in January 2019]

The Magnificat      
Sharing in Mary's Joy - Talk 2

"“His mercy is from age to age on those who fear him”. One condition is that this joy of receiving mercy, this joy of discovering how unique we are for Christ implies first of all this fear and therefore this poverty of those who know that everything in them depends on God, that everything in them depends on the transcendence of God. The fear of God is not a fear at the level of justice, it’s a fear of the source without whom we cannot be anything, we cannot do anything. It’s a good fear, the fear of those ultimately who are afraid of losing the presence of their source. It’s a fear of sin but more than this, it’s the fear of being cut from our source which is a holy fear and ultimately the fear linked to pure love, the fear of displeasing our source, the fear of hurting the heart of God. So it’s a fear coming from littleness, the fear of knowing that without God I cannot do anything, without God I cannot be anything. It’s a good fear and therefore the fear of being lost without Him. And then, when there is such a fear in us, fear is the beginning of wisdom, then we can be truly open to his merciful love because there is no pride in us. Pride is pretending that I can stand be myself. No. In front of God none of us can stand by ourself, we can only stand because of His merciful love."

[Talk 46 mins, given in January 2019]

Sharing in Mary's Joy      
Talk 1

"So the first dimension of the joy of Christ: to be in the Father, from the Father, turned towards Him and that’s the Prologue of the Gospel of John. And the second dimension of the joy of Christ is a joy towards us and there there are many, many moments in the Gospel where we see that, especially in St Luke, all the parables on mercy …. It’s a joy of giving. I was going to say thanks to the Incarnation and the Redemption, Jesus can manifest and experience in his humanity a new joy, the joy of giving. As a Son his joy is first of all to receive and as a Son Incarnate Redeemer it is also the joy of giving, giving mercy, giving mercy, giving mercy. The joy of receiving from the source and the joy of becoming also a source for us."

[Talk 46 mins, given in January 2019; background noises better after 5 mins!]

Prayer      

"The prayer of Jesus was eminently a prayer of dependence. We say that fundamentally prayer for us is first of all adoration, where we recognise our dependence on our Creator, we give thanks for this dependence and, within this radical dependence, Jesus wants to lead us to another type of dependence which is the dependence of friend on his friend and through that the dependence of the son on his Father, in the most absolute sense. It means that the prayer of Jesus was, yes, a prayer of desires, a prayer in a radical way of a Son depending and needing the response and the love of his Father."

[Talk 50 mins, given in January 2019]