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Bro. Noël Commandeur, M.S. |
Over the past twenty-two years, Brother Noel stood out in service at the Shrine in France: a crowd of pilgrims were able to meet him in the store and so did many volunteers who worked with him.
Noel, you have invested yourself for a long at the La Salette Shrine in France, but there is more your life...
Yes, I have been a Missionary Brother of Our Lady of La Salette for 51 years. But mine is a long history. At home, my mother had a great devotion to Our Lady of La Salette. In our home, an altar was dedicated to her. I am a Dauphinois and so I was a close neighbor of the beautiful Lady who had come to visit her people on the mountain. The Missionaries of La Salette often came to preach missions in our area.
As a Dauphinois, you’re at heart a member of those who live in the Jura Mountains, aren’t you?
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Noël when stationed at Tavaux |
In 1954, at the age of twenty, I joined the army. I did so at Tavaux, in the Jura Mountains, where the Air Force had a base, where my vocation was really strengthened. It was there that I met two military chaplains who did much to help me clarify my vocation. In fact I was looking for a God like the one who had given me the capacity to love, to think, to forgive. I was conscious that my baptism connected me to the large family of Christians. It also connected me to the One who immersed himself into our humanity in order to share with us.
It was in in the Jura that you once again found your vocation…
Yes, because since 1950, the Missionaries of La Salette were present in the Jura, at Voiteur, where they had their Apostolic School. This Minor Seminary brought together hundreds of young men from all backgrounds, beginning in the 7th grade. I entered the novitiate in 1957 at Corps, and I made my first vows, joining the Missionaries in 1959. It is at this time that I was appointed to Voiteur, as a Prefect and Professor of Physical Education.
I did this for twenty-two years and involved the students in other activities: stamp collecting, typing, printing using very old machines, and typesetting. Hand-powered, we printed 2,000 copies of our
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Bro. Noël at camp with the youth |
school newspaper “Le Gai Castel.” It is at that time that we established our La Salette “Third World Service” which consisted of collecting medicine and clothing to support the foundational work of the Fathers in Madagascar.
I spent the summer holidays as group director of the camp, since the school provided child aftercare at Lons-le-Saunier. And so I continued to work at Voiteur from 1959 to 1982. I really loved working with youth.
Now, brother Noel, you have lived at the La Tronche community for ten years, in your world of stamp collecting. I see that your walls are filled with photos of your many friends, young and old alike. How do you spend your days now?
They are always busy with visitors – announced and unannounced – telephone calls, 3,500 correspondents for the Antsirabe, Madagascar Missionary Service (SMAM), and connections with their group of volunteers. My mission is always “the poor.”
You used to claim that you were “a searcher after God”…
Yes, I was “a searcher after God” but God sought me out first! As a Brother of La Salette, I am also very attached to the “Beautiful Lady.”
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Bro. Noël with store volunteers |
What impact has Mary had on your discovery of God?
For me, she is a mother very close to us – a mother who has helped me discover who her Son really is. She witnessed to me something of God's tenderness. She represents the feminine dimension of the God whose image we bear.
La Salette, for twenty years, has been a place where I was also able to meet other seekers of God. These encounters have enriched my faith. I trust in God because he is not One who would crush me in my weakness.
For me he is a rock to which I am clinging when things don’t go well. As a retired person, God recharges my batteries. I am a happy man as a brother of La Salette, even if life is sometimes very difficult and the challenges are many.
My faith is not a merely intellectual religion. I live on the level of the two young witnesses to the “Great News” and I find myself altogether wrapped up in the message we have been given: “Come near, my children, do not be afraid!” My story is that of the French singer, Edith Piaf, who said: “No, I do not regret anything!”