Stars in the open sea

The close of 2007 marks the end of the centenary year of the scouting movement. In many countries in which this educational experience – born from an intuition of the English general Robert Baden Powell – is present, the celebrations reached their high point on 1st August with the solemn renewal of the scouting vow. As a conclusion to this centenary, which involved huge numbers of young people also in Europe, we propose a reflection on Guy de la Rigaudie (Paris 1908 – Musson 1940), legendary French scout who, together with Roger Drapier, completed the gruelling Paris-Saigon car race in 1937/1938. Guillaume Boulle de Larigaudie (the name under which he was born) died in 1940, fighting for love of his country and for freedom. His little book “Étoile au gran large”(Star in the Open Sea) is one of the finest summations of the values on which the scouting movement is based and on which it has developed. We propose a few passages from it, followed by a comment by the Most Rev. Michel Muisse, Bishop of Perigueux-Sarlat, the diocese in which is situated Saint Martin de Riberac, the little town in Périgord where Guy del Riagudie lived for many years and where he is now buried. Here a monument to his memory will be inaugurated on 19 April. Lastly we append a brief list of the various Blesseds and Venerables who have emerged from the European scouting movement. ALL THE BARRIERS WILL FALL. Guy de la Rigaudie nurtured great dreams. He also had a great ability to communicate his enthusiasm for adventure to others. We find a trace of it in his book, “Etoile au grand large” which sums up the human and spiritual richness of this French scout. “There’s an excellent way of creating a friendly spirit in oneself – declares the author in this book -, not the ironic and scoffing smile that creases only the corners of the mouth, the smile that judges harshly and that mortifies, but the real ‘scout’ smile, joyful and serene”. The spirituality of a man who wanted to be a saint, to become a model for the scouts and to spend his life in a leper colony in Thailand transpires from every page of this book: let us cite two passages. “The most wonderful adventure is that of our personal life, perfectly proportioned to us. Thirty, fifty, perhaps eighty years that we need arduously to overcome, rigged like a ship that sets sail towards that Star in the open sea that represents our one point of reference and are only hope. And this adventure does not exceed our possibilities. It’s enough we steer our course towards our God to make us fit for infinity and this justifies all our dreams. We are witnesses of God. We put a tiny piece of eternity into all our actions”. Lastly the conclusion of the little book: “The park of the old house in Perigord where I took my first steps in life has been enlarged to the ends of the earth, and I have played out the game of my life on the map of the world. Nonetheless the garden walls have only closed in and so I always feel myself encaged. But the day will come when I shall be able to sing my song of love and joy. All the barriers will fall. And I will possess infinity!”. CHARITY OF THE SMILE – The Bishop of Périgueux et Sarlat, Michel Mouïsse, recently handed over a first dossier of documentation on Guy de Larigaudie to the Holy See’s Congregation for the Causes of Saints. “A rapid review of Guy’s life and work – the bishop told SirEurope – enables us to discover the life of a young layman with all his enthusiasm and his plans: a life that, despite being exceptional, is made up of everyday events, a life totally offered to others with so great a love for the poor and the disadvantaged as to make him wish to work in a leper colony in Thailand. It also enables us to discover the purity of his regard for girls and women due to that profound sense of respect for the person and for the whole person that he always had, thanks not least to the close dialogue he had with his mother. What we discover again and again in the historical documentation on Guy de Larigaudie is his joie de vivre, his being a witness of the charity of the smile. Guy’s life was luminous because it was lived in faith, faith in man that scouting wishes to foster and faith in God that alone gives meaning to life. Guy was always searching for the ‘eternal vocation’: in all his journeys through the world he was a seeker of God. His greatest adventures always reached the high peaks of spirituality: that is confirmed by the nostalgia for heaven of which he wrote in the letter to a Carmelite sister, the confidante of his heart, that was found in his pocket when he died. It is his personal testament: “The sacrifice of my life is not even a sacrifice, since my desire for heaven and to ‘see God’ is so great”. For the youth of Europe this is a great and abiding testimony of humanity and faith”. OTHER EUROPEAN FACES – Apart from Guy de Larigaudie, other Blesseds and Venerables, either scouts or supporters of scouting, have borne heroic witness in Europe in the twentieth century: Marcel Callo, French manual worker and scout, who died at the age of 23 in the concentration camp of Mauthausen in 1945; Father Stefan Wincenty Frelichowski, Polish priest who died at the age of 32 at Dachau in 1945; Joel Anglèes d’Auriac, French scout decapitated at the age of 22 at Dresden in 1941; Father Giovanni Minzoni, killed at the age of 38 at Argenta in 1923; Egidio Bollesi from Pola (Italy), manual worker and scout who died of tuberculosis at the age of 24 in 1929; and the Blesseds Luigi and Maria Beltrame Quattrocchi who devoted their lives to the promotion of Catholic scouting in Rome and whose son, Father Tracisio, translated “Étoile au grand large” into Italian.