Postale
Falkland Islands - unexpected connections
Introduction
I have been visiting the Falkland Islands for over ten years for work, and once for pleasure, though each visit is a pleasure. It is well known for its amazing near-pristine environment, penguins, whales, dolphins, sea lions, large birds and tasty toothfish and squid. It is also known for the 1982 conflict. If you want to have a really good insight into what the conflict was like, read John Smith’s book '74 days’ (the occupation lasted 74 days). He kept a diary all through the conflict and it is astonishing reading. I met John and his wife Eileen when I was there and he was a wonderful man, a great historian of the Islands, and a Christian. Sadly he passed away recently, God rest his soul. I found a great strengthening of my faith there. It is a long way, but it has some real treasures to discover. Start a faith journey and see where it takes you. "Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened."
Major Chris Keeble and the Battle for Goose Green
There is a wonderful 19th-century Cathedral in Stanley and also a smaller Roman Catholic church. I visited both, and in the Roman Catholic church of Saint Mary's I found a card that Father Ambrose had put out with a prayer on it - a 'Prayer of Abandonment' by Saint Charles de Foucauld (then, before 2022, he was 'Blessed' - after one miracle). It is a wonderful prayer, and on the other side of the card is the extraordinary account of Major Chris Keeble during the Falklands conflict and his moment of prayer. You can hear Chris speak about it here as recently as 2023, but first I reproduce below the prayer in question. You see the English version - the card I picked up in the church - and also the French version in his own handwriting, which also allows you to be comfortable with the translation (some online translations are not accurate!), and get a bit closer to him.
Saint Charles de Foucauld's 'Prayer of Abandonment'
English card (Saint Mary's Church, Stanley)
Saint Charles de Foucauld's 'Prayer of Abandonment'
Original French. Source link
The Battle, and Prayer
I copy here the account of the astonishing outcome of the battle for Goose Green from the website ‘For A Change’ which has almost exactly the same text as the card in the church in the Falkland Islands. I have also seen a version with slightly different details, but the account of prayer bringing the unexpected and peaceful victory is the same.
The first and bloodiest land battle of the Falklands War was fought over 27 and 28 May, 1982. Fifty-five Argentine troops and 17 British soldiers lost their lives during the battle for Goose Green, the coastal settlement where Argentine forces had mounted a large garrison. General Galtieri's military regime had invaded the islands, to lay claim to 'Las Malvinas', as they are known in Argentina. In response, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher had dispatched a task force to 'liberate' the British islanders in the South Atlantic.
The fighting was intense, as the men of Britain's 2nd paratroop battalion edged their way down a narrow isthmus of land towards the settlement. Suddenly the words that Chris Keeble will never forget crackled through on his radio: 'Sunray is down'. Their commanding officer, Lieutenant Colonel 'H' Jones, was dead – killed in action as he stormed an Argentine gun position.
As second-in-command, Keeble took charge of over 400 men: 'My heart beat faster. It was an immense responsibility.' By nightfall the battalion was running out of ammunition. 'We had been fighting for 40 hours and we were very tired. It was bitterly cold. One in six of us was either injured or killed, and we had no reinforcements. I went back to my group of leaders and it was quite clear that they were looking to me for solutions.'
They were surrounding Goose Green, 500 to 600 metres away on the far side of a ridge. Keeble knew the Argentines could bring in reinforcements under cover of darkness and mount a counter-attack. He also had reports that they were holding 112 civilians captive in the community centre. A sustained bombardment was out of the question.
'We were in a perilous position, and the responsibility for getting us out of it lay with me. I had no idea what to do. I walked up a gully to be alone for a moment to try and think. I put my hands into my pockets and my fingernails caught on a piece of plastic. It was a prayer which I had typed out and had laminated as a kind of deal with God – you know, "I'll carry this prayer if you'll look after me" stuff.'
Keeble knelt in the gorse and said the prayer, written by the desert mystic Charles de Foucault: 'My Father, I abandon myself to you. Do with me as you will. Whatever you may do with me I thank you, provided your will is fulfilled in me. I ask for nothing more.'
Keeble found it, in the midst of battle, 'a terrifying, almost impossible, prayer to say. But to my amazement, I went through a real transformation. Instead of feeling frightened, uncertain, cold, miserable, confused, I suddenly felt joyful, happy, warm.'
Above all, he had 'immense clarity' about what he needed to do. He returned to his men and told them that at first light he would walk down across the battlefield, 'and invite the Argentine commanders to surrender.'
His men were, 'pretty astounded by this very unmilitary kind of solution. We were a unit that was designed to bring violence to produce a solution and I was offering one that was completely the reverse.'
At 6am Keeble returned two Argentine prisoners of war to their commanders at Goose Green, with the stark message: 'Surrender or accept the consequences of military action.' Within the hour they reported back that their commanders were willing to talk.
At dawn, accompanied by his artillery officer and BBC journalist Robert Fox, Keeble approached the Argentines. 'I remember walking down the hill thinking this is rather nice, like a country stroll. I learnt later that we had walked through a minefield.'
They met the Argentine army commander, Lt Col Italo Piaggi, and his air force counterpart, Vicecomodoro Wilson Pedroza. 'We told them that what they were doing was crazy,' recalls Keeble. 'The alternatives were too awful because we weren't going to go away. They might defeat us. But there would be another battalion or brigade and they would be assaulted.' Keeble appealed to their common Catholic faith to put an end to the killing.
By midday the Argentines had agreed to surrender, but with dignity. They held a formal parade, sang their national anthem, and laid down their arms. 'I think that is what was most significant,' recalls Keeble. 'I was offering them something that they wanted anyway. But I could not have known that when I said that prayer.' Keeble and his men were astounded by the size of the Argentine garrison: over 1,500 Argentine troops had surrendered to 450 British paratroopers.
Universal Brother
At first I had never heard of the author, Saint Charles de Foucauld, though he has become better known recently since he was canonised a saint in 2022. He is well described in the book ‘Universal Brother’. Born in 1858, he was a wealthy bon viveur, gambler and soldier who took a tour in the French Foreign Legion in the Algerian Sahara and was impressed by the faith of the Tuareg Muslims there. A few years later he has a profound awakening and turned to give his life to Christ. He went to the Holy Land for two years and then became a Trappist monk, but when he was sent to Syria to supervise Muslim workers he knew his place was to be the servant, not the master. He roamed around religious centres and people in France unable to find the right home before getting permission to start his own religious order of monks and go back to Algeria. His religious order, The Little Brothers of Jesus, numbered just one, himself. He promised to be the Universal Brother to anyone and everyone he met there. He spent 15 years in Algeria in the stark desert, stunning night sky and his beloved Tuareg in his ‘Nazareth in the Desert’. He worked on translating the Bible into Tuareg. He was killed by Muslim gunmen in December 1916. You might say his was a very simple faith; a proud young man immersed in sensual pleasures had become humble like Jesus in the desert.
I found the Prayer of Abandonment perfectly moving and simple. I have been to his museum at Piccole Sorrelle di Gesu at Tre Fontane in Rome. It is very humbling to see the sandals he wore in the desert and some of his writings.
Source: Britannica.com
The Miracle of 2016
This line of investigation brought me to something equally amazing. Another stunning miracle, born of prayer, with very good evidence.
In Roman Catholic tradition, in order to be classed a Saint (canonised) there needs to be two miracles attributed to you after your death, both subject to a high standard of proof. I think these are not publicised nearly enough, with brief summaries at the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints (here). I think much more could be made of this. All these miracles are miracles; some are spectacular. I went to Saumur in 2023, the town where Saint Charles spent much of his life, and met the caretaker Sabrina of the Chapel where he prayed and where the second miracle occurred, and she spoke vividly of the miracle and of his canonisation process with which she assisted, and she took a group of children to Rome to take part in the event. She also said my French was 'très mal', whatever that means. I told her about the prayer of Saint Charles in the Falkland Conflict; she had not heard of it, and was delighted. The best reports of his second official miracle are in French, such as here.
Saint Charles’ first miracle was attributed to the healing of bone cancer in a woman in 1984 who prayed to him, with good evidence of medically inexplicable total remission. Other necessary preconditions for canonisation were met in the 90s and 00s. His home parish of Saumur was very keen that he be made a saint, and when the 99th anniversary of his death came in 2015, they started a prayer campaign by praying, and advertising for prayers, every day for the 365 days up to the 100th anniversary, with a special novena in the 9 days leading to the anniversary. Praying brings results.
On the day before his 100th anniversary, there were repairs being undertaken in the roof of the chapel at Saumur that Charles attended. A young carpenter named Charle, age 21, bearing a strong resemblance to Charles, was working in the space above the vaulted roof. Charles de Foucauld was 21 when he left Saumur. At 4.30pm as Vespers began, Charle took a wrong step in the vaulted roof and fell through it down to the hard floor 15m (45 feet) below. He says that the fall took a long time and as he fell, his thought was to ‘abandon himself’. Such a fall is almost certainly fatal at a speed of 60-70 km/h on impact and would cause broken bones and burst organs. He fell onto the 60cm long arm of an upturned church pew, and the arm impaled itself through his abdomen below the heart, sticking out of both sides of his body. Not only did he survive, but he did not even lose consciousness, and he stood up immediately. He knew he needed help, but to go out of the front of the church would risk alarming the children outside, so he went the long way through the back and found people to call an ambulance. The ambulance was going to take too long, so they called a helicopter as well. When it arrived, Charle could not fit into the helicopter because of the piece of wood sticking out of him, so he had to wait for the ambulance, taking a further 55 minutes to get to the hospital in Angers. In hospital, the wood was removed in surgery, and no bleeding was observed. Only one bone was broken, a rib. Eight days later he was out of the hospital and soon back to work.
Carpenter Charle who walked away from a 15m fall with a stake through his chest
Source: La Croix
Watch Charle speak about it here. There's just one thing - it happened the day before his anniversary; but wait, it happened at the start of Vespers, so according to the calendar of the church, it was indeed the very start of the day of the 100th anniversary. Could it be any clearer? We are all given the space to write it off to chance, or confirmation bias, or pious exaggeration, if you are determined not to believe. But God doesn't make it too hard for us, does He?
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