A friend contacted me to ask me for the exact quote from Ernst Jünger (taken from Orages d'acier ) that we liked to repeat among officers of the 2nd foreign infantry regiment. I write it on this blog as I remember that General Antoine Lecerf liked this quote and it fits him like a glove:
It has been given to us to live in the invisible rays of great feelings, this will remain our priceless privilege.
Antoine is no more. He left on Good Friday. April 22, 2011. He is in the house of the Father. Antoine is Antoine Lecerf . Lieutenant General Antoine Lecerf. A master of war. A brilliant leader of men. One of the most extraordinary men I have known.
When you first met Antoine Lecerf, there was this frank and firm handshake, but there was immediately something else; something about charisma. Antoine Lecerf is said to have charmed snakes. He shook your hand and immediately there was a spell. He wanted to know right away if you were with him, if you were ready, if you supported his project. Which project ? There was a new one every five minutes. And he didn't drop any. He thought fast, but his friendship lasted a long time. He wanted to know if you were with him and he had an infallible way of knowing it: he shook your hand, he kept it, his face approached yours, he came to meet you, he wanted to know. He shook your hand, he kept it, his face approached yours and he wrinkled his left eyelid a little as if to improve his visual acuity, as if to be sure of what he was going to see, of what you were going to reveal to him. His squinted eye, that penetrating gaze was looking for something. He was looking for that little flame. He wanted to know if you too were animated. Antoine Lecerf only consorted with lively people. Nothing interested him more than to know if you were too, or even to a lesser degree if you could be (which was enough to satisfy him, because the potential had a special value for him). Antoine Lecerf chose you. And nothing was less the result of chance.
Continue reading “And by Saint Antoine… (Death of General Antoine Lecerf)”
Despite Shûsaku Endo's doubts as to the true Christianity of the Japanese evoked in the admirable "Silence", it also seems to me that the Japanese have a real fundamental point in common with the Christian in the ease with which they the place of the other. Is this not one of the founding bases of Christianity, one of these archetypes of the Discourse on the Montage, to always think that our effort has not been important enough, pronounced enough, for the understanding emerges? Of course, I see the weakness of the reasoning: the Japanese tirelessly try to put themselves in the place of the other culturally; he also wishes to make himself better understood; he does not know guilt, but shame… The Christian must put himself in the place of the other because he thinks that the fault comes from him, which does not mean that he has committed the fault, but rather than the lack of attention to the other caused him not to work hard enough to prevent the fault.