Dominique, a lean, muscular six feet, two inches, always wearing a navy blue beret, learned at age fifty four that he was dying of inoperable cancer. With the community's permission he moved to a poor neighborhood in Paris and took a job as a night watchman at a factory. Returning home every morning at 8.00 a.m he would go directly to a little park across the street from where he lived and sit down on a wooden bench. Hanging around the park were marginalised people - drifters, winos. 'has beens,' dirty old men who ogled at the girls passing by.
Dominique never criticised, scolded, or reprimanded them. He laughed, told stories, shared his candy, accepted them just as they were. From living so long out of the inner sanctuary he gave off a peace, a serene sense of self-possession and a hospitality of heart that caused cynical young men and defeated old men to gravitate toward him like bacon towards eggs. His simple witness lay in accepting others as they were without questions and allowing them to make themselves at home in his heart. Dominique was the most non-judgmental person I have ever known. He loved with the heart of Jesus Christ.
One day when the ragtag group of rejects asked him to talk about himself, Dominique gave them a thumbnail description of his life. Then he told them with quiet conviction that God loved them tenderly and stubbornly, that Jesus had come for rejects and outcasts just like themselves. His witness was credible because the Word was enfleshed on his bones. Later one old-timer said, 'the dirty jokes, vulgar language, and leering at girls just stopped.'
One morning Dominique failed to appear on his park bench. The men grew concerned. A few hours later, he was found dead on the floor of his cold-water flat. He died in the obscurity of a Parisian slum.
Dominique Voillaume never tried to impress anybody, never wondered if his life was useful or his witness meaningful. He never felt he had to do something great for God. He did keep a journal. It was found shortly after his death in the drawer of the nightstand by his bed. His last entry read this - 'All that is not the love of God has no meaning for me. I can truthfully say that I have no interest in anything but the love of God which is in Christ Jesus. If God wants it to, my life will be useful through my words and witness. If he wants it to, my life will bear fruit through my prayers and sacrifices. But the usefulness of my life is his concern, not mine. It would be indecent of me to worry about that.
In Dominique Voillaume I saw the reality of a life lived entirely for God and for others. After an all-night prayer vigil by his friends, he was buried in an unadorned pine box in the backyard of the Little Brothers' house in saint Remy. A simple wooden cross over his grave with the inscription 'Dominique Voillaume, a witness to Jesus Christ' said it all. More than seven thousand people gathered from all over Europe to attend his funeral.
In Dominique's eyes that Paris slum had become a holy place, not just a mission field but a sanctuary, populated with broken people whose ordinary lives reminded him of Jesus Christ.
Extracts from "How to Pray" a book written by Pete Grieg.
