Hubert de Ravinel, who died recently at the age of 88, was in Quebec an exceptional witness to the Gospel and its fundamental message: love in the service of the poor and the quest for justice.
However, he was discreet about the evangelical source of his commitment to the elderly and the poor. For the greatest number, he acted out of humanism. Moreover, the many reports on the Little Brothers of the Poor published in The duty as of November 1968 were in the social affairs page under Renée Rowan’s pen, not in the religious column.
Nevertheless, the Little Brothers did not hide their religious origin. But they didn’t flaunt it either. The duty sometimes thwarted them. Thus, in June 1965, in the very first paper he devoted to them, we were informed that Hubert de Ravinel had become “the new superior of the Little Brothers of Paris”!
In April 1973, Hubert published a poetic text in our newspaper: “And if Easter was true”. It is here again a text with a humanist flavor on love and justice, but with a brief evocation of the mystery of Easter. “I dreamed that men suddenly realized what the word ‘resurrect’ means. They had become aware by the mystery of death of another Man that they had become intelligent and human men. Available and welcoming men. »
For my part, I had to report on the tenth anniversary of the presence of the Little Brothers in Quebec. Their already whimsical motto — “Flowers before bread” — inspires them with a truly spectacular whimsy that raises eyebrows in fine salons. They are organizing a grand banquet for their friends in the ballroom of Château Champlain!
Hubert responds to good souls. This collective gesture is no more eccentric than that of Marie [la sœur de Marie-Madeleine et de Lazare], who poured on the feet of Jesus “a pound of the perfume of very expensive real nard”. To the great scandal of Judas, who would have liked the perfume to be sold to give the money to the poor. Hubert, this time, revealed the evangelical base of the movement he presides. But, he will not abuse the process!
Social inequalities
That said, the Little Brothers are well aware that poverty among the elderly is the result of social inequalities. So they do not hesitate to demand justice. Thus, Hubert wrote to Mr. Saulnier, president of the executive committee of the City of Montreal: “The elderly no longer want official alms. They demand justice”. Thus begins a campaign to demand lower public transport fares for them. Many more will follow.
I knew Hubert de Ravinel other than as a journalist. Since 1969, I belonged to a grassroots community. With the filmmaker Guy L. Côté, of the NFB, she had participated in the filming of the film Quietly not quickly about declining Catholicism and our fledgling community. Hubert saw this film and became a member of our fraternity.
In his autobiography (1994), he recounts how this community experience led him “to burst the bubble that [l’]had until now been kept in a controlled atmosphere, away from ordinary life”. And for good reason ! There he met Claire Blanchard, his future wife and the mother of their daughters, Catherine and Anne. After leaving the Little Brothers in 1977, Hubert moved on to political involvement in the cabinet of Pierre Marois, Minister of State for Social Development. Struck painfully by unemployment, he then pursued his career as a professor of gerontology.
My journey with Hubert and Claire continued in Sunday joy from the 2000s within the Christian community of Saint-Albert-le-Grand. It is she who will celebrate her funeral on March 12.
Hubert nevertheless remained, with regard to the Christian faith, in search. He wrote in 1994 in an open letter to Françoise, a nun “lost in the night of her doubt”: “ [Je] am not a true believer and I have to agree to this reality. I only believe that I am a ‘hoper’ and, for the moment, I am more sensitive to the message of hopefuls than to that of believers”. Hence the title of his autobiography: Because I love and I hope. Such is the fundamental testimony of this proud descendant of the Barons de Ravinel.