Bishop Blaise Forissier
Founder of the Fraternity of Consecrated Ingoro y’Urukundo
Monsignor Blaise Forissier was a leading priest in spiritual and social life through priestly and religious communities. He was courageous especially in the parish apostolate and charismatic groups. We are grateful to him for making us love Christ, for helping us to strengthen our Christian faith, and for guiding others to become priests according to the Heart of God. With joy, therefore, we find in his book the same enthusiasm, the same depth of vision that animated him. Thus, with “Aventurier de Dieu”, Mgr Forissier wanted his memoirs to be a continuous thanksgiving to the Lord, praising Him for His goodness and mercy because He is Providence and guides our steps, leading us to a greater life, from the Cross to the Resurrection. All we have to do is welcome Him with a loving heart, with faith.
During a holiday in France, Mgr Forissier encountered a new charism and the action of the Spirit led him again by hitherto unexpected ways: he founded the Community Ingoro y’Urukundo / Dwelling Place of Charity. Unbeknownst to him, the Lord was preparing him all along for a new stage, just as beautiful and certainly more fruitful than the previous one. Everything is grace and the Lord’s love surpasses everything we can imagine.
This book is also a testimony to the acceptance of God’s will in one’s life. Putting God’s will at the centre of our lives always leads us to adventure: an adventure with Friends and an adventure with Faith. In his often arduous journey, Bishop Blaise Forissier gives us his motto: good luck and a cheerful face. Good luck because we must try to follow what God expects of us and cheerful countenance because, no matter what, the Lord is always with us and with Him we have everything. We also find this love for the Lord in the words that have always been at the centre of his life from his youth: ‘Oh! If Jesus were better known! … If his kingdom could be understood’.
Biography
Mgr Blaise Forissier was born on 12 December 1929 in Firminy, in the Loire region of France, to François and Louise Chapelon. He was baptised three days after his birth, on 15 December. He received the sacrament of confirmation on 3 May 1940 in Firminy, where he also attended primary school until 1941. He learned and suffered a lot following the iron discipline that was applied there. His high school education took place first at Sainte Marie de Saint Chamond, in the Loire, then at Saint Michel de Saint Etienne, with the Jesuit Fathers.
On 9 October 1982, he founded the Ingoro y’Urukundo Community as a branch of the Secularists in Kiruhura. On 15 March 1982 he was appointed Vicar General by Bishop Gahamanyi Jean Baptiste, and in 1983 he was simultaneously appointed Chaplain of the National University of Rwanda. On 1 January 1989, the St Joseph House in Butare was inaugurated, and it was here that his plan to found a branch of the Consecrated within the Ingoro y’Urukundo Community matured. After the opening of the novitiate on 4 October 1991, there were the first religious professions of the consecrated men of the Ingoro y’Urukundo Community.
Bishop Blaise Forissier was a great intellectual. He wrote a lot, organised and held many retreats, not forgetting his many homilies. The consecrated members of the community are thinking of collecting all his thoughts in a single work to better preserve his memory.
“God has not called us to be thermometers but thermostats” (Living with Christ N0 7, pp.13-16).
Until his death on 11 January 2018, Bishop Blaise Forissier was a tireless sower of vocations in Rwanda.
Sister Agnes Kamanyana
Communauté Ingoro y’Urukundo
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- Sister Agnes Kamanyana