Blessed Br. Arnold

Jules-Nicolas Reche was born into a poor family living in Landroff in the province of Lorraine on September 2, 1838. He left school at an early age to work as a stable boy, a coachman, and finally as a teamster for a local construc­tion company. Even as a young man he was known among his fellow workers for his piety and his self-discipline. He first met the Brothers while attending evening classes in their school and asked to be admitted into the congregation. He entered the novitiate on December 23, 1862, at the age of twenty-four. He taught for fourteen years at the boarding school on the Rue de Venise in Reims. Despite the demands of a full teaching schedule he managed by private study to master theology, mathematics, science and agriculture which he taught to small groups of advanced students. During the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, he worked with other Brothers to care for the medical and spiritual needs of the wounded soldiers on both sides, for which he was awarded the Bronze Cross. The intensity of his prayer life and his love for practices of penance soon led the superiors to appoint him Director of Novices at Thillois. He won the hearts of his young charges by his evident solicitude for their spiritual and professional development. There are stories of little miracles and cures, as well as his uncanny ability to discern their inmost thoughts. Brother Arnold was known for his devotion to the Lord's passion and for his docility to the Holy Spirit who, as he often remarked, "strengthens a person's heart." When the novitiate was moved to the new formation center at Courlancy near Reims in 1885, Brother Arnold was instrumental in having it dedicated to the Sacred Heart. He died at age fifty-two with a reputation for sanctity, only a few months after his appointment as Director of Sacre Coeur. He had been a De La Salle Christian Brother for twenty-eight years. He died in Rheims in 1890 and his cause for beatification and canoniza­tion was introduced on April 28, 1981. Six years later, on November 1, 1987 he was beatified.