It was May 11, 1940. France was desperately defending against the enemy invasion. On the Luxembourg border, a young Frenchman Guy (Vít) Larigaudie fell in battle, a legendary athlete throughout France – best known for being the first to drive a car from France to the then French Indochina. After his death, a letter was found addressed to a nun:
Dear sister,
I am now in the trench. Perhaps I will not return. I had beautiful dreams and beautiful plans, but if it were not for the pain that my poor mother and my family will have, I would be rejoicing. I have been so lonely for heaven, and now the gate will soon be opened. The sacrifice of my life is not even a sacrifice, so immense is my desire for heaven and for God's embrace. I once dreamed of becoming a saint and being a model for scouts and rovers. That ambition was perhaps too great for my abilities, but it was my dream. I am in the cavalry and I am so happy that my last adventure will be on horseback…
Thus speaks the desire for God, but also the passionate love for life and its values. His notes and handfuls of small prose pieces remain, which are a complete and full expression of his soul open to all beautiful loves. If his last letter resonates with calmness and even a desire to leave this world, it is not the idle romanticism of a person who has no notion of death. Vít had already faced death twice before. The first time on the island of Tahiti, when while jumping from a high rock into a mountain lake he felt he had misaimed and would land on the surrounding cliffs; the second time, when while sailing on the Ganges, his boat capsized and he, sleeping, awoke with his lungs full of water and fought desperately against the powerful element for a long time. Twice, at that moment, his entire life flashed through his mind and he recognized, without illusions, the only true values:
I have understood that the only thing of value in the world is love for God, immense love that does not understand, the love of a child who looks up at his mother; the complete love that overtakes us for all moments of life. This childlike love, wondrous, later erases everything ugly in us and remains alone, victorious.
What does Vít's love for God actually look like? It is as simple and smiling as he himself was – he is so heartily indifferent to what he is doing:
Out of love for God, peeling potatoes is as beautiful as building a cathedral.
He was able to make his life a conversation with God:
While weeding wild carrots with a blade of grass in my teeth or during morning shaving, one can simply keep repeating to God that we love Him – and that is worth more than the streams of tears we have shed over prayer books. To narrate to oneself and to sing all one’s life and dreams that weave into the future, and thus to speak to God in song. To talk to Him even when we dance with joy, whether in the sun on the beach or on skis in the snow. To always have God nearby as a friend to whom we confide.
Vít sees many good and honest people, but nevertheless not saints, and he notes:
It would require so little for a decent life to become a holy one. Simply a bit more love for God, a bit more surrender to His will, the idea of sacrifice, and perfection in small daily deeds. That's all.
Yes, that is all. One sadly asks oneself: If Vít could do it, why can't I? Can I really not? Vít did not avoid girls. He readily acknowledges the influence of a girl on the shaping of a boy. He knows well how necessary and healthy mutual complementarity is. However, we should not picture him solely as a spiritualist. He had his eyes open and was able to enjoy beauty. In his interactions with women, he did not see only their souls, but also their physical beauty, which for him, as a man of delicate perception, was a source of uplift just like a beautiful thought. And so he prays in his writings:
God, grant that our sisters, the girls, may be graceful in appearance, smiling, and well-dressed. Grant that they may be healthy and have a clear, radiant soul. That they may carry purity and grace along our rough paths. That they may be simple, motherly, without cunning and coquetry. Grant that nothing evil may creep between them and us. And that we all, boys and girls alike, may be each other’s source not of shortcomings, but of inner richness.
Vít was very brave, steadfast, and certain. It was certainly a great grace, the influence of a healthy and proper upbringing, but also the result of personal rigor and asceticism. This cheerful boy, athlete, kind friend and charming dancer was very strict in keeping watch over the lower side of his nature, which awakens in every person without exception. Vít was able to fight temptation by even spending the night on the floor instead of in bed. He was able to patiently endure difficulties, though small, but still very unpleasant.
When evil threatens to flood the soul, it is good to force oneself to at least a little mortification, and thus to prove one’s love to God. Not to salt the tasteless soup, not to eliminate something that hinders us. This minor act of love is like a call for grace, and will thus strengthen the will.
Certainly, this young brave soul greatly benefited from healthy scouting education. Contact with nature in silence and solitude opened his sensitive heart to beauty and the understanding of the highest ideals. He passionately loved wandering through nature and would say that one must learn even this. To walk aimlessly from flower to flower, without paths, without measuring time and kilometers – alone. Only in silence and solitude can one hear God, and it polishes to delicacy the soul of a saint and the soul of an artist.
There is one more thing to know about Vít: namely, what is the key to understanding his purity, greatness, inner harmony and beauty. It is his love for the Mother of God and the rosary. He had it with him at every step, and it greatly resembles the now beatified Italian student, mountaineer, motorist Pier Giorgio Frassati (*1901 – †1925). The rosary accompanied Vít on all his journeys as a living bond with God and with the Virgin Mary. The rhythm of his steps, the jolts of the train, the roaring of the engine corresponded to the quiet rhythm of his Hail Marys. This decade for a friend, that for a pilot, this for tourists he met, another for a colleague, and yet another for small children who mistakenly showed him the wrong way at a crossroads. This was his great secret. After such journeys, Vít de Larigaudie made his way to the goal about which a beautiful song sings, "Closer to You, my God, just closer to You."
