Jules-Nicolas Rèche was born on 2 September 1838 at Landroff, in the Diocese of Metz, France, the eldest of nine children of Claude Rèche, a shoemaker, and Anne Clausset. The family was poor yet strong in Christian faith. His mother fell gravely ill and died while he was still a child, leaving Claude to raise the large household alone. From boyhood Jules studied diligently and helped his father; he later entered service with the Grueber family, who valued his diligence and aided his needy relatives.
He grew in devotion to Mary, whom he regarded as his mother and Queen; each evening the family recited the Rosary. Between work and study he frequented the parish, served at the altar, attended catechism, and himself taught catechism to his companions. At twenty-one he left the Gruebers. After a short time as coachman at the château of Faville-Fouligny—an environment unsuited to his faith and growing religious vocation—he accepted work from 1859 to 1862 as a carter for a building contractor erecting a church at Charleville in the Ardennes. There he suffered a period of wandering and crisis under the influence of a libertine, drunken companion. Recalled by an aunt, he returned to the right path, undertook hard penance (so severe that his physician rebuked him), and began to frequent the Oratory of the Brothers of the Christian Schools, who had returned to Charleville after the French Revolution. In the winter of 1861–62 he attended their evening classes in French, mathematics, and bookkeeping for young workers.
Contact with the Brothers, founded by Saint John Baptist de La Salle for the education of youth, awakened his vocation. On 13 November 1862 he entered the novitiate; on 23 December he received the habit and the name Brother Arnoldo (Arnould). His novitiate shone with intense spiritual life and won the admiration of confrères and superiors. He made religious profession in 1863 (final vows in 1871).
He was sent at once to teach in the Brothers' boarding school at Reims. Superiors at first doubted this willing young man, more used to field and cart than classroom; yet entrusted with the youngest pupils he showed patience and dedication, winning the boys' affection more by love than by strict discipline. In free hours he prepared for teaching certificates and earned his master's diploma with honors in Paris on 24 September 1868; on his superiors' advice he also became a competent teacher of agriculture. He remained at Reims some fourteen years.
During the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 he served with other Brothers as a medic, tending the wounded of both sides in the trenches and receiving the Bronze Cross for his service. In 1877 he was named master of novices at Thillois. There he formed young religious with firmness, dignity, understanding, and humility, while deepening his own study of theology and asceticism. In 1881 the novitiate moved to the outskirts of Reims, to the House of the Sacred Heart, where he also welcomed elderly Brothers; when it later settled at Courlancy he helped dedicate the house to the Sacred Heart. He was known for devotion to the Passion of the Savior and for docility to the Holy Spirit, who, he often said, strengthens the hearts of men.
Continuous labor wore him down. In 1889 an acute, persistent cough was followed by infectious pleurisy. After a retreat he himself preached, the illness worsened. In March 1890 he was relieved as novice master yet remained director of the House of the Sacred Heart. On 23 October 1890 a cerebral congestion struck him; he died that same night at only fifty-two years of age. His body rests at what is now the Frère Arnold Center in Reims; his earlier grave became associated with reported healings and ex-votos. Pope John Paul II beatified him in Rome on 1 November 1987. His memory is kept on 23 October.
May Blessed Arnoldo Rèche obtain for us a docile heart open to the Holy Spirit and the courage to educate the young with patient charity.
