Universal Brother: Charles de Foucauld Speaks to Us Today

Rather than relying too heavily on Charles de Foucauld's spiritual writings, little sister Kathleen draws on fresh material taken from his correspondence and diaries to set out his legacy for those who live in the deserts of the modern world, reminding us that at the heart of the Christian adventure is friendship with Jesus of Nazareth. Anchoring his spiritual life in the home of Nazareth, Charles discovered that being Jesus's little brother meant becoming a brother to the least and the most forsaken, a universal brother. It is what led him to settle on one of humanity's fault lines in the Algerian Sahara during the French colonial era in order to "cry the Gospel with his life." All of his plans seemed doomed to failure, be it that of forming a community of little brothers or of drawing the Tuareg people closer to the Gospel. His death at the hands of Islamic extremists has obvious contemporary overtones, and yet, he leaves in the heart of his disciple the conviction that it is not a question of success but of abandonment into the hands of a loving Father who grounds our identity as brother or sister deeper than any of our divisions.