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Charles de Foucauld was born in Strasbourg, France in 1858. When he was six, both of his parents died. His grandmother took him and his 3-year-old sister, Marie, in. However, tragedy struck a few months later. The grandmother and the two children were out walking one day, when a herd of cows rushed toward them. The grandmother was so frightened, that she had a heart attack and died.
When he was in high school, Charles inherited much money and abandoned his faith. He joined the military and barely graduated from the military academy because he was lazy and led a wild lifestyle. He was not prone to obeying his military superiors and kept a mistress.
While on a military mission in Africa, Charles fell in love with the desert and its solitude. In October of 1886, when he was 28 years old, Charles went through a conversion experience at the church of St. Augustin in Paris.
Four years later, in 1890, Charles became a Trappist monk in France and then later in Syria. But in 1897, Charles decided he would rather serve the Lord as a hermit than a monk. In Nazareth, he lived near a convent of the Poor Clare nuns. When others suggested he should become a priest, he went to France and, in 1901, at the age of 43, he was ordained.
Following ordination, Charles returned to the Sahara Desert in Algeria and built a small hermitage near the Moroccan border, and later, another hermitage in the central part of the Sahara Desert. For the rest of his life, he lived in Algeria close to the Tuareg people, sharing their life and struggles. In fact, he studied this people for ten years, learned their language, made a dictionary and grammar book for them, and wrote about their language and cultural customs. In many ways, he was a modern-day sociologist or anthropologist. In his hermit life, Charles de Foucauld called himself, “Charles of Jesus.”
Charles’ vocation, as he saw it, was to love. He wrote, “Let us concern ourselves with those who lack everything, those to whom no one gives a thought. Let us be the friends of those who have no friends, their brother. The love of God, the love of men, that is my whole life, that will be my whole life, I hope. When we can suffer and love, we can do much, the most that one can do in this world.”
During his desert experience, Charles dreamed of founding a religious order. It was not until after his death, however, that the Little Brothers of Jesus was formed based on his writings.
On December 1, 1916, a group of armed bandits kidnaped Charles. When one of the bandits became startled by some intruders, he shot Charles through the head, killing him instantly.
The Algerian government honored his memory with a stamp, and many religious congregations have been founded as a result of his life and his writings. Pope Francis canonized Charles of Jesus on May 15 of this year. St. Charles de Foucault’s feast day is December 1.
