In ordinary circumstances, Charles de Foucauld was no special person. But in critical situations he was a man of action, ready to choose what was most difficult not merely as an adventure but rather to achieve something that was more significant. Given this, I do not consider it appropriate to give a systematic outline of his understanding of Jesus. But rather the person of Jesus emerges through his life, his actions and his words. And in reading his writings, rather than searching for objectivity, one should focus more on his love of the 'beloved Brother and Lord Jesus'.

When he encountered Christ (1886) , he wanted to follow Him `as close as was possible for him`. He intentionally went to Nazareth (1888), where Jesus lived, to walk where He walked. But he could not stay there. So he went towards the desert as the "Good shepherd in search of the ninety nine lost sheep" and give his life like Him. His works are distinguished by these two periods. Most of the writings that we have come from the first period, immediately after his conversion, in Nazareth, where he began to love the Lord, praise and serve him and follow him according to monastic traditions. Later he wished to live a more simple life, where only the essentials were important, as was the life of Jesus of Nazareth: poverty, prayer, adoration and penance.

The person of Jesus Christ is at the centre of his prayer life. The foundation is his faith in the presence of Jesus in the Eucharist, a presence that he pictures in the life of the Holy Family of Nazareth in so profound a way that his prayer is to stay together with Jesus, to talk with him and to think of Him, to love Him, in a word to live with Him. What is central is Loving Him. Out of this intense prayer, a constant union with Jesus emerges, for whose love he is ready to do everything.

Charles de Faucauld is also different from the way the mystics tried to write their experience of knowledge and love of God. He was more attracted by the realism and power of the evangelical imitation of Jesus. He is a man of action. He is not satisfied with knowledge, even if pregnant with love. For him it is essential to act, and act in a way that his action is both faithful imitation of Jesus and losing oneself in the Beloved. Central to his spirituality is living in the presence of God and at the same time living in the midst of men and women.

Charles de Foucauld imagined Jesus telling him at Nazareth in 1897 "Your vocation is to shout the Gospel from the rooftop, not in words, but with your life". And through his life he lived the central Christian paradox: to lose your life is to find it, to gain your life is to lose it. It is this that we find in his life and in the religious congregation that he founded. In response to the call of Jesus "to shout the gospel" by his life, and asking himself "Where would Jesus go today?", he tried to bring Christianity to the Moslems in the desert by good example, not by preaching but by being a man of God, a "universal brother" in what he called "pre-evangelization" to prepare the way for later missionaries. At his hermitage at Beni-Abbes in the desert his apostolate depended not so much on "good works" as upon bringing the "presence" of Christ to the desert tribes. The paradox was lived till the end. Though the Tuaregs respected him as a profoundly holy man, a fanatic group of a Moslem sect murdered him as an intruding Frenchman and Christian on December 1, 1916.

During his life he did not attract a single person to join him in living the rule he wrote for the "Little Brothers and Sisters of Jesus of the Sacred Heart". Yet seventeen years later, in 1933, 12 seminarians led by Renè Voillaume, were attracted by and shared the same vision of living in a context of poverty and prayer and availability to all who come for help, combined with adoration of the Blessed Sacrament.

Through this background we can appreciate more the truth and power of his writings. I will concentrate only on a single theme that is his specific contribution for our understanding of the person of Jesus: life at Nazareth - a life that inspired his way of living, his departing from the physical Nazareth in order to live the essence of what it entails in his life.

What does Jesus teach him about Himself? In his meditation on Lk. 2, 39 he places these words on the mouth of Jesus:

"I teach you above all that one can do good to men, a lot of good, infinite good, divine good, without sermon, without noise, in silence, and through giving the good example .. what kind of example? That of piety, of duties towards God done lovingly, of benevolence towards all men, of meekness with all those who surround us, of family duties done in a saintly manner, of poverty, of work ... of solitude, of a life hidden in God, of a life of prayer, of mortification, of retreat, all lost in God ...

I teach you to live with the work of your hands, of not being a burden to anyone and to have something to give to the poor, and i give to this kind of life an uncomparable beauty, that no other has, of a life that is in my imitation." This is the beauty of life for Brother Charles - the imitation of Jesus` life. "Not that all have to be carpenters, or preach to Jews , but all those who want to be perfect have to sell all they have, give it to the poor, and then either live through what one earns out of one�s work if they are not dedicated to evangelization or live through beneficence if they are dedicated to apostolic work ... and in both cases, they have to live a life of poverty in the most faithful imitation of my poverty in Nazareth."

In the rule that he wrote he asks " What was the food of Jesus in Nazareth? Who is greater, Jesus or us? Do we love Jesus, do we want to imitate Him, follow Him, share his life, belong to his family, between Mary and Joseph?" The answer to these questions is his life - a life of poverty, humility and penance as regards food.

And what kind of life? "A life of silence as that of Jesus of Nazareth, "to be unknown in this world, as a traveller in the night". "poor, laborious, humble, in a docile way, doing good as He did", "unarmed and mute before injustice as Him", "imitating Jesus at Nazareth and on the cross in everything."

He lived what he wrote and wrote what he lived: "Write according to the measure in which Jesus would have written at Nazareth, for the consolation, sanctification of parents, friends .. not to speak, not to write in the manner He would have done in his public life, because it is the hidden life, not the public life, that I imitate: I must leave this to others, and only prepare the ways in silence, as Jesus did at Nazareth, and Joseph all his life...Rather than make myself known, I hide ... If I were to make myself known, to write in this sense, I would go against my imitation of the hidden life of Jesus" And he was ready to risk having a rule without any members.

We find in Brother Charles a spirituality of "living in the midst of people without any particular apostolate except that of being Christ where Christ most need to be, where he is not yet - or is no more." He showed through his life how it was possible to link the mysteries of Christianity, contemplation and action. These three aspects are all part of the way for Christian perfection. First of all his specific vocation was that of concentrating and living more fully the mystery of Jesus` life at Nazareth. Then he showed that the "primacy of contemplation" over action does not mean that contemplation is "greater" than practice, than the active life, but that it comes "first". His contemplation of Jesus` hidden life, his time spent before the Eucharist, were the source of which his life was the continuation. Thus he made contemplation "available" to all: priests, religious and laity. And above all he showed that contemplation is "thinking of Christ, loving Him" and loving Him meant imitating Him, or rather letting oneself be transformed into the "beloved one".