Little Brothers and Sisters of the Eucharist Handbook

LAY FRATERNITIES IN THE SPIRIT OF BROTHER CHARLES

The fraternities of Brother Charles de Foucauld can define themselves only with reference to him. But that does not at all mean a slavish imitation of everything he did. Through a lifelong quest to be like Jesus of Nazareth, Brother Charles opened up a path to the heart of the gospel and brought a gift to the Church. Since his death on December 1, 1919 and the discovery of his writings, several fraternities of little brothers and sisters have sprung up

Within the Church. There are numerous fraternities throughout the world who claim Charles de Foucauld as their founder or inspiration. They desire to travel a road that Brother Charles opened up; they all recognize an example in him; they all know that through his life they have discovered a way for them today to embrace the Gospel. Brother Charles was the seed that fell to the ground and died to bring forth new life within the Church ... communities of prayer and faith, communities of commitment and life ... men and women who are nourished by the Word of God and the Eucharist and desire to proclaim the Gospel with their lives.

To commit oneself to Fraternity is to commit oneself to the Gospel. It is for the sake of Jesus and the Gospel that fraternity is born and created anew. Fraternity is a way of life. A choice to live fraternity is a choice to follow Jesus in the spirit of Brother Charles. It is a choice to live completely for God, God alone. Love is the source and root of one’s vocation within fraternity: God’s love for us and our love for God. The Christian vocation and the vocation of a little brother or little sister is love: ”You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength,” and ”You shall love your neighbor as yourself11. (Mark 12:30-31)

Fraternity invites us to deepen our commitment - the offering of ourselves to God in love. It is an invitation to live the covenant - the covenant which began in the Incarnation, was revealed at the last supper in the Eucharist and climaxed in Jesus’ death on the cross. At the foot of the cross, Mary, the mother of Jesus, received into her arms and her heart not only the broken body of her beloved Son, but also a fragmented and broken world that could only be healed by compassion. In this final surrender of love, Jesus and Mary are totally one - covenanted to each other, covenanted to the world. From conception to his death on the cross, Jesus and Mary have become totally one offering themselves - a Eucharist, to be Taken, Blessed, Broken and Given. Brother Charles desired the same reality- he wanted to be for others a Eucharist - a source of love fully surrendered to follow in the footsteps of his Beloved. Jesus. In the fraternities we commit ourselves to the same path — the same covenant. In announcing our covenant with Jesus, we announce our desire to live a simple and ordinary life with extraordinary love. Our path is the path of Nazareth — to become holy in the midst of ordinariness, in the midst of the world, the marketplace. We walk this path of Nazareth:

by surrendering ourselves to the love of God and living completely for Him;

by being nourished in the Eucharist and the Word of God and becoming men and women of prayer;

by proclaiming the Gospel with our lives more by who we are than by what we say:

by having a particular love for the least of our brothers and sisters;

By allowing ourselves to become Eucharist — TAKEN. BLESSED, BROKEN and GIVEN ...

Brother Charles always wore a red heart with a cross on it. At the time this symbol of the heart with the cross was a sign of renewal in the Catholic Church, of a desire to restore a heart to a Church suffering from institutionalization and lack of warmth. The fraternities live as Brother Charles did, at the crossroads of the Church and the world. Fraternity is not separate from the Church; It is in the Church that fraternities have discovered the Gospel, the Eucharist and love of the poor. It is within the Church that Fraternity desires to become a source of renewal and a breath of the Spirit ... restoring a heart to a Church which continues to suffer from institutionalization and lack of warmth. The role of fraternity within the Church is to become the heart, the seat of love, the heartbeat which pumps out the source of life to the tips of all its members.

The gift and the charism of Brother Charles to the Church and throughout the world is still unfolding ... and still being discovered ...