Blessed Charles de Foucauld (1858-1916)

Born in Strasbourg, Charles Eugène de Foucauld grew up in an aristocratic family and entered the Saint-Cyr Military Academy in 1876. He served as a French army officer in Algeria but left the army in 1882 and went as an explorer to Morocco. In 1890 he joined the Cistercian Trappist order first in France and then at Akbès in Syria, but left in 1897 to follow an undefined religious vocation in Nazareth. He began to lead a solitary life of prayer, near a convent of Poor Clares. In 1901 he was ordained a priest and returned to Algeria to lived an eremetical life. He first settled in Beni Abbes, near the Moroccan border, building a small hermitage for “adoration and hospitality.” For Charles wished to be, and was seen to be, a “brother” to each and every visitor, whatever their religion, ethnic origin or social status. Later he moved to be with the Tuareg people, in Tamanghasset in southern Algeria. He formulated the idea of founding a new religious order, which only became a reality after his death, under the name of the Little Brothers of Jesus. On December 1, 1916, he was shot to death outside his Tamanrasset compound, by passing jihadists connected with the Senussi Bedouin; this act is to be seen against the general background of the uprising against French colonial power, World War I and famine in the Hoggar. He was beatified by Pope Benedict XVI on November 13, 2005..
(From Wikipedia)