"I will give everything to Mary, through Mary and in Mary"

"I will give everything to Mary, through Mary and in Mary", Charles de Foucauld wrote (1). Like Saint Therese of Lisieux, he lost his mother at a young age (6 years old), and became attached to the Virgin Mary as his heavenly Mother. This fidelity grew over the years, particularly after his conversion on October 30, 1886, in the church of Saint-Augustin in Paris, following his confession to Abbé Huvelin.

Going through a great spiritual trial at Christmas 1893, Charles invoked Our Lady of Perpetual Help in a special way, asking her to carry him as she had carried the infant Jesus in her arms.

Later, he would devote himself to meditating on the Marian mysteries, especially on two that particularly touched him: the Annunciation and the Visitation.

 "My ordinary vocation is solitude, stability, silence... But if I believe, exceptionally, that I am sometimes called to something else, all I have to do is say, like Mary, 'I am the Handmaid of the Lord'", St Charles de Foucauld once wrote.

After being released from his Trappist vows, Charles, then called Brother Marie-Albéric, lived as a quasi-hermit in the Poor Clare monastery of Nazareth, from March 6, 1897 to August 1900. Most of his spiritual writings (meditations, usually on the Gospel and the Holy Family, notes on retreats, considerations on liturgical feasts, etc…) date from that period.

Source : Marian Encyclopedia

French cavalry officer turned explorer and geographer, then Catholic monk, priest, hermit and linguist. He was canonized on May 15, 2022.