Last Sunday in Rome Pope Francis canonised ten new saints in the church.  Among them was St Charles de Foucauld, a French soldier and adventurer, who later became a Trappist monk and Catholic missionary to Muslims in Algeria.  St Charles de Foucauld wanted to imitate the life of Jesus.  He spent his last 13 years living among the Muslim Tuareg people, a nomadic ethnic group, in the desert of French-occupied Algeria.  Also known as Brother Charles of Jesus, Foucauld was killed in 1916 at the age of 58.

 

Prayer of Abandonment, by St Charles de Foucauld

Father,
I abandon myself into your hands; do with me what you will.
Whatever you may do, I thank you:
I am ready for all, I accept all.
Let only your will be done in me, and in all your creatures.
I wish no more than this, O Lord.

Into your hands I commend my soul;
I offer it to you
with all the love of my heart,
for I love you, Lord,
and so need to give myself,
to surrender myself into your hands,
without reserve,
and with boundless confidence,
for you are my Father.