"May Jesus enlighten you, may He give you his Spirit, may He enable you to be and to do, at each moment, what's most pleasing to Him; in a word 'let Him live in you:.. I ask Him this for you, for everyone. Let's ask together, for every human being, what we ask for ourselves'. So wrote Charles to his friend Louis Massignon (Tamaurasset, 31 July 1909).

Charles was a great intercessor. As always, he refers to the example and recommendation of Jesus. Jesus prayed for Himself (in Gethsemane, Mark 14,36), for Peter and for Lazarus (Luke 22,32 and John 11,41), and for all believers and all people without exception John 17,20 and Matthew 5,45). We too, then, should pray for ourselves, for particular persons and peoples, and for everyone everywhere. In a meditation on the 'our Father', he writes: 'I ask nothing for myself alone, all that I ask for in the Pater I ask for God or for all human beings'. This meditation was written on the evening of January 23rd, 1897, a day of great personal importance to Charles, for it was the day when his Trappist superiors released him from the Order and authorized him to follow his personal Nazareth vocation. Yet, on this day so full of personal rejoicing, Charles immediately extends his thoughts and wishes from the 'me-and-my-Father' relationship to the 'us-and-our-Father' relationship, a relationship which embraces each and everyone, and which requires an appropriate attitude and action on our part, namely, that of a 'tender brother'. In other words, genuine prayer, 'with Jesus and in Jesus' supposes a moral identification of 'I' and 'we'; so that each one of us is attentive to, concerned for, and ready to act in favour of each and every other one in the light and strength, not of limited human considerations and abilities (frequently self-seeking and always limited), but of the Father's infinite love and care.

So, in this spirit, Charles prays for the concrete needs of the people he is with, but also, and especially, that 'everyone may go to heaven: Such intercessory prayer, for Charles, is rooted in a shared life, and would, for him, be largely meaningless without this realistic sharing. It was as a missioned and accepted member of the Touareg community that Charles prayed with them and for them: precisely as 'one of them'. And it was as a member of this necessarily limited human community that Charles was authentically inserted into the total human community, and so could pray, with each and all, for each and all. For it was as'one of us', as'our Brother' who shared our life and experience, that Jesus interceded, and intercedes for us (Hebrews 2,10-18 and 5,7-10). And this sharing was lived out in Nazareth (Matthew 2,23).

But sharing of life, while needed, is not enough. All intercession must be rooted in Jesus' redemptive work, which was the culmination of the life he shared with us. And as for Jesus, so for us: to intercede is, ultimately, to participate in Jesus' self-offering. 'He offered himself'; this is Jesus' final act, but it sums up the whole of his life, of his life shared with us and, as such, interceding for us. Charles links Nazareth and the Cross, as parts of one total's self-offering; similarly he links our daily life and the Eucharist. Our Eucharist must express our life, our personal life which we share with our companions and in which we pray for ourselves and for each other. We must unite this shared life with the life of Jesus, life offered in redemption, offered to the Father, offered for all.

This approach to intercessory prayer comes, for Charles, from his constant meditation on the life of Jesus in the gospels. But we can find a firm foundation for it in the biblical concept of Covenant. The gift of the Covenant bonds inseparably God with His people. And this Covenant, with its different historical moments, finds its complete and final expression in the life of Jesus, in turn completed by his Pascal mystery, which founds the 'new and eternal covenant'. In this Covenant, the 'poor', humanly speaking the last and the least, have a privileged place: their 'cry' is the first to be heard. Again, the final act of Jesus, his handing over of himself to the Father, is an act which is both to the Father (ad Patrem) and for us (pro nobis), as two dimensions of one and the same act. And this final act, combining prayer and action (suffering freely accepted), is the ultimate step in a life marked by the same attitude. We can say, I think, that all Jesus' actions, during his 'public life', are aimed at growing in communion with his Father and at re-integrating people into this communion with their God and with one another. But this aim, towards God and towards people, while having two objects - God and each person - is a single aim. For in the Covenant relationship, God and his people are one. So the new law of love is one: the one love of God received in our hearts, and expressing itself in love for God and neighbor. And this same attitude was developing in Jesus during his childhood: 'he grew in grace with God and man' (Luke 2,52). As an adult in Nazareth, he was both impelled by the need 'to be about his Father's business' (Luke 2,49), and the need to return to the ordinary life of his native village with his parents (Luke 2,51). The Heart of Jesus, in which this one Covenant love is fully expressed, is for Charles a powerful symbol which sums up the fundamental attitude of Jesus, and which draws Charles to try to share this same attitude. We can, by the way, note that this attraction, focussing on Jesus' Heart, is not for Charles, a 'devotion', with its practices and promises, but a sign of what is most basic in Jesus' life on earth and in His living presence.

But what Jesus did as one of us needs to be integrated into our own being and living, in accordance with our own inner growth and changing external circumstances. This is precisely the work of the Holy Spirit, who communicates to us Jesus' life and attitudes, His way of praying and acting, and above all His way of loving God and neighbor, each and every one in a personal and appropriate manner. Charles is constantly invoking the Spirit as guide of his prayer and life, and inviting his friends - and hoped-for followers - to do the same. 'Let's be guided by the Holy Spirit... that's our Guide, our only Guide' (Oeuvres Spirituelles 159, where it's said that the role of a 'director' is simply that of helping us 'hear the Spirits voice'). Here specifically, the Little Brothers and Sisters (1899 and 1902), and later all the members of the Jesus-Caritas Union (1909), are asked to pray the Veni Creator at 'the three principal hours of the day' to beg 'the heavenly Father to pour out on all human beings, created by Him, His Holy Spirit, our 'daily bread' and the 'one thing necessary, the Brothers and Sisters should put all their heart into this prayer, praying for all people without exception' (Directory, article 11, quoted in OS 477 - cf Constitutions OS 422).

In a word, Charles' prayer is always not just for himself and his needs, but 'for each and every person'. For his motif and model is the all embracing love of the Heart of Jesus (It. Sp. 231).