02004 12 01 +

Charles de Foucauld shot and killed in Tamanrasset in 1916. Earlier in the day he wrote to his cousin Marie:

Our annihilation is the most powerful means we have to unite ourselves to Jesus and to save souls; that is what St. John of the Cross repeated in nearly every line. When one wishes to suffer and to love, one can. One does the most of what one tries the most to do. One feels that one suffers but one doesn’t always feel that one loves, and that is added suffering. But one knows that one wishes to love, and wishing to love is to love. One finds that one doesn’t love enough. That’s true. One will never love enough. But Almighty God who knows of what he has molded us and who loves us more than a mother loves her child has told us—and he does not lie—that he will not cast out those who come to him.
—Charles de Foucauld, Writings, selected with an introduction by Robert Ellsberg (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 1999)