"Poor as I am … I experience within myself a happiness and joy that I cannot express……that is Christ, living and alive in me." (Br Andrew)

His vision of M.C. always emphasised finding Jesus in the poor, allowing ourselves to be formed and blessed by the poor, accepting the down-to-earth reality of our human weakness and brokenness – and to wonder at the great things God was always doing through us in spite of how weak and poor we are.

Born on 27th August 1928, in Melbourne Australia, Ian Travers-Ball was the youngest of 7 children. After leaving school, he worked in an insurance office until 1952 when he joined the Jesuits. Ordained priest on 25th March 1963, he was allowed to leave the Jesuits in 1966 to join the then 3 year old Congregation of the Missionaries of Charity Brothers.

He was our General Servant from 1966 to 1986. He died on 4th October 2000.

To know more, see the biography, Redeemed by Beauty: The Life of Brother Andrew, available from St. Paul BYB in India, EnRoute in USA and Amazon in UK.

Beauty and suffering

I am wounded, I am broken. I cannot liberate myself nor my chaotic world. To recognise this is the first great step into Truth. It can bring me to the silent cave of my own heart on the mountain, where I stop a little and wait for the small voice to whisper something in my heart. (What I Met Along the Way, page 66)

From Br Andrew's writings

Again, the beauty and the suffering. Very often they come hidden in the ordinariness or ordinary human beings. And we miss them for two reasons: firstly because we are looking for them in the superstars and not in the ordinary people we meet; and secondly because we do not give ourselves the silence and the solitude to see them. The smallest of us, the most ordinary life, is a wonderful drama with its beauty and suffering, because each human life is a dialogue and journey with our mysterious God and creator who tries to draw us every day into the fullness of life... (What I Met Along the Way, page 74) It doesn't take much expertise to greet a sad and lonely person with a smile or handshake, to take a hungry person to a restaurant for a meal, or even to bring them home to share a meal, to receive an abandoned person as a guest in one's house. These are simple things but they are at once recognised as revolutionary. It's a revolution not with violence but with love and peace. It's the one we are all waiting for. It's the revolution that will change the world as well as my own heart and life. (What I Met Along the Way, page 58) What is our secret? ... it is the miracle of God's love working through our weakness.