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Next up on The Open Door (March 1st) we discuss the life and legacy of Brother Andrew, the co-founder with St. Mother Teresa of the Missionaries of Charity Brothers. Our welcome and special guest is Carmel Duca, MC. He is the author of Redeemed by Beauty: The Life of Brother Andrew (St Pauls, Mumbai, 2022). Br. Carmel was born in Malta in 1965. After graduating from the University of Malta, he joined the Missionaries of Charity Brothers in 1990. Among the questions we’ll ask are the following.

1. Br. Carmel, just to get us started, what led you personally to join the Missionaries of Charity?
2. Why did you write Redeemed by Beauty? And how long did it take to do so? Did you anticipate the amount of research required?
3. Br. Andrew was an Australian Jesuit priest. How did he come to be involved in the work of Mother Teresa?
4. How was Br. Andrew able to draw many young men, often from backgrounds very different from his own, into a fledgling and sometimes daunting religious order?
5. Can you tell us about Br. Andrew’s shattering experience in Vietnam?
6. What are some of the factors that led to Br. Andrew leaving the order that he helped to found? And how is it that he nonetheless continued to live in the MC spirit?
7. What ministries do the Missionary Brothers pursue today?
8. You are currently working with the mentally challenged and the mentally ill in Peru, a country which is now experiencing dangerous political unrest. What can you tell us about your work?
9. Like Br. Andrew, you continue to preach Christ and Him crucified in a Church that struggles with its own disunity. What resources do you draw on in order to remain faithful to your vocation?
10. How will you celebrate Easter this year?

Redeemed by Beauty is, in Brother Andrew’s own words, the story of “an unfaithful man used by God.” It is the biography of Ian Travers-Ball who felt called to share his life with the poor. After joining the Jesuit order, as an ordained priest in India, he moved on to co-found – together with Mother Teresa of Calcutta – the Missionaries of Charity Brothers.

This book follows Andrew on this path from gambler to troubadour to sannyasi. It is the human struggle for wholeness and holiness through helplessness, powerlessness, fragility and woundedness. Andrew’s hallmark and uniqueness would be his closeness to and identification with the hidden and suffering people. It is the inner journey of a soul in need of redemption. Together with God, Our Lady and the Church, the poor were the main agents of grace in Brother Andrew’s life. Andrew – always the mystic – could experience beauty amidst the suffering and the misery of the poor, and in the ordinariness of his own life.

https://enroutebooksandmedia.com/redeemedbybeauty/