Redeemed by Beauty

The Life of Brother Andrew - Co-Founder with Mother Teresa of the Missionaries of Charity Brothers

Again the beauty and the suffering... 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. That is the drama of your life and mine.

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. He joined the Jesuit order in Australia, and was ordained priest in India. Then he moved on to co-found — together with Mother Teresa of Calcutta — the Missionaries of Charity Brothers.

Redeemed by Beauty 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.