Foundation

The congregation was founded at the Basilique du Sacré-Cœur in Montmartre, Paris, in September 1933 by five seminarians from Issy-les-Moulineaux, first taking the name of Little Brothers of Solitude; the five were: René Voillaume, Marcel Bouchet, Marc Gerin, Guy Champenois and Georges Gorree.^[3] Led by their first superior Voillaume, and with the support of scholars Louis Massignon and Louis Gardet, they left Paris to found their first 'fraternity' in the El Abiodh Sidi Cheikh District in southern Oran at the edge of the Saharan Desert;^[4] in 1936, Bishop Nouet of Algeria named it as a diocesan congregation. There they took on their present name and a religious habit of grey embroidered with a heart and an outcropped cross and modified nomadic garb. The first years were marked by tracing the intuitions of Foucauld, settling and adapting his original 'Directory' or Rules, and establishing novitiates for the first generation of their religious congregation.

Post World War II

After World War II, the members decided to move toward a greater witness outside of Algeria into the post-war world. By modifying their original monastic idea to fit new circumstances while retaining a contemplative approach to life and prayer they split into small fraternities based on the simple rule of adoration of the Eucharist and prayer in their dwellings; this was to be coupled with a life of ordinary manual labour, friendship, and solidarity with those amongst whom they lived and worked.^[5] Their traditional habit was replaced with the appropriate plain clothes to help assimilate into their work and neighborhood roles.

This revised congregation became somewhat linked to the Worker Priest movement in France at that time for the non-traditional setting of religious life apart from overt mission, religious education, pastoral service, or direct evangelization before the Second Vatican Council.^[6]

In 1952, Brother Roger travelled to Leeds and became the first Little Brother in Britain;^[7] several brothers joined him, but in 2023, there are none in the UK.

Approbation

On 13 June 1968,^[8] the Little Brothers of Jesus were recognised by Pope Paul VI as a congregation of pontifical right. This was confirmed again in 1987 by Pope John Paul II after a revision of the community's constitutions.^[9]