The Universal Brother: Charles de Foucauld Speaks to Us Today
LITTLE SISTER KATHLEEN OF JESUS
(NEW CITY PRESS, 140 PP, £14.99)

Charles de Foucauld’s life is the stuff of adventure. A French aristocrat who inherited a fortune, he ended up as a solitary priest in remotest Algeria, where he was shot dead by raiding tribesmen in 1916. That extraordinary journey – soldier to explorer, lightning conversion to membership of the Trappist Order, odd-job man in Nazareth to ordination, Béni Abbès to Tamanrasset – has been traced in many biographies.

This short book tells that story, but its value lies in the author’s interpretation. A bilingual Canadian, Kathy McKee has for nearly 40 years been a Little Sister of Jesus, the largest congregation in the Foucauldian family. Much of that time she has spent teaching fellow ­sisters and others about Brother Charles. Her book springs from a life of contemplation in the midst of the world. She practises what she writes about.