MOTHER BARAT'S VINEYARD

An intense and reverent biography of Madeleine Sophie Barat through whose efforts, devotion and unique vocation the Society of the Sacred Heart was founded. The author follows Mother Barat's life from her early childhood as a fragile girl in France, working joyfully in her father's vineyard, to her death in 1864, as, in her eighties, Mother Barat is able to look back on a lifetime of tending spiritual vineyards. Guided by her stern brother Louis, aided by kind Father Varin, Sophie Barat, inclined to the humble life of the Carmelite, found herself the instrument through which a new order was founded. Years of secrecy during the violent post-revolution period, years of conflicts within the Society, met with the simple, gentle conviction and persistence of Mother Barat. Written in dramatic prose, this biography should appeal to young people of the Roman Catholic faith. The only quibble one might have is the heavy emphasis on the struggle to unify diverse factions within the order a peculiarly adult preoccupation.