Jean Vanier: Portrait of a Free Man

This excellent biography of the late Jean Vanier (1928–2019), who founded L’Arche, an organization that creates and maintains group homes for people with intellectual disabilities, charts the innovator’s circuitous life and his rise to international success. The scion of a distinguished Canadian family, Vanier served in the military before acquiring a doctorate in theology. Constant, a friend of Vanier, writes that Vanier couldn’t decide on a vocation, but time spent with his mother helping WWII veterans and a transformative visit to L’Eau Vive in Paris, a lay center for the teaching of theology, drew him toward the marginalized. Forming his spiritual base at L’Eau Vive, Vanier then worked as a chaplain for the intellectually disabled of Paris in the early 1960s, a role that eventually flowered into the establishment of L’Arche (the French word for ark) in 1964. Vanier wrote prolifically during his lifetime, and Constant litters the book with his quotes: “We rejoice when we can unveil that which is deepest and most vulnerable: the fact that we are linked together by trust.” In explaining Vanier’s “crazy story” of coming to find freedom and joy in working with those who are severely disabled, Constant shows how his deep faith always guided him during more than a half-century leading L’Arche. From the intimate perspective of one of Vanier’s closest confidantes, this brief biography paints a glowing, complex portrait of a remarkable life. (Aug.)