Download or read book The In Between Years written by Mary Zenchoff and published by . This book was released on 2017-09-12 with total page 230 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For twenty-four years, Mary Zenchoff lived in a convent. She endured conditions that most of us never realized existed. Near-starvation, social deprivation, and impossible work assignments prevailed while Mary worked and prayed, and struggled to understand whether this was the life Jesus and God meant for her.
Download or read book Nuns written by Silvia Evangelisti and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2008 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Silvia Evangelisti presents the story of the women who have lived in religious communities, from the dawn of the modern age onwards - their ideals and achievements, frustrations and failures, and their attempts to reach out to the society aroundthem.
Download or read book Witches of America written by Alex Mar and published by Sarah Crichton Books. This book was released on 2015-10-20 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Witches are gathering." When most people hear the word "witches," they think of horror films and Halloween, but to the nearly one million Americans who practice Paganism today, witchcraft is a nature-worshipping, polytheistic, and very real religion. So Alex Mar discovers when she sets out to film a documentary and finds herself drawn deep into the world of present-day magic. Witches of America follows Mar on her immersive five-year trip into the occult, charting modern Paganism from its roots in 1950s England to its current American mecca in the San Francisco Bay Area; from a gathering of more than a thousand witches in the Illinois woods to the New Orleans branch of one of the world's most influential magical societies. Along the way she takes part in dozens of rituals and becomes involved with a wild array of characters: a government employee who founds a California priesthood dedicated to a Celtic goddess of war; American disciples of Aleister Crowley, whose elaborate ceremonies turn the Catholic mass on its head; second-wave feminist Wiccans who practice a radical separatist witchcraft; a growing "mystery cult" whose initiates trace their rites back to a blind shaman in rural Oregon. This sprawling magical community compels Mar to confront what she believes is possible-or hopes might be. With keen intelligence and wit, Mar illuminates the world of witchcraft while grappling in fresh and unexpected ways with the question underlying every faith: Why do we choose to believe in anything at all? Whether evangelical Christian, Pagan priestess, or atheist, each of us craves a system of meaning to give structure to our lives. Sometimes we just find it in unexpected places.
Download or read book An Unquenchable Thirst written by Mary Johnson and published by ReadHowYouWant.com. This book was released on 2011-05-12 with total page 746 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At seventeen, Mary Johnson saw a photo of Mother Teresa on the cover of TIME magazine, and experienced her calling. Eighteen months later she entered a convent in the South Bronx, to begin her religious training. Not without difficulty, this boisterous, independent-minded teenager eventually adapted to the sisters' austere life of poverty and devotion, but beneath the white-and-blue sari an ordinary woman faced the struggles we all share, with the desires of love and connection, meaning and identity. During her years as a Missionary of Charity, Mary Johnson rose quickly through the ranks and came to work alongside Mother Teresa. Mary grapped with her faith, her desires for intimacy, the politics of the order and her complicated relationship with Mother Teresa. Finally, she made the hard, life-changing decision to leave the order to find her own path, and eventually to leave the Church altogether. The story of this compellingly honest woman will speak to anyone who has ever grappled with the mysteries and wonders of life and faith.
Download or read book The Tears I Couldn t Cry written by Patricia Grueninger Beasley and published by AuthorHouse. This book was released on 2009-04-16 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Walk in my shoes as a Sister in a religious order in the United States from 1955-78. Do what I did. Feel what I felt. Live the life I lived in utmost secrecy. Pats incredible story takes readers on a terrifying journey through 22 years of convent life in 20th century America. Promised to God when she was dying at age 3, she eventually enters a Catholic order of women where she is controlled by rigid rules and must wear a cumbersome 17th century habit looking like a flying nun. During 3 years of formation she is stripped of her own identity and forced into a mold. She must give up the family she loves, while her Superiors squash her passion for art, music, and nature. She must live under vows that require blind obedience, no pay for her work, and untainted celibacy. All of these sacrifices are demanded in Gods all-justifying Name. Leaving the convent would be turning her back on God and risking eternal damnation, Superiors say. After reading Pats true story, readers are faced with a question: Was Pat, and thousands of other women like her, abused by the very religion they loved? Emmy-award winning screenwriter and one of Pats mentors, Vickie Patik, says, THE TEARS I COULDNT CRY is a triumph of the human spirit and an inspiration to anyone who is working up the courage to question cherished beliefs and seek closure through honest reflection and self-healing. Barnaby Conrad, co-founder of the Santa Barbara Writers Conference and its co-director for 33 years says that Pat has written her story that is terrifying and beautiful and VERY moving.
Download or read book Five Years in Heaven written by John Schlimm and published by Image. This book was released on 2016-05-03 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is heaven on earth? The answer lies in this true story of one young man's journey to find hope and purpose with the help of an unlikely teacher--a compassionate and wise old nun, whom the world had long-forgotten. By the time Harvard-educated John Schlimm turned 31 years old, he had worked with some of the biggest superstars in Nashville and served under the most powerful people in the White House. But something was missing. His life had come to a standstill, lost in a whirl of questions about belonging, faith, rejection, and purpose. He soon decides to return to his small-town roots in search of a new beginning. Returning home, John meets 87-year-old Sister Augustine, the beguiling self-taught artist-in-residence at the ceramic shop on the sprawling grounds of the local 150-year-old convent. John is instantly bowled over by Sister's quiet grace and vision. Before long, his weekly visits to Sister's shop become a master's class in the meaning of life, love, humility, and second chances. As she directed him on the road to self-discovery and salvation, John returned the favor by putting Sister Augustine on the front page of newspapers and showing his friend that her life still had one very important and unexpected final chapter yet to go. In Five Years in Heaven, John shares the wisdom, humor, grace, and inspiration he experienced during his hundreds of visits with Sister Augustine. Five Years in Heaven reminds us that we can find love and joy in the most unlikely of places, and that the building blocks of peace and happiness are always within our reach.
Download or read book Story of My Life written by George Sand and published by SUNY Press. This book was released on 1991-01-01 with total page 1172 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Stalking the Divine written by Kristin Ohlson and published by Plume. This book was released on 2004-12 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One lonely Christmas morning, Kristin Ohlson wandered into a downtown Cleveland church for mass. Once there, she was moved by the traditions of her childhood, but more than that, her curiosity was captured by a group of cloistered nuns. They were the Poor Clares—a tiny, threadbare congregation of elderly nuns with one mission: to pray day and night for the sorrows of the world. As Ohlson, a longtime skeptic, opens up to the Poor Clares, she opens herself to the possibility of the sacred. The result is an inspiring personal journey as well as a poignant reflection on the power of church and faith.
Download or read book Cloister and Community written by Mary Jo Weaver and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2002 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cloister and Community is both a history of the Carmelite monastery of Indianapolis and an introduction to the Carmelites, a contemplative order of Roman Catholicism, founded in the 13th century and rededicated as a reform movement for women religious in the 16th century by Teresa of Avila. A key element of the order is that its nuns live an ascetic, cloistered life, but as Mary Jo Weaver demonstrates, the view that one must "leave the world" to find sacred space apart from it has evolved to embrace the notion that the world itself is a sacred space.Weaver focuses on a modern Indianapolis community and describes how the sisters incorporate Carmelite belief and practice into their daily lives. Cloister and Community is a beautifully written and handsomely produced book that offers readers a privileged view of the world of present-day contemplative spirituality.ALSO OF INTEREST Being RightConservative Catholics in AmericaEdited by Mary Jo Weaver and R. Scott Appleby0-253-32922-1 HB £34.500-253-20999-4 PB £15.50What's LeftLiberal American CatholicsEdited by Mary Jo Weaver0-253-21332-0 HB £30.500-253-21332-0 PB £14.50
Download or read book A Life Like Nun Other written by Joyce E Zemba and published by Author House. This book was released on 2010-07-27 with total page 108 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit Amen." Now slip on your habit and walk in Joyce Falconero Zemba's shoes as she takes you back fifty years into the hallowed convent halls and into her life as a Catholic nun. No longer under a rule of silence, Joyce reveals in this autobiography what your Sunday school teacher would not want you to read. Learn what was really happening behind the veil of the sisterhood of deception that was being portrayed to the public - skeletons of what felt like brainwashing to the shadows of being romantically approached by a priest. You will not be able to put this book down as you watch Joyce leave home as an eager, energetic, young woman with a heart to do good, grow into someone who learns that even the holiest of professions can be full of lies and deceit. If she does not get out in time, her spirit would be the price. REVIEWS: Just finished...what a read!!! I couldn't put it down once I got started and resented any intrusions. It's hard to believe a community such as nuns, which one would assume to be Christian, could treat another human being in such a way. You told your story in a very loving and Christian way. I love the mentions of Margie and meeting Sister Candida. Thank you again for your time and for sharing. Love you, Carolyn Anastasi Foutch -------- A MUST READ - Enter the secret door of "A Life Like Nun Other" and expect the unexpected. Journey with Joyce as her life unfolds and changes and share in the surprises, secrets, and challenges Joyce encounters as a nun. Warning: When you begin to read, be prepared to stayed glued to the book till you reach the last page. "Alice Slapinskas"
Download or read book Forever Your Sister written by Janice Wedl and published by . This book was released on 1998 with total page 164 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Following Vatican II, convents all over the country suffered loss in their sisterhood. Often secretive, neither those leaving nor those remaining had time to deal with the situation. In 1993, St. Benedict Convent, St. Joseph, MN, invited former sisters to visit. Out of this came these twenty-two stories.
Download or read book My Life Story written by Pramila Dugel and published by Xlibris Corporation. This book was released on 2019-05-30 with total page 150 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Life is a journey. Long for some and short for others. Nevertheless, we select our own paths to reach our destination. In doing so, we are forced to stop at various junctions, becoming emotionally, sensationally, and spiritually involved with what we encounter. As the duration of the journey progresses, we age with time. The subconscious mind projects past images in sequences or by association, making life surreal. Like actors on stage, we perform, aware of our entrances and exits. Every performance is a prologue to what might be or what might have been.
Download or read book Jesus in Our Wombs written by Rebecca J. Lester and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2005 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Jesus in Our Wombs, Rebecca J. Lester takes us behind the walls of a Roman Catholic convent in central Mexico to explore the lives, training, and experiences of a group of postulants--young women in the first stage of religious training as nuns. Lester, who conducted eighteen months of fieldwork in the convent, provides a rich ethnography of these young women's journeys as they wrestle with doubts, fears, ambitions, and setbacks in their struggle to follow what they believe to be the will of God. Gracefully written, finely textured, and theoretically rigorous, this book considers how these aspiring nuns learn to experience God by cultivating an altered experience of their own female bodies, a transformation they view as a political stance against modernity. Lester explains that the Postulants work toward what they see as an "authentic" femininity--one that has been eclipsed by the values of modern society. The outcome of this process has political as well as personal consequences. The Sisters learn to understand their very intimate experiences of "the Call"--and their choices in answering it--as politically relevant declarations of self. Readers become intimately acquainted with the personalities, family backgrounds, friendships, and aspirations of the Postulants as Lester relates the practices and experiences of their daily lives. Combining compassionate, engaged ethnography with an incisive and provocative theoretical analysis of embodied selves, Jesus in Our Wombs delivers a profound analysis of what Lester calls the convent's "technology of embodiment" on multiple levels--from the phenomenological to the political.
Download or read book My Sisters the Saints written by Colleen Carroll Campbell and published by Image. This book was released on 2012-10-30 with total page 226 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A poignant and powerful spiritual memoir about how the lives of the saints changed the life of a modern woman. In My Sisters the Saints, author Colleen Carroll Campbell blends her personal narrative of spiritual seeking, trials, stumbles, and breakthroughs with the stories of six women saints who profoundly changed her life: Teresa of Avila, Therese of Lisieux, Faustina of Poland, Edith Stein of Germany, Mother Teresa of Calcutta, and Mary of Nazareth. Drawing upon the rich writings and examples of these extraordinary women, the author reveals Christianity's liberating power for women and the relevance of the saints to the lives of contemporary Christians.
Download or read book Millennial Nuns written by The Daughters of Saint Paul and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2021-07-06 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: More and more people-- especially millennials-- are turning to religion as a source of comfort and solace in our increasingly chaotic world. Rather than live a cloistered life of seclusion, the Daughters of Saint Paul actively embrace social media to evangelize, collectively calling themselves the #MediaNuns. In this collective memoir, eight of these Sisters share their own discernment journeys, struggles and crises of faith that they have overcome, and episodes from their daily lives. They offer practical takeaways and tips for living a more spiritually-fulfilled life, no matter your religious affiliation. -- adapted from jacket
Download or read book Forever and Ever Amen written by Karol Jackowski and published by Riverhead Books (Hardcover). This book was released on 2007 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1964, Karol Jackowski was just out of high school. But while her friends were heading off to college or finding their first jobs, Karol decided to enter the convent of the Sisters of the Holy Cross. Those years were a time of enormous change in the country and in the Church. They were times of joy, dedication, and a great deal of fun, set against the Second Vatican Council and the reforms it fostered, many of which remain controversial today. In this playful and candid memoir, Jackowski pulls back the curtain on the mysteries of convent life, as she recounts her rocky transition from worldly teenager to cloistered postulant; the trials she faced in coping with the restrictions of convent life; and the lessons she learned from the elderly nuns she was assigned to, who weren't nearly as pious as people thought.--From publisher description.
Download or read book In the Convent of Little Flowers written by Indu Sundaresan and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2008-12-16 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Now in paperback, internationally bestselling author Indu Sundaresan presents a poignant collection of contemporary short stories about the challenges and consequences faced by women in Indian life today. Like Jhumpa Lahiri’s Interpreter of Maladies, Indu Sundaresan’s In the Convent of Little Flowers gives readers an eloquent and illuminating collection of stories about contemporary Indian life, exploring the cutting-edge issues that surround the clash between ancient tradition and modernity. In the collection’s title story, a young woman adopted by an American family in Seattle receives a letter from Sister Mary Theresa, a nun at the Convent of Little Flowers in Chennai, where she stayed as a child. Unbeknownst to the Indian woman, the nun is her biological mother’s sister. In another story, the grandmother of an Indian journalist begs her grandson to intervene and stop a young widow from being burned alive. And when a teenaged daughter bears a child out of wedlock, her entire family is thrown into turmoil. With their lush prose, vividly rendered settings, and complex characters, these and the other stories in this elegant collection bring readers into the experience of Indian women at home and abroad, where modernity offers them lives their grandmothers could never dream of, while at the same time taking away parts of their history. With a delicate touch, Indu Sundaresan weaves the pieces of the conflict together, presenting a nuanced and unforgettable tapestry.
