Joan Chittister

Joan Chittister, one of our most celebrated spiritual writers, invites us to embrace older age as a natural part of life that is both active and contemplative, productive and reflective, and deeply rewarding. She encourages us to cherish the blessings of aging and to overcome its challenges. And she shows us clearly that this is a special period of life-maybe the most special of them all. The Gift of Years looks at the many dimensions of aging, the...

Wise and enduring spiritual guidelines for everyday living –– as relevant today as when The Rule was originally conceived by St. Benedict in fifth century Rome.

Everyone longs to be happy, yet many wrongly believe that happiness comes from having enough money, fame, personal comfort, worldly success, or even dumb luck. Happiness all too often seems to be an elusive, arbitrary thing -something that is always just out of reach. Joan Chittister sees happiness differently -as a personal quality to be learned, mastered, and fearlessly wielded. In Happiness, she embarks on a "great happiness dig" through sociology,...

"In words as wise as they are inspiring, Between the Dark and the Daylight explores the concerns of modern life, of the overworked mind and hurting heart. These are the paradoxical--and often frustrating--moments when our lives feel at odds with everything around us. Only by embracing the contradictions, Chittister contends, may we live well amid stress, withstand emotional storms, and satisfy our yearnings for something transcendent and real. By...

"Beloved nun and social activist Joan Chittister, who appeared on Oprah's Super Soul Sunday, offers a soul-stirring and inspiring guide that speaks to all who feel disillusioned and dissatisfied with the power-hungry institutions and systems of this world. Joan Chittister has been a passionate voice for women's rights for over 50 years. Called "one of the most well-known and trusted contemporary spiritual authors" by Publishers Weekly, this rabble-rousing...

"The activist, nun, and esteemed spiritual voice who has twice appeared on Oprah's Super Soul Sunday sounds the call to create a monastery within ourselves--to cultivate wisdom and resilience so that we may join God in the work of renewal, restoration, and justice right where we are. "In every beating heart is a silent undercurrent that calls each of us to a place unknown, to the vision of a wiser life, to become what we feel we must be--but cannot...

"Every time, every culture has sought the spiritual dimensions of life in particular ways, in language and symbols and lifestyles it could embrace. Across the ages, countless men and women in East and West chose the path of monastic life, either in solitude or in community. One of them was Benedict of Nursia, the sixth-century founder of communal monasticism in the Western world. For Benedict, the spiritual life lay in simply living this life, our...