Cloistered : my years as a nun / Catherine Coldstream.

By:

Coldstream, Catherine

Material type: Text

TextPublisher: New York : St. Martin's Press, 2024Edition: First U.S. editionDescription: xxi, 327 pages ; 25 cmContent type:

text

Media type:

unmediated

Carrier type:

volume

ISBN:

9781250323514
1250323517

Subject(s):

Genre/Form:

Contents:

The life. Matraque ; The charism ; The choir ; The cell ; Little jug ; The grille ; The mere ; The hours ; Winter ; Clothing ; Father Gregory ; The cats -- The way. The toolshed ; The novitiate ; Only human ; Lemonade ; The vows ; The wishing ; Resolution ; The arrivals ; Stairway to Heaven -- The truth. Father Raphael ; Solemn profession ; Reversals ; The elections ; The murmuring ; The infirmary ; The chapters ; The beating ; One dark night.

Summary: "An astonishing memoir of twelve years as a contemplative nun in a silent monastery. Cloistered takes the reader deep into the hidden world of a traditional Carmelite monastery as it approaches the third Millennium and tells the story of an intense personal journey into and out of an enclosed life of poverty, chastity, and obedience. Finding an apparently perfect world at Akenside Priory, in Northumberland, Catherine trusts herself to a group of twenty silent women, believing she is trusting herself to God. As the beauty and mystery of an ancient way of life enfold her, she surrenders herself wholly to its power, quite unaware of the complexity and dangers that lie ahead. Cut off from the wider world for decades, the community has managed to evade accountability to any authority beyond itself. When Sister Catherine realises that a mesmerising cult of the personality, with the distortions it entails, has replaced the ancient ideal of religious obedience, she is faced with a dilemma. Will she submit to this, or will she be forced to speak out? An exploration of the limits of trust, Cloistered shows us how far youthful idealism can take us along the road of self-surrender, and of how much harm is done when institutional flaws go unacknowledged. Catherine's honest account of her time in the monastery - and her dramatic flight from it - is both a love song to a lost community and an exploration of what is most compelling, yet most potentially destructive when closed human groups become laws unto themselves"-- Provided by publisher.

List(s) this item appears in: New Adult Nonfiction

Average rating: 0.0 (0 votes)

Holdings
Item type	Current library	Collection	Shelving location	Call number	Status	Date due	Barcode	Item holds
Adult Book	Phillipsburg Free Public Library	Adult Non-Fiction	New Books	271.97102 COL	Available		36748002554352

Total holds: 0

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

"A profoundly moving memoir which gripped me . . . It's about spirituality and asceticism and silence and sisterhood, but also about how flawed human beings can abuse power and how hermetically sealed communities, which should care for and protect their members, can be dangerously vulnerable to threats from inside their walls." - Mark Haddon, author of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime, The Porpoise and others

An astonishing memoir of twelve years as a contemplative nun in a silent monastery.

Cloistered takes the reader deep into the hidden world of a traditional Carmelite monastery as it approaches the third Millennium and tells the story of an intense personal journey into and out of an enclosed life of poverty, chastity, and obedience. Finding an apparently perfect world at Akenside Priory, in Northumberland, Catherine trusts herself to a group of twenty silent women, believing she is trusting herself to God. As the beauty and mystery of an ancient way of life enfold her, she surrenders herself wholly to its power, quite unaware of the complexity and dangers that lie ahead.

Cut off from the wider world for decades, the community has managed to evade accountability to any authority beyond itself. When Sister Catherine realises that a mesmerising cult of the personality, with the distortions it entails, has replaced the ancient ideal of religious obedience, she is faced with a dilemma. Will she submit to this, or will she be forced to speak out?

An exploration of the limits of trust, Cloistered shows us how far youthful idealism can take us along the road of self-surrender, and of how much harm is done when institutional flaws go unacknowledged. Catherine's honest account of her time in the monastery - and her dramatic flight from it - is both a love song to a lost community and an exploration of what is most compelling, yet most potentially destructive when closed human groups become laws unto themselves.

"An astonishing memoir of twelve years as a contemplative nun in a silent monastery. Cloistered takes the reader deep into the hidden world of a traditional Carmelite monastery as it approaches the third Millennium and tells the story of an intense personal journey into and out of an enclosed life of poverty, chastity, and obedience. Finding an apparently perfect world at Akenside Priory, in Northumberland, Catherine trusts herself to a group of twenty silent women, believing she is trusting herself to God. As the beauty and mystery of an ancient way of life enfold her, she surrenders herself wholly to its power, quite unaware of the complexity and dangers that lie ahead. Cut off from the wider world for decades, the community has managed to evade accountability to any authority beyond itself. When Sister Catherine realises that a mesmerising cult of the personality, with the distortions it entails, has replaced the ancient ideal of religious obedience, she is faced with a dilemma. Will she submit to this, or will she be forced to speak out? An exploration of the limits of trust, Cloistered shows us how far youthful idealism can take us along the road of self-surrender, and of how much harm is done when institutional flaws go unacknowledged. Catherine's honest account of her time in the monastery - and her dramatic flight from it - is both a love song to a lost community and an exploration of what is most compelling, yet most potentially destructive when closed human groups become laws unto themselves"-- Provided by publisher.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

Prologue (xi)
Part I The Life
1 Matraque (3)
2 The Charism (16)
3 The Choir (24)
4 The Cell (32)
5 Little Jug (39)
6 The Grille (45)
7 The Mere (58)
8 The Hours (69)
9 Winter (74)
10 Clothing (80)
11 Father Gregory (89)
12 The Cats (97)
Part II The Way
13 The Toolshed (105)
14 The Novitiate (117)
15 Only Human (130)
16 Lemonade (145)
17 The Vows (155)
18 The Wishing (166)
19 Resolution (177)
20 The Arrivals (187)
21 Stairway to Heaven (198)
Part III The Truth
22 Father Raphael (211)
23 Solemn Profession (222)
24 Reversals (230)
25 The Elections (242)
26 The Murmuring (249)
27 The Infirmary (263)
28 The Chapters (269)
29 The Beating (290)
30 One Dark Night (302)
Epilogue (309)
Acknowkledgements (325)

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Publishers Weekly Review

In this penetrating debut memoir, former nun Coldstream describes her 12 years in an English priory and the circumstances that led to her eventual departure. Raised in an emotionally chilly family, Coldstream became bereft at age 24 when her elderly father died. After involving herself with various religious groups in an effort to aid her "long passage... across unfamiliar landscape" of grief, Coldstream found comfort in silent prayer at northern England's Akenside Priory. Inspired by the discipline and ritual she encountered there, Coldstream joined the mostly silent nuns' ranks. As time wore on, however, her "hospital for wounded souls" turned icy and toxic, with infighting, big egos, and power struggles troubling the waters in which Coldstream initially found solace. After her conflicts with her fellow nuns reached a fever pitch over the course of a decade, the author fled the cloister in the middle of the night. In lyrical, evocative prose ("Time passes in the monastery like ghosts that move through walls; it seeps through cell doors and stony archways, through bone and marrow, imprinting patience and endurance at every touch"), Coldstream opens a window into a reclusive culture, resolutely exposing its problems without losing sight of its virtues. The results will fascinate believers and non-believers alike. Agent: Patrick Walsh, PEW Literary. (Mar.)

Booklist Review

As a young adult in the 1990s, Coldstream was completely unmoored following her father's death and the subsequent sale of their family home. In her loss and grief, she was comforted by choral singing that offered glimmers of heaven and transcendent love. Touchstone relationships with an aunt who was "married to God" and another nun stoked Coldstream's own interest in a cloistered life. She visited a Carmelite priory in northern England and was taken with its setting "made for magic fulfillment": cloister, belltower, weathervane, orchards. Coldstream went through formation as aspirant, postulant, novice, and sister. She recounts a fascinating medieval way of life lived in her cell and choir stall, in the refectory and infirmary--a regimented life behind the grille. When her prioress informed her that she was not "ordinary" enough, the author was blindsided. Factions, favoritism, and stunning mistreatment left her reeling in a swirl of spiritual abuse. Readers interested in spiritual memoirs and religious formation, abuse, and reform will welcome Coldstream's intelligent, unflinching writing and perceptive account of years as a cloistered nun.