Cloister and Community: Life within a Carmelite Monastery - Tapa dura

"For centuries the Spanish mystic Teresa of Avila has fascinated anyone interested in a life lived out of the depths of the human spirit. With warm and lively prose, Mary Jo Weaver tells not only Teresa's story but also how Teresa's ideals are lived by contemporary Carmelite nuns in Indianapolis. You will not want to set down this beautifully crafted tapestry of a saint and her modern daughters until you have turned its final page." -Keith J. Egan "This is an exquisite chronicle of seven decades of life at a Carmelite monastery in Indianapolis, a town a few hundred miles south east of Chicago... It is an elegantly written, intimate account of life behind the grille of one of the best-known Carmelite monasteries in the English-speaking world."--The Catholic Herald, 8 August 2003

Mary Jo Weaver is Professor of Religious Studies at Indiana University. Her most recent books, Being Right and What's Left? (both Indiana University Press), have dealt with divisions within American Catholicism at the turn of the millennium. She has been a friend of the Indianapolis Carmelites for more than 20 years.