The Week in (small) Review

With apologies that I've been out of town for a week and am not up on all the usual goings on. But here's a small sampling of what I do know:

a) Two of our sisters continue on their journey to God...please remember them in your prayers, they are both magnificent women;

b) the renovations of our second floor west are coming along well, although they had a very rough week as temperatures here surpassed 90 degrees and broke all-time record highs on two or three days--90 is really unusually high for us;

c) Joining our international guest list, a sister of Filipino descent from California arrived to spend a month of her sabbatical with us. She'll be joining us for prayer, visiting and helping in our ministries--both at the Mount and in Erie, and just generally experiencing the life of a Benedictine community; and

d) Joan Chittister won her 8th Catholic Press Association Award for her book, Welcome to the Wisdom of the World.

Here's what the CPA page writes on her First Place award in the category of Hardcover Spirituality Books: "Joan Chittister seeks to engage the wisdom of all people as they grapple with life’s core questions. She explores this wisdom in five major religious traditions, demonstrating her understanding of each tradition and showing how the spiritual insights of each have sought to answer questions common to all persons. This book is a major contribution to the breaking down of walls between major religious traditions. The realization that each tradition holds valuable insights makes for a deeper understanding that each person, no matter of what religious tradition, is seeking answers to universal questions. This is a rewarding discovery!"

If you want to see the whole 2008 CPA list of winners go to their site and click on 2008 CPA Awards-Books. It takes 2-3 minutes to download but you'll see everything.