The Calling : A Year in the Life of an Order of Nuns - Hardcover

Whitney, Catherine

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 051770854X ISBN 13: 9780517708545

Publisher: Crown, 1999

Synopsis

On a hilltop north of Seattle, overlooking the glorious vista of Puget Sound and the white-capped Olympics, stands Rosary Heights, the motherhouse of the Sisters of Saint Dominic of the Holy Cross. The story begins here, with a catastrophic storm that shifts the ground beneath the motherhouse and threatens to send it crashing into the waters below. In a single act of nature, a moment of truth, the order is forced to rethink its place in the world and its purpose.
        
With Rosary Heights as the backdrop, Catherine Whitney takes a personal journey inside the order that ran the school she attended as a child, the order that, for a short time, she contemplated entering herself. Her quest is to come to terms with what it means to be called to the religious life. What is the secret these women hold that makes them--no matter how diverse--perform common rituals, celebrate the same Mass, and serve the same God?
        
In The Calling, we meet several valiant women who struggle with the practicalities of the world around them as well as the complicating issues of the life of a nun. Each woman's story is compelling. Together, they form a dramatic human chronicle that is fascinating and revealing--a chronicle of a community that has existed for centuries but is still evolving and whose anxieties and joys are utterly relevant to all of us, regardless of our beliefs.

About this title

Review:

Like many Catholic baby boomers, Catherine Whitney left the Church in her late teens, turned off by its dogma and apparent oppression of women. And like many wayward Catholics, she returned to the Church at midlife, yearning for a deeper spiritual understanding and meaning.

It was her father's funeral that brought Whitney back to her Seattle roots as an adult journalist, and back to the doors of the Sisters of Saint Dominic of the Holy Cross--the same order of nuns that ran her childhood school. As a Catholic rebel, Whitney had dismissed her childhood teachers as archaic and out of touch with reality. But now as a seeker and wiser soul, Whitney was "completely disarmed by the women I found there.... They were smart, engaged, spiritually grounded, visionary women, remarkably at ease with uncertainty and change." Through interviews with the nuns and yearlong observations, Whitney explains how women hear this unique calling, and why they answer it. She also examines why some women break their vows and leave, becoming "Rebel Brides." Nonetheless, Whitney's writing is at its best when she tenderly explores her own heartfelt reckoning with God and Catholicism. --Gail Hudson

From the Back Cover:

"Thoughtful and absorbing . . . a nostalgic, bittersweet look at a world that may soon be gone."
--New York Times

About this edition

• Publisher: Crown
• Publication date: 1999
• ISBN 10: 051770854X
• ISBN 13: 9780517708545
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 272