What Gretta Vosper is to the UCC—a burr under the saddle, maybe—Joan Chittister must be to the Roman Catholic Church. In a 2015 interview for the Washington Post, veteran Catholic writer Tom Roberts pictured her as “the maverick Benedictine nun who dares speak her mind.” Read Called to Question, and see why.
“Using her own spiritual journal entries,” journeywithjesus.net explains, “she pushes, pokes, and prods at the various dimensions of Christian living.” It’s as she herself has it in the epilogue: “There is no standing still in the spiritual life. There is only the unending opportunity to become, or to die.” For her, it started when she discovered, “The world into which most of us were born was a world full of answers. Almost all of them wrong.”
Sister Joan’s obstreperous ways didn’t stop the Catholic Press Association from honouring this book: “Chittister wrestles with soul-searching questions and ideas, challenging not only the reader, but her own beliefs…. Want to see what mature spirituality looks like? Read this book.”
Now 85 years old, and still vital, she, a champion for women in the church, is a theologian, speaker, and the author of over 50 books, by Amazon’s count.
Called to Question: A Spiritual Memoir
By Joan Chittister
Shedd & Ward, 2004
