Cloistered

My Years as a Nun

De: Catherine Coldstream

Narrado por: Catherine Coldstream

This program is read by the author.

"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.

A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin’s Press.

Fasinating and thoughtful

This book is beautifully written and performed. It provides a detailed story of cloisterd life and of a vocstional journey that evolves and changes much within a deep trusting faith and love of God.

Monastery or North Korean Prison Camp?

She went BACK!? Where the lunatics truly run the asylum?

Brainwashing and off the charts levels of mental illness and sadism used against the vulnerable. Meets all the criteria for a CULT of the most insidious kind.

Beautifully written however.

A wonderful memoir, enhanced via listening to the audio book

A great listen. The narrative is honest, engaging and thoughtfully told. I’ll likely revisit this audiobook in the future.

Amazing, poetically told memoir

I learned about this book from an NPR interview between the author and Terry Gross. Terry noted the poetic way that Catherine tells her story. She has such a way with words and has a beautiful speaking voice as well. I have always been curious what life as a nun might look like and while it seems most communities are much healthier than this one, it was quite interesting.

The Secret Lives of Nuns

While I enjoyed this book, it makes me wonder how many of the nunneries share this same story. I think highly of the nuns that I have known and the work that they do. However, my experience has been not with cloistered nuns, but with those who do so much good work in the communities in which they reside. However. I will be the first to admit that I have little knowledge as to how these organizations work. I believe that there are some that go out into the communities and do much work for the people at large, but from what I have read and think I understand, there are those that exist and do not necessarily interact with the local communities. I have read about several nuns who have found that this is not the life that they thought they knew, and they have left the service because of the strict rules, lack of a tried understanding of what is expected of them, and the lack of any flexibility in the program. I feel that this life can be, in some instances, much harder than advertised, much stricter than some understood when looking into the life, and, in some instances, incredibly inflexible to the surprise of those making the commitment to live the life. It seems that there should be a more thorough understanding of the rigors of the program and the life should be shared with those who believe that this is the life that believe they want this life. I have read several books about learning the life, the requirements and the actual life that is to be lived, and I feel that perhaps there should be a more thorough explanation of what is to be expected should one choose this life. In this particular case, I believe that there should have been a more closely monitored program performed by outside officials in the church so as not to allow a group to fall under the fall under the authority of someone or a internal group who are not monitored by someone outside the primary groups to allow such problems as these to be monitored by outside groups to prevent such occurrences as described in this book. I will qualify that with the understanding that I would need to read a lot more books on this written by those who have experienced problems within the individual locations. I must seek out much more information before I can make any credible judgement.