Our people page on Joan Chittister

More from and about
Joan Chittister
(biographical info at bottom of page)

If the people will lead, eventually the leaders will follow.

One of the greatest gifts a society can give its children is a love and understanding of the arts. The generation that makes this possible is the generation that saves the next one.

The self-righteous hate themselves for their own weaknesses and so they despise them in others. That's why those who claim to be virtuous fall so much further, so much harder, than others when they fall. A touch of compassion for others along the way would surely soften the fall, as fall we shall--sooner or later. Spirituality without a prayer life is no spirituality at all, and it will not last beyond the first defeats. Prayer is an opening of the self so that the Word of God can break in and make us new. Prayer unmasks. Prayer converts. Prayer impels. Prayer sustains us on the way. Pray for the grace it will take to continue what you would like to quit.

Happiness does not come quickly. It is not conferred by any single event, however exciting or comforting or satisfying the event may be. It cannot be purchased, whatever the allure of the next, the newest, the brightest, the best. Happiness, like Carl Sandburg’s fog, “comes on little cat feet,” often silently, often without our knowing it, too often without our noticing.

The problem with our time, perhaps, is that we have been seduced by facts and data, at the same time, become bereft of wonder. We want to know it all rather than to understand the meaning of it all for the good life here and now. The universe, however technological it may now be, is still the ultimate mystery, the essential human question, the greatest spiritual revelation. Everything else is distraction. To know all the elements, all the chemistry of life, is one thing; to know what it means to live a good life in the midst of the knowledge of what humans can do with them to destroy it is entirely another.

Imagination begins when it's raining too hard to go out and play
and you become really absorbed in something you would never
have thought of doing had the sun come out as usual. In which
case, thank God for the rain.

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Part of our spiritual journey must, if the soul is to make progress
in the spiritual life, be spent remembering what we say are our
intentions in life, in the light of what we can clearly see
are becoming the patterns and actions of our lives.

It's one thing to do good; it's another thing to be good. It's possible,
perhaps, to do good simply out of principle, but it's impossible to really
be good that way--not if goodness is a quality of the heart
and not simply an exercise of the will.

Life is made up of a series of challenges designed to bring us
to fullness of growth. Meeting them with hope in the future
is the real test of the spiritual person.

Joan Chittister is an internationally known writer and lecturer and the executive director of Benetvision, a resource and
research center for contemporary spirituality.

She currently serves as co-chair of the Global Peace Initiative of Women, a partner organization of the UN, facilitating a
worldwide network of women peace builders, particularly in Israel and Palestine. She was an advisor for the groundbreaking report, "A Woman’s Nation," led by Maria Shriver (2009) and was a member of the TED prize-sponsored Council of Sages, an interfaith group that developed a Charter for Compassion (2009) being promulgated worldwide with all faith organizations.

She was a keynote speaker at the Asia-Pacific Breakthrough: Women, Faith and Development Summit to End Global Poverty as well as the Parliament of World Religions in Melbourne, Australia last December. She wrote the book Beyond Beijing: the next step for women, after attending the Fourth UN Conference of Women in Beijing (1995) and the book: Heart of Flesh: a feminist spirituality for men and women.

Sister Joan appeared with the Dali Lama at both the First Emory (University) Summit of Religion, Conflict and Peacebuilding and at the conference Seeds of Compassion. She was the coordinator of The Rising Great Compassion, an interfaith retreat for monastic women at Dharma Drum Mountain Center in Taiwan.

Joan Chittister has written more than 40 books and received numerous awards for her work on behalf of peace and women in church and in society.

A Benedictine Sister of Erie, Pennsylvania, USA, she served as president of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, an organization of the leaders/superiors of the over 67,000 Catholic religious women in the US, president of the Conference of American Benedictine Prioresses, and was prioress of the Benedictine Sisters of Erie for 12 years. Sister Joan received her doctorate from Penn State University in speech communications theory.

from her website at benetvision.org

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