Virgin Time

In Search Of The Contemplative Life

BY PATRICIA HAMPL

Brief Description:
This beguiling account of Patricia Hampl's spiritual quest at first seeks little more than to rub out the Catholic-school upbringing that clung to her like an Ash Wednesday smudge. Hampl's "old world" pilgrimage in the footsteps of saints Francis and Clare is overrun by crotchety English agnostics, American Franciscan friars and nuns, and various eccentric seekers. She then travels to Lourdes, and recoils from the surging crowds with their candles and incurable diseases. She finally finds the communion she seeks in a Californian monastery, amid the smell of wild rose bushes and the whine of chainsaws felling redwoods.

Northpoint 2002 242 PP, Paper

$6.00 (in stock)