Enduring Grace: Living Portraits of Seven Women Mystics

by Carol Lee Flinders

Book Overview

Astonishingly relevant portraits of the lives of seven women mystics Known to more than a million readers as the coauthor of the classic vegetarian cookbook Laurel's Kitchen, Carol Lee Flinders looks to the hunger of the spirit in Enduring Grace. In these striking and sustaining depictions of seven remarkable women, Flinders brings to life a chorus of wisdom from the past that speaks with remarkable relevance to our contemporary spiritual quests...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0060626453
• ISBN13: 9780060626457
• Release Date: June 1993
• Publisher: HarperOne
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 0.89 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.2" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Highly Recommended

I read this book for the first time several years ago, and find myself pulling it off my shelf time and again. I've recommended it to several friends, and am just now ordering a copy to be sent to my sister for her birthday. As a clergywoman and spiritual writer, I find this book inspiring, challenging, and comforting on the journey. I fell in love with Teresa of Avila as a spiritual "mentor" in these pages, and have gone on to read several of her works.

Positively inspiring!

A wonderfully inspiring book that makes one hungry for more! There is enough here to provide a good picture of each of the women described, but inevitable, you will want to go out and get more material on your favorite one or two (in my case, Teresa of Avila and "crazy" Mechthild.) The work is not at all full of feminist "prejudice" (though its modern perspective was obviously too much for fearful conservative "Frances" below). On the contrary, it shows excuisite respect for the full potential of a compassionate, truly "Catholic" -- all-embracing -- Christianity.

Finally a book does justice to women mystics

This book provides inspiring insights into two subjects which are rarely given fair analysis: (1) women saints and (2) the mystical experience. By definition the mystical experience is difficult to explain or analyze in words, but the author's approach and beautiful references help make the experiences of these saints come to life -- and these saints are not the life-denying, intellectual complex, emotionally stunted type, but the divinely inspired type. I would not call the author's perspective feminist but one free of conventional masculine/church biases. I will reread this book often.

An exquisite book which informs and charms

I have read this book several times just for myself, and was enchanted with it. I have used it with theology students (university level) who respond well to it and like it very, very much indeed. A good introduction to women in the Christian tradition and in the mystical tradition, one recommended to anyone, especially the intrigued non-specialist.

Excellent work that educates and inspires.

Enduring Grace presents the special contributions of women mystics. It gives a clear and realistic discription of the women, their lives and the times in which they lived. In doing this, they come alive as real people who faced day to day difficulties, no different than the modern day reader. In regard to some of their more unusual behavior, Flinders encourages the reader to view the mystics with compassion and understanding. Flinders illucidates how very ordinary women transformed themselves into extraordinary individuals who made extraordinary contributions. She further illistrates how these women belong to us all and gives every female reader a legacy which she can claim as her own.