![]() ![]() ![]() There is one little shadow of doubt, a shadow which falls two-thirds through the book. I say “almost” for I have one reservation. I did so on Kindle, and having finished the book this morning, I can say with almost all my heart that if every Catholic girl was given In This House of Brede as a Confirmation present, vocations to contemplative life would skyrocket. As my visit to the abbey was one of the most edifying trips of my life, showing me how beautiful enclosed life can be, I resolved to read this book. Saint Cecilia’s, I was told, was one of the models for Rumer Godden’s fictional Brede. I first heard of In This House of Brede when I went to the Solemn Profession of a young nun to the Abbey of Saint Cecilia at Ryde on England’s Isle of Wight. ![]() Godden’s novel runs with rich oils Nouwen’s book strikes me as sugary. Apparently we have always needed good fat in our diet. After decades of preaching the virtues of a low fat diet, nutritionists now tell us our dietary culprit isn’t fat. And I feel no embarrassment in saying that the laywoman’s novel taught me far more about the way of the heart than the priest’s meditations. Novels are what we read when we should be reading something else-or are they? Currently I should be reading Henri Nouwen’s “modern spiritual classic,” The Way of the Heart: The Spirituality of the Desert Fathers and Mothers, but in fact I have just finished Rumer Godden’s novel, In This House of Brede. ![]()
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