THE MYSTICS WOULD LIKE A WORD

A colloquial look at six European female Christian mystics and their teachings.

Evans, the spirituality and culture editor at the National Catholic Reporter and author of Feminist Prayers for My Daughter, dedicates her latest to “every woman whose story merited an examination it never received.” She focuses on the lives and work of six women—Teresa of Avila, Margery Kempe, Julian of Norwich, Hildegard of Bingen, Thérèse of Lisieux, and Catherine of Siena—five of whom were nuns, and all of whom Evans describes as “unapologetically themselves” and “more than able to lead.” The chapters—bearing titles such as “All the Best Prophets Were Mentally Ill,” “Trusting Yourself Doesn’t Make You a Heretic,” and “The World Is Burning: Why Make Art?”—end with questions “for prayer and reflection.” For example, “Do you feel comfortable viewing your soul as a place for light?”; “If you were a flower, which one would you be? How do you feel about that flower?” The author often shares from her own life, including her journey of leaving evangelicalism and conversion to Catholicism, as well as what she views as the most prescient lessons from and summations of each of her subjects. Of Thérèse, Evans writes, “This chick was a feminist if ever there was one.” In the chapter about Hildegard, she notes, “arguably her best-known spiritual principle is the idea of the earth as a sacred mirror reflecting our internal reality.” The author’s impassioned, often quippy, always forthright tone makes for a quick read. “Each of us has a mystic within us,” she writes, “waiting to be unlocked.” Despite the text’s lack of racial representation, the author calls women of color “the prophets of our modern age” before closing with lines from an Alice Walker poem.

A well-meaning, resonant set of biographical profiles that will inspire religiously inclined readers.