The nuns and the organization of the Order

It is with great honor that I present this talk today. The invitation that I received last August from Sister Kathleen was such a pleasant surprise. Sister Kathleen—over the years, sitting far away in Tasmania, I have gained so much from reading the materials that you and your community have posted online, and listeners today might notice how much I’ve learnt from them. So too the community here at Our Lady of Dallas—thank you for inviting me to participate, and for hosting my stay. Not only in the past months with the organization of this colloquium, but for the past fifteen-plus years that my academic research has focused on medieval Cistercian nuns, I’ve benefited from the generosity of this community and its members. In my talk now you’ll note that the sharing of spirit and research from community members here has made its way, via publications in Cistercian journals, into the observations that I’ll make.