Monday 21st February, 2022
Laura Swan, The Forgotten Desert Mothers: Sayings, Lives and Stories of
Early Christian Women (Paulist Press, 2001), 29. 
Image: Armin Lotfi, instagram.com/armin_lotfi

​This quote is from Laura Swan's The Forgotten Desert Mothers: Sayings, Lives and Stories of Early Christian Women (Paulist Press, 2001), 29 - see here. Laura Swan is a Benedictine Sister at St Placid Priory in the Pacific North West of the United States, about an hour from Seattle. For the story of the little known, early Christian saint, St Placid, see the Priory's homepage, here. Sr Laura works both as an archivist and lecturer at St Martin's University, as well as a spiritual director. But her passion has been writing books and journal articles that restore the stories of forgotten Christian women to the Christian narrative. These include The Wisdom of the Beguines: The Forgotten story of a Medieval Women's Movement (Bluebridge, 2014) - see here - which tells the story of communities of laywomen, rather than nuns, who lived in non-monastic groupings and were known across Europe for their visionary spirituality, their courageous commitment to the poor and the sick and for their business acumen. For more about the Beguines, listen here to a half hour podcast in episode 52 of The Medieval Podcast. For a much shorter, less than 3 minute intro to their lives on YouTube, see here. To watch a 20 minute video of Laura talking about early Christian women, and particularly those from Africa, see here.