Online Zoom Forum: Sister Joan Chittister: The Spiritual, Ethical, Social and Humanitarian Vision in Her Life and Work.
Date: Wednesday 16 September 2026.
Time: 7pm-9pm (UK time).
Event Description:
Format: There will be five talks, each of 15 minutes, followed by discussion among the speakers and the chair, followed by Q & A.
Chair:
Deborah Shaddy, MS, LCPC, TEP:
Bio: Deborah Shaddy brings more than twenty-five years of experience as a psychotherapist, educator, consultant, and program developer to her work with individuals, families, organizations, and communities. She holds a Master’s degree from Creighton University in Omaha, Nebraska, and has dedicated her career to advancing experiential approaches to healing and growth.
Her work is grounded in psychodrama, sociometry, and group psychotherapy, and is enriched by post-graduate studies in Jungian psychology, object relations theory, and feminist spirituality.
Deb is widely recognized as a warm, attuned, and skillful facilitator whose work integrates depth psychology, experiential learning, and relational healing. Her primary clinical focus is trauma recovery, with particular attention to transforming relationships with self, within families, and across systems and communities.
She has brought her expertise to a wide range of settings, including divorcing families, Fortune 500 companies, institutions of higher learning, and religious communities. Her skills in psychodrama and sociometry inform her clinical practice, spirituality retreat design and facilitation, and consultation with corporate, academic, and professional groups seeking more humane, connected, and creative ways of working.
Deb is the founder of The Sophia Center, a counseling, consultation, and training practice dedicated to experiential healing and professional development. She also serves as senior faculty at the Hudson Valley Psychodrama Institute in Highland, New York, and is a frequent presenter at regional and national conferences.
She is the current President of the American Society of Group Psychotherapy and Psychodrama (ASGPP) and the 2023 recipient of the ASGPP Collaborator’s Award.
Deb was first introduced to the work of Sister Joan Chittister after the publication of Heart of Flesh in 1998, through presentations by Sr. Joan at St. Benedict’s Retreat Center in Schuyler, Nebraska.
Combining their shared interest and talents, she partnered with MaryCatherine Burgess, Ph.D., to develop and facilitate an experiential study group based on Heart of Flesh. The group approached Sister Joan’s life and work with deep respect for the intersection of spirituality, social justice, and human development. Participants were invited into reflective, relational, and experiential engagement with Sister Joan’s enduring vision for ethical action, contemplative presence, and compassionate community.
Speakers:
Sr Lynn McKenzie OSB:
Title: Sister Joan's Impact on the Development and Deepening of Benedictine Spirituality Through her Writings.
Description: Sister Joan has been writing for decades on the Rule of St. Benedict and what it has to say for our time. Her contributions have influenced countless monastics, Benedictine oblates and other seekers, inviting them to further deepen their search for God through Benedictine wisdom and spirituality. This will be explored by giving some accounts of individuals and groups influenced by Joan's writing, particularly in her commentaries on the Rule.
Bio: Sister Lynn is a Benedictine Sister of Sacred Heart Monastery in Cullman, Alabama where she has lived since 1981. She practiced law in Cullman from 1986 to 2012. She has also served as a full-time mediator in various types of civil cases.
Since 2014 Sister Lynn has served as President of the Benedictine Sisters of the Monastic Congregation of Saint Scholastica, a role in which she serves 17 monasteries of Benedictine Sisters across the United States as well as in Mexico. (This is also the role that Sister Joan had in the 1970s.) Since 2018 she has also served as Moderator (European church term for president or head) of Communio Internationalis Benedictinarum which is an international organization of approximately 13,000 Benedictine Sisters spread across 5 continents.
Dr MaryCatherine Burgess:
Title: Joan Chittister’s CALL to BE and BECOME the Heart, Hands, and Feet of the Universal Life Force on this Planet.
Description: For MaryCatherine, reflecting on the Spiritual, Ethical, Social, and Humanitarian Vision in the life and work of Sister Joan Chittister is directly related to reflecting on how Sister Joan’s leadership in these fundamental areas has informed, shaped, and directly impacted her own life and work. From sharing common roots in the teachings of Vatican II, to advocacy for peace and justice, to exploring feminist spirituality within patriarchal systems of exclusion and oppression, to valuing the roles of mystics and prophets, to insights into the gifts of aging, to Joan’s physical presence and guidance, MaryCatherine will highlight ways in which Joan’s visionary contributions have touched and profoundly influenced her own life.
Bio: Raised Roman Catholic, educated to teach religion, and trained to facilitate groups, MaryCatherine began peace, justice, liturgy, and human relations work in the 1960s/70s. In the 1980s, she started facilitating Divine Feminine retreats and workshops. In the 1990s, she began incorporating Joan’s Feminist Spirituality teaching. Since then, she’s paralleled Joan’s own evolutionary path in numerous ways. With postgraduate masters degrees in Religious Education, Human Relations, and Celtic & Scottish Studes, along with a PhD in Religious Studies/Divinity, MaryCatherine worked as Associate Chaplain for Spirituality and Multifaith at the University of Edinburgh, where she currently serves as an Honorary Fellow.
S Judith M Kubicki, CSSF:
Title: Joan Chittister: A Prophetic Voice in the Life of the Post-Vatican II Church.
Description: This talk will consider the prophetic nature of Joan Chittister’s voice in the post-Vatican II Church in the light of Yves Congar’s explication of the prophet in his book, True and False Reform in the Church (2011). It will examine a sampling of her writings and her speeches that illustrate her prophetic contribution, not only to religious life for women in the United States, but also for the wider Church. Chittister’s lifetime commitment to the daily prayer of the Church (Liturgy of the Hours) will be considered as a major influence in shaping and supporting her prophetic vision.
Bio: S Judith Marie Kubicki is a Felician Franciscan Sister, originally from Buffalo, New York. Her ministries have included director of music and later academic dean at Christ the King Seminary, a Graduate School of Theology (1986-2001). She served on the faculty of the Theology Department at Fordham University from 2001 to 2019. She has been active in professional organizations focused on liturgy and liturgical music, has published in both scholarly and pastoral journals, and written three books. She is currently the Provincial Minister of the Felician Sisters of North America, Our Lady of Hope Province.
Katie Gordon, MTS:
Title: Becoming Holy Listeners - Living the Rule of Benedict as a Contemporary Seeker.
Description: In her commentary on the Rule of Benedict, A Spirituality for the 21st Century, Sister Joan Chittister offers a vision for each and every one of us to be formed by the living Benedictine tradition. "Listen," Benedict's Rule begins. "Listen with the ear of your heart." Who do we become when we accept that invitation? Sister Joan calls us "holy listeners." On Monasteries of the Heart, an online monastery for contemporary seekers, we form and cultivate this listening heart of seekers from across the world. Sister Joan's invitation formed this online community fifteen years ago, in 2011, and since it has grown to over 30,000 words. In this session, the coordinator of Monasteries of the Heart, Katie Gordon, will speak to what we have learned about contemporary monasticism through Sister Joan's teachings and the living of her vision for spirituality today.
Bio: Katie Gordon is a spiritual seeker inspired by the radical vision of the Christian monastic tradition. She is the Coordinator of Monasteries of the Heart, an online movement that translates Benedictine wisdom for contemporary seekers. Katie is often experimenting with new ways of co-creating community outside of traditional religious forms, including her previous projects like Nuns & Nones and the Formation Project. She received a Master of Theological Studies from Harvard Divinity School, and has spent formative time in interfaith and interspiritual communities. Katie is most inspired by Benedict as a model of “living otherwise” today, and writes about this and more on her Substack, Following the Monastic Impulse.
Tom Roberts:
Title: The God They Never Told Me About: An Evolving Understanding.
Description: In the vast body of work that Joan Chittister produced, the books, talks, and stack of personal journals I was permitted to see in doing her biography, one talk that I first heard her deliver in 2009 in Kansas City, Mo., seemed core to so much else. It was titled, “The God They Never Told Me About: A Convergence of Opposites,” and described the arc of evolution of her thinking about God.
I’ll use the talk to explore the development of her understanding of the Divine, something that began in a remarkable childhood experience. In many ways, it paralleled her growth from traumatic early years, to her role as a religious leader, innovator, and as someone with the courage and wisdom to take her ministry well beyond the bounds of the monastery.
Bio: Tom Roberts held positions as editor and editor at large at National Catholic Reporter from 1994 to 2020. He was news editor and editor at large at Religion News Service from 1984 to 1994.
Books:
The Emerging Catholic Church: A Community’s Search for Itself (Orbis, 2011)
Joan Chittister: Her Journey from Certainty to Faith (Orbis, 2015)
An archive recording will be made for the EICSP archive.
NB: There will be no refund if you cancel your booking.
Cost: £10 Suggested By Paypal or Bank Transfer:
Contact: Neill Walker, This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
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