A novice in the mirror

Emanuela Ghini, Diario di una novizia [Diary of a Novice], San Paolo 2024

This is a book that is certainly not just to be read but also to be deeply meditated upon, especially for those like me who have made the same monastic choice as the author. The two parts of Diario di una novizia [Diary of a Novice], which seem so different and undoubtedly incomprehensible at first, actually reflects the rupture that exists between the before and after of God’s intervention in a woman’s life. No matter how restless and desirous of more one may be, a life cannot imagine the existence of such a profound love as that of God, and when one is seized by it, one cannot escape, even though there is always the freedom to say “no”. The search for meaning in such an offered life occupies many pages of the second part, and it is somehow soothed by the encounter with friends, brothers, and fellow travelers who become an invocation and a request for relief from their own suffering or difficult choices. The writing is not that of a novice (which would suggest intrusion and confusion) but of someone who, after many years, has acquired the ability to recount the apparent calm that hides from the world, but not from herself, the great storm of love and suffering offered, which substantiates every monastic life.

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