Author : Asunción Lavrin
Publisher : Stanford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0804787514
Total Pages : 840 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (47 download)
Book Synopsis Brides of Christ by : Asunción Lavrin
Download or read book Brides of Christ written by Asunción Lavrin and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2008-05-13 with total page 840 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Brides of Christ invites the modern reader to follow the histories of colonial Mexican nuns inside the cloisters where they pursued a religious vocation or sought shelter from the world. Lavrin provides a complete overview of conventual life, including the early signs of vocation, the decision to enter a convent, profession, spiritual guidelines and devotional practices, governance, ceremonials, relations with male authorities and confessors, living arrangements, servants, sickness, and death rituals. Individual chapters deal with issues such as sexuality and the challenges to chastity in the cloisters and the little-known subject of the nuns' own writings as expressions of their spirituality. The foundation of convents for indigenous women receives special attention, because such religious communities existed nowhere else in the Spanish empire.