Beloved Sister

Sister Miriam’s tremendous gift for story-telling—each story holding a hidden pearl, her self-deprecating sense of humor, her wisdom born of “a fierce solitude” (her own words), and her warm, gentle humanness made her especially beloved in Community and with “the multitude” she encountered mostly through letters.

Before entering Carmel she and another poet, riding a streetcar together, argued the whole way about which attribute of God was greatest.  The fellow poet was arguing for truth and she for beauty.  She told us, “We were both wrong—it was mercy.”  God’s mercy saturates her poetry and is still a conduit for it for many and a channel for God’s grace and healing.

Sister Miriam composed seven volumes of poetry:  The Selected Poetry of Jessica Powers, The House at Rest, The Lantern Burns, The Place of Splendor, Mountain Sparrow and The Little Alphabet  (a book of children’s poems), as well as a small collection of Christmas poems, “Journey to Bethlehem”.  Two of the above publications are available for purchase at the sites as noted below.

Sister Miriam of the Holy Spirit
(Jessica Powers)
1905-1988