Catherine Coldstream

speaker

329 appearances 1 recordings 1 series first heard Jul 2026 last heard 24 Jul

Catherine Coldstream’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Jul 2026 with 1.

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Fresh Air · A former nun on why she ran away from her 'Cloistered' life · 24 Jul 2026 podcast

So the Carmelite sort of relationship with God was a sort of sublimated version of marriage.

You were married to Christ and he was real for you.

I think it's not necessarily just that passage, of course, but that passage, I think, shows in a particularly clear way and vivid way that the extent of the romance we were having with God.

So in the Prophet Hosea, he has a whole section where he's comparing the chosen people, as they were called, the people of Israel, to a faithless wife.

And he was the loving husband pursuing her and

And forgiving her and all this sort of stuff.

So there's a very strong sense of nuptial, we might call it, or spousal relationship.

It was a sort of metaphor for the relationship with God.

And yeah, I think we felt that very strongly.

We felt a very strong sense that we were in a romantic relationship with Jesus.

I mean, it was very, very personal relationship.

And just because you are wearing a habit and you're a nun and you've taken vows of chastity doesn't mean you never have erotic feelings.

We were supposed to, of course, deny them and not encourage them.

And so we were very sort of controlled and very strict about all these sort of things.

there were involuntary feelings that might sort of arise.

And it wasn't necessarily arousal in a specifically sexual sense that you might feel towards Jesus.

But I think there was definitely a very strong sense of romance.

I think if you read some of St.

Teresa's writings on her relationship with Jesus in prayer, you do also get the sense that really deep prayer can actually be quite romantic.

And I think, yeah, there might be a sublimated eros going on, definitely.

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