DB Dialogues: Zena Hitz on the Religious Life
I’m not Catholic, but ever since I visited Clear Creek Abbey here in Oklahoma for a weekend retreat, I’ve been fascinated by the life of a monk or nun. What is it like to dedicate your life to work and prayer? What draws people to that path? What insights can regular folks get from people who have made religious vows? (Kate’s series last year on A New Kind of Monasticism dug into that; I highly recommend reading it.)
To help me understand more about this world, I talked to Zena Hitz, a philosopher who spent three years in religious life at Madonna House, a lay apostolate in Ontario. Before she joined the community, she was a successful research academic specializing in classical philosophy. But something nudged her toward a more monastic path. She had a restlessness, a hunger for wholeheartedness that her conventional academic career couldn’t satisfy. She eventually left Madonna House, but the experience transformed her.
Today, Zena is a Tutor at St. John’s College who helps lead and facilitate their unique Great Books-focused curriculum. I had her on the AoM podcast several years ago to discuss her book Lost in Thought: The Hidden Pleasures of an Intellectual Life. Her latest book, A Philosopher Looks at the Religious Life, tries to explain to a secular and lay audience what draws people to “the religious life”— the life of a monk, nun, or friar — and what the spiritual disciplines of the religious life do to a person.
We talked about the origins of religious orders, what “wholeheartedness” means, why asceticism brings freedom rather than misery, and how ordinary people can integrate monastic practices into everyday life.
