San Francisco socialite Ann Russell Miller spent her early adult years chairing benefit galas, vacationing on yachts along the Mediterranean. But when her husband died, Miller took vows of silence and poverty to become Sister Mary Joseph.

“Living For The Other Side” is one way to stay conscious and alive, and to be reminded of what we are worshipping.

When Brother Frederic Collins arrived at the abbey of Gethsemani, he was a product of his upbringing. A businessman with a degree in business, he was uncritical of U.S. free-market capitalism. Then he met Merton.

Around the Felician world, gripping news trickled out from their convent in Livonia, Michigan, last March, of sisters becoming sick and being hospitalized.

“It is necessary that knowledge becomes practical through listening and welcoming of the least ones, the fragile ones, and the one who is considered discarded by society,” the pope said in a message to moral theologians today.

All day these monks work, pray and brew great beer.