Mary David Totah OSB, known as Sister Mary David, born Michelle Frieda Totah, (26 March 1957 - 28 August 2017) was an American nun who became prioress of St Cecilia's Abbey on the Isle of Wight, England. [1] [2] [3]
Mary David Totah OSB, known as Sister Mary David, born Michelle Frieda Totah, (26 March 1957 - 28 August 2017) was an American nun who became prioress of St Cecilia's Abbey on the Isle of Wight, England. [1] [2] [3]
Totah was born in Philadelphia to Catholic Arab parents from Ramallah, Palestine. She grew up in Louisiana and attended Holy Savior Menard Central High School. where she was the first female student president. [1] She studied English literature at Loyola University New Orleans and obtained an M.A. at the University of Virginia, [4] and in 1980 she became one of the first women to study at Christ Church, Oxford, [1] where she obtained a D.Phil. (1985) from University of Oxford, her thesis title being Consciousness versus authority : a study of the critical debate between the Bloomsbury Group and the Men of 1914, 1910-1930. [5] (The term "Men of 1914" was used by Wyndham Lewis to refer to himself T. S. Eliot, Ezra Pound and James Joyce.) [6] She began an academic career with a tenure-track appointment in the English Department at the College of William & Mary, Virginia, United States.[ citation needed ]
After having spent some time in retreat at the Benedictine St Cecilia's Abbey at Ryde on the Isle of Wight when she had completed her doctoral research, she decided to leave William and Mary and join the enclosed community there. She was its novice mistress for 22 years and the prioress for eight years. [4]
In 1996 she published an edition of the writings of Prosper Guéranger, Cécile Bruyère and Paul Delatte , from St. Cecilia's Abbey, Solesmes, entitled The Spirit of Solesmes. She also published works on prayer, fasting, the consecrated life, and confirmation, and a collection of her writing was published posthumously in 2020 under the title The Joy of God.
Sister Mary David died on 28 August 2017 after suffering from bowel cancer for five years. [4]
In 2020, Bloomsbury published her collected writings as The Joy of God. [4] [7]
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Solesmes Abbey or St. Peter's Abbey, Solesmes is a Benedictine monastery in Solesmes, famous as the source of the restoration of Benedictine monastic life in the country under Dom Prosper Guéranger after the French Revolution. The current abbot is the Right Reverend Dom Philippe Dupont, O.S.B.
Prosper Louis Pascal Guéranger was a French priest and Benedictine monk, who served for nearly 40 years as the Abbot of the monastery of Solesmes. Through the new Abbey of Solesmes he became the founder of the French Benedictine Congregation, which re-established Benedictine monastic life in France after it had been wiped out by the French Revolution. Guéranger was the author of The Liturgical Year, a popular commentary which covers every day of the Catholic Church's Liturgical cycles in 15 volumes. He was well regarded by Pope Pius IX, and was a proponent of the dogmas of the Immaculate Conception and of papal infallibility.
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Mère Cécile Bruyère was the first abbess of St. Cecilia's Abbey, Solesmes and a follower of Dom Prosper Guéranger in the revival of Benedictine spirituality in 19th century France.
Sister Cecilia Clare Bocard, S.P., was an American musician and composer of works for organ, piano, and chorus.
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St Cecilia's Abbey, Ryde is an abbey of Benedictine nuns in the Isle of Wight, England.
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The Monastery of the Immaculate Heart of Mary is a Benedictine abbey located in Westfield, Vermont.
