My studies focus on women in Christianity and on that premier female figure, Mary, the mother of Jesus. I first wrote about women who formed religious communities in 12th-century England, relying largely on economic charters, religious rules, and other rather dry sources that medievalists need to use; but a few of the women I studied recounted visionary experiences in which they claimed they talked with Jesus and Mary. Those accounts I found particularly creative theologically and spiritually. Since then, women’s visionary literature has been the heart of my studies. My approach is two-pronged. I’m writing about women who’ve reported having encounters with Mary, starting in the Middle Ages with Hildegard of Bingen and Gertrude the Great. I’m also finishing a book that both describes as an insider and analyzes as a scholar the types of experiences a woman today can have from following Ignatius of Loyola’s Spiritual Exercises.

 In 1976, my first year at Wellesley, I taught Contemporary Catholicism and Christian Thought 100 to 1600; though what was contemporary then no longer is, those two courses remain a mainstay of my curriculum. I love to teach, and I’m delighted that my research interests dovetail nicely with student interests in Women and Christianity, The Virgin Mary, Christian Spiritual Literature, and in the course I co-teach with Professor Claire Fontijn of the Music Department on the 12th-century composer and visionary Hildegard of Bingen. Although most of my courses have a strong historical focus, they also include a large modern component, and both of my seminars are on contemporary issues: Women Theologians on Jesus, Gender, and the Earth and Liberation Theology (on peace and justice from a Christian global perspective). Several of my courses also count toward a major in Women's Studies, Latin American Studies, and Medieval-Renaissance Studies.

For 25 years I was an adjunct professor at Blessed John XXIII National Seminary in Weston where I taught a yearlong course in church history to the first-year men preparing for priesthood as a second career, a group quite unlike my Wellesley students. I found the contrast stimulating. To study modern Marian devotion, I have often gone to Marian pilgrimage sites—Guadalupe, Loreto, Lourdes, Fatima, Medjugorje, to name a few. To place Marian devotion in a larger context, I recently traveled with Wellesley faculty to Mysore, India, where I observed the worship of Chamundi and other goddesses.

I enjoy puttering in my flower garden; horticulture magazines are what I read to fall asleep. Every year since 1984 I have made at least an eight-day silent retreat at Gonzaga, Eastern Point Retreat House, in Gloucester, Mass. And I love to travel, primarily to Europe—to Italy as often as possible—but recently I went to Japan, Thailand, and Myanmar, where I stayed briefly in a Buddhist monastery in Lashio. To learn about pre-Columbian religions in the Americas, I’ve gone to Maya sites in Mexico, Honduras, and Guatemala and to the Inca ruins at Cusco and Machu Picchu.