Joan Chittister is a Benedictine sister, author of 21 books, and a well-known national and international lecturer. In this beautifully designed paperback that contains icons by Marcie Bircher, she explores eight models of female friendship using the lives of Lydia, Prisca, Phoebe, Martha, Veronica, Elizabeth, Anne, Mary Magdalene, and the woman at the foot of the cross.

"My friends," wrote Emily Dickinson, "are my estate." For many women this is the gospel truth. Chittister adds that her friends will be "the treasure I accrue in life and a measure, perhaps, of my own worth." These relationships open doors to presence, empathy, acceptance, nurturance, trust, and love. For Chittister, the sacrament of friendship is part of God's plan to help us become all we were meant to be. "[It is] the process of opening ourselves to the care, to the wisdom, of the other. The love of friendship is the love that holds no secrets, has no unasked questions, no unspoken thoughts, no unanswered concerns. Friendship extends us into places we have not gone before and cannot go alone."

Chittister does a good job of mapping the sacred dimensions of friendship as two individuals share in a journey that is mutually rewarding and soul-stirring.