Life and Work
Beckett was born in South Africa and raised in Edinburgh, Scotland, where her father studied medicine. In 1946, she entered the Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur, a religious congregation of the Roman Catholic Church. She was sent to England where she completed her novitiate and then studied at St Anne's College, Oxford University, where she was awarded a first class (with distinction) degree in English literature. Outside her academic work, she lived in a convent which maintained the strict code of silence typical in convents prior to the reforms following the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965).
After attending the I.M Marsh Teacher Training College, in suburban south Liverpool and earning a teaching diploma in 1954, she returned to South Africa to teach at Notre Dame Convent, a school for girls in Constantia, Cape Town, where she taught English and Latin. Later she moved to Johannesburg where she was appointed the superior of the local convent, while she also lectured at the University of the Witwatersrand. In 1970, health problems forced her to abandon teaching and return to England.
At that point, she obtained papal permission to leave her congregation and to become a consecrated virgin. Her former congregation then arranged for her to live under the protection of the Carmelite nuns at their monastery at Quidenham, Norfolk, in the east of England. There she leads a contemplative lifestyle and lives in a caravan on the grounds. Besides receiving the Carmelite prioress and a nun who brings her provisions, she dedicates her life solely to monastic solitude and prayer but allows herself two hours of work per day. She spent many years translating Medieval Latin scripts before deciding, in 1980, to pursue art, her favourite subject.
Sister Wendy Contemplates Saint Paul in Art was published in 2008 to celebrate the Year of Saint Paul. In May 2009, Encounters with God: In Quest of the Ancient Icons of Mary was published, which follows Beckett's pilgrimage to see the earliest icons of Mary which had survived the Byzantine iconoclasm.
Beckett continued writing about her interest in icons in the second volume of her Sister Wendy Contemplates series, published in July 2011. This book, entitled The Iconic Jesus, takes the reader through scenes from the New Testament, accompanied by Sister Wendy's reflections. Her next book, also published in 2011, "The Christ Journey", consists of her commentaries on the artwork of Greg Tricker.
When she required treating as an outpatient at a local hospital, the television chef Delia Smith volunteered, through a mutual friend, to drive her there each week. When Sister Wendy was writing her book about contemporary women artists, Delia Smith drove her around the country to meet the artists; through this the two became good friends.
Read more about this topic: Wendy Beckett
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