"A charming and touching story that reminds us, with St. Bernadette, that grace is everywhere." —Robert Ellsberg, author, Blessed Among All Women The shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes in southern France appeals to Catholics as few other places do. The famous grotto is a place of healing that attracts some six million pilgrims to Lourdes each year. One of these recent pilgrims was James Martin, an American Jesuit. Fr. Martin went to Lourdes to serve as chaplain for a group of pilgrims sponsored by the Order of Malta, an international Catholic association devoted to charitable works. During his stay, Martin kept an illuminating diary of his trip. His touching and humorous account of the busy and gratifying days that he spent at Lourdes is a vivid description of a place filled with a powerful spiritual presence. "Lourdes is now one of those places where I have met God in a special way," Martin writes. Through this diary, we are able to share in his journey and feel the presence of God that he encountered there.

Meandering plots, dead ends, and repetition, diaries do not conform to literary expectations, yet they still manage to engage the reader, arouse empathy and elicit emotional responses that many may be more inclined to associate with works of fiction. Blurring the lines between literary genres, diary writing can be considered a quasi-literary genre that offers a unique insight into the lives of those we may have otherwise never discovered. This edited volume examines how diarists, poets, writers, musicians, and celebrities use their diary to reflect on multiculturalism and intercultural relations. Within this book, multiculturalism is defined as the sociocultural experiences of underrepresented groups who fall outside the mainstream of race, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation, disability, and language. Multiculturalism reflects different cultures and racial groups with equal rights and opportunities, equal attention and representation without assimilation. In America, the multicultural society includes various cultural and ethnic groups that do not necessarily have engaging interaction with each other whereas, importantly, intercultural is a community of cultures who learn from each other, and have respect and understand different cultures. Presented as a collection of academic essays and creative writing, The Diary as Literature Through the Lens of Multiculturalism in America analyses diary writing in its many forms from oral diaries and memoirs to letters and travel writing. Divided into three sections: Diaries of the American Civil War, Diaries of Trips and Letters of Diaspora, and Diaries of Family, Prison Lyrics, and a Memoir, the contributors bring a range of expertise to this quasi-literary genre including comparative and transatlantic literature, composition and rhetoric, history and women and gender studies.

For two years, I was a personal advisor to Dr. Otto Arosemena Gomez, President of Ecuador. During my tenure, I had the opportunity to interview an elderly man who was one of the original owners of a tea plantation not too far from Quito. The estate was established thirty years before our meeting. We discussed an authentic life experience, including one of my main characters, Sister Annett, who was the youngest of three nuns selected by the Catholic Church in Paris for an exchange program that brought her to Ecuador. Sister Annett is referred to as the Goddess of the Stars in the manuscript. In real life, she had no initial desire to become a nun. However, after the demise of her mother, she looked for comforting solace from her Parish Priest. She past many months mourning the memory of her mother. Without warning, Annett decided to become a nun. Her dispute with the church involved asking too many questions which was forbidden by the vows taken at the beginning of her religious experience. Being very young and beautiful, upon arrival in Ecuador, she could not understand why there was so much poverty in this country when the Church was financially sound. The storyline captivates her innocence and desire to convince the Cardinal, Bishop, and Mother Superior to use Church funds in the education of the Ecuadorian population. This would entail reading and writing, establishing small businesses to feed their families, and, in return, generating financial support for the Church. That suggestion fell on deaf ears. In the story, the three nuns, and priest, act as missionaries in the jungles of the Republic. The book’s adventure, for the most part, is a reflection of myself as the author. They encounter natives, both peaceful and hostile, including discovering a lost tribe of the Peruvian Inca. I invite the reader to sit back, relax, and enjoy reading this exceptional experience about an insight into life. I guarantee that all those who are captivated by intrigue, love and war will not be disappointed. Keywords – Catholic, Nun, Ecuador, Missionaries, Lost Tribe, Adventure

The novel presents itself as the diary of Mademoiselle Célestine R., a chambermaid. Her first employer fetishizes her boots, and she later discovers the elderly man dead, with one of her boots stuffed into his mouth. Later on, Célestine becomes the maid of an upper class couple, Lanlaire, and is perfectly aware that she is entangled in the power struggles of their marriage. Célestine ends by becoming a café hostess, who mistreats her servants in turn! Excerpt: "To-day, September 14, at three o'clock in the afternoon, in mild, gray, and rainy weather, I have entered upon my new place. It is the twelfth in two years. Of course I say nothing of the places which I held in previous years. It would be impossible for me to count them. Ah! I can boast of having seen interiors and faces, and dirty souls. And the end is not yet. Judging from the really extraordinary and dizzy way in which I have rolled, here and there, successively, from houses to employment-bureaus, and from employment-bureaus to houses, from the Bois de Boulogne to the Bastille, from the Observatory to Montmartre, from the Ternes to the Gobelins, everywhere, without ever succeeding in establishing myself anywhere, the masters in these days must be hard to please. It is incredible..."

This little book aims to introduce a variety of prayer forms, each one being an approach to prayer which various members of the Federal Association of the Order of Malta have found valuable. The forms of prayer include centering prayer, Liturgy of Hours, stations of the cross, and novenas.