Partners in Charity: St. Louise de Marillac and St. Vincent de Paul
Join us February 13 for the next event in this series on “Pledges of the Saints: the Cult of Relics in the Catholic Tradition.” This event is co-presented with the Bollandist Society In this talk, we will examine side by side the lives and legacies of two major saints of French Catholicism’s seventeenth-century golden age. Louise de Marillac and Vincent de Paul co-founded the Daughters of Charity, one of the most successful socially-oriented women’s congregations in the Church’s history, when the Tridentine-era bishops were attempting to enforce strict claustration for women religious. They also collaborated with a wide circle of lay…
Inner Wholeness Beyond Isolation, Shame, and Despair
This event is presented by the Veritas Forum at the University of Chicago and co-sponsored by the Lumen Christi Institute, the University Bible Fellowship, Christ Church Chicago, Living Hope Church, Vineyard Church Hyde Park, CRU, Poema, the Christian Legal Society, InterVarsity, UChicago Lutheran Campus Ministry, and Brent House. The isolation of the pandemic has only obscured and amplified the issue of mental health across US college campuses. In marshaling resources to find wholeness and combat isolation, shame, and despair, are students limited to the expertise of mental health experts? Does the wisdom of religious traditions have anything to contribute? Are these…
Pledges of the Saints: The Cult of Relics in the Catholic Tradition
This event is co-presented with the Bollandist Society. This event is co-sponsored by America Media, the Collegium Institute, the Harvard Catholic Forum, the Jesuit School of Theology of Santa Clara University, the Nova Forum, the Institute for Advanced Catholic Studies at USC, the Saint Benedict Institute, and the Hank Center for the Catholic Intellectual Heritage. The physical remains of saints are often referred to as pignora, that is, as security deposits or pledges of the continued concern that the saints, although in heaven, continue to show for those who venerate them. In this lecture will discuss the origin of the cult of…
Spirituality and the Saints
This event is co-presented with the Bollandist Society and co-sponsored by America Media, the Jesuit School of Theology of Santa Clara University, the Institute for Advanced Catholic Studies at USC, the Hank Center for the Catholic Intellectual Heritage, and the Harvard Catholic Forum. In this presentation, Fr. Mark Rotsaert will look to sanctity as a gift of the Spirit and reflect on the different ways one can become a saint and the universal call to holiness according to Pope Francis’ exhortation Gaudete et exsultate. Do saints have a specific kind of spirituality? Is sanctity the same as perfection? Are the saints perfect?
How to be a Corinthian
This event is cosponsored by Calvert House Catholic Center. The first recipients of St. Paul’s letters did not keep their letters to themselves; as part of the organic life of the Church that Catholics call “Tradition,” the letters of Paul were collected together and incorporated into the New Testament. One amazing consequence of this Tradition at work is that everyone who reads these letters, regardless of time or place, becomes a Corinthian, or a Roman, or an Ephesian, thanks to the unifying power of the Holy Spirit. This conference will reflect on how the early Church received these letters, and…
Ambrose and Augustine on Christian Holiness
Free and open to the public. This event was held online through Zoom and live-streamed to YouTube. This event was co-presented with the Bollandist Society. While Saints Ambrose and Augustine never define Christian holiness, this was the pursuit that fueled all of their writings, all of their sermons, and directed their everyday lives. By examining the writings of these two pillars of the Western Church, today’s talk seeks to show how Ambrose and Augustine understood holiness and what that might mean for our lives today.
The Crisis of Mysticism: Quietism in 17th Century Spain, Italy, and France
Free and open to the public. This event will be held online through Zoom (registration required) and live-streamed to YouTube. This event is co-sponsored by the Collegium Institute, the Martin Marty Center for the Public Understanding of Religion, and Herder & Herder. The Crisis of Mysticism (Herder & Herder, 2021), by Bernard McGinn is the first book in English in seventy years to give a full account of the struggle over mystical spirituality that tore the Catholic Church apart at the end of the seventeenth century, resulting in papal condemnation of some mystics and the decline of mysticism in Catholicism for almost two centuries. Join Professors…
West Suburban Catholic Culture Series on “The Liturgy”
REGISTER HERE FOR THE JUNE 9 PRACTICUM In 1918, the German priest Romano Guardini lamented that “the lack of fruitful and lofty culture causes spiritual life to grow numbed and narrow.” The remedy was that “prayer must be simple, wholesome, and powerful,” while also being “rich in ideas and powerful images, and speak a developed but restrained language.” Guardini concluded that this “is precisely the way in which the prayer of the liturgy has been formed.” The events of recent months have made us acutely aware of what we lose when the Church’s rites, ceremonies, and corporate worship (the liturgy) are…
Saint Among the Skyscrapers: The American Afterlife of Mother Frances Xavier Cabrini
ONLINE REGISTRATION $10 registration fee for the online event. Registration required. A link to the livestream will be sent to registrants on the day of the event. IN PERSON REGISTRATION You can now register for this in-person event taking place at the University Club of Chicago (76 E. Monroe St.) from 12:00 p.m. to 1:30 p.m. Cosponsored by the University of North Carolina Press. Drawing on the recent book, A Saint of Our Own: How the Quest for a Holy Hero Helped Catholics Become American (University of North Carolina Press, 2019), this lecture will focus on St Frances Cabrini, an Italian missionary…
Master Class on “Friendship with God: Apprenticeship of the Christian life”
REGISTER HERE Open to current graduate students. Advanced University of Chicago undergraduate students are also welcome. Others who are interested in participating should contact us at info@lumenchristi.org. PDF copies of the readings will be provided for registrants. Far from offering a romantic or sentimental notion of divine friendship, the Scriptures develop a theology of divine intimacy that portrays friendship with God as an apprenticeship in Christ. Through the filial friendship established by the grace of baptism, Christians are called to participate in Christ’s salvific mission. Friendship with God initiates Christians into the mystery of Christ’s cross and resurrection and teaches them…