Tuesday, December 2nd, 7:00PM
Presentation by Dr. Bernard McGinn
Reception to Follow
Parish Center at 1950 N. Kenmore Ave, Chicago, IL 60614
This is a free event. All are welcome.
As we approach the 500th Anniversary of the birth of St. Teresa of Avila, which occurs on March 28, 2015, the parishioners of St. Teresa of Avila Catholic Church invite you to learn more about this remarkable woman, writer, leader, and friend of Jesus.
Program Description
Teresa of Avila (1515-1582), the first woman Doctor of the Church, is known as one of the greatest teachers of contemplation in the history of Christianity, especially through her first writing, The Life, and her masterpiece, The Interior Castle.
This Carmelite nun, however, was also in almost constant activity for the last fifteen years of her life. She founded the first house of reformed Carmelite nuns in Avila, Spain in 1562. In 1567, she received permission from the Carmelite Prior General to spread the reform, so she traveled all over Spain to set up 17 new Carmels for women, and began the reform of the male Carmelite houses.
How did Teresa combine her inner prayer life (“the contemplative life,” as it was called) with so busy an “active life?” The relation between contemplation and action is one of the oldest themes in the history of Christian mysticism. Teresa’s life and writings represent a new stage in understanding how it is possible to be “a contemplative in action.”
Speaker
Bernard McGinn is the Naomi Shenstone Donnelley Professor Emeritus at the Divinity School of the University of Chicago where he taught for thirty-four years. He has an S.T.L. from the Pontifical Gregorian University and a Ph.D. from Brandeis University. He has taught and written extensively in the history of patristic and medieval theology and is currently working on the sixth volume of his history of Western mysticism entitled The Presence of God. His most recent book is Thomas Aquinas’s “Summa theologiae”: A Biography (Princeton, 2014).
