Term 03 Developing Your Own Spirituality - Unit 3, August 10 - September 21 2010
Michael Whelan SM, PhD;Our humanity is constituted in and through relationships – with God, however we name that One – with ourselves, with other people and with the events and things of our world. Spirituality is no more nor less than living relationships. Religion is spirituality incarnated. Spirituality without religion is incomplete. Religion without spirituality is soulless. Mysticism is the fulfillment of spirituality – being one with the One and in that being one with self, others and the world.
Life is a graced unfolding or emergence. Our task is not one of mastery but of facilitation. Grace – the Presence of God – is the of the essence.
In this foundational course in spirituality, participants are encouraged to listen carefully and honestly to their experience. Experience is the first teacher in relationships and therefore spirituality. The course then is an ongoing process of fostering a conversation between personal experience and sources of wisdom. The primary source of wisdom for all Christians must be the Gospels – the person and teaching of Jesus Christ.
Unit 1 discusses some basic issues pertaining to the development of a well-grounded spirituality or life formation process. Topics include, “Mystery,” “Freedom,” “Spirit,” “Life as a Field of Formation,” “Power,” “Tradition and Culture” and “Transcendence.”
Unit 2 begins a discussion of the intraformative or internal dynamics by which we facilitate our formation in life. Topics include “Crises in Life Formation,” “The Structural Self,” “The Three Pillars of Christian Life Formation,” “Thinking” and “Willing.”
Unit 3 continues to discuss the intraformative dynamics. Topics include “Remembering,” “Anticipating,” “Imagining,” “Feeling,” Consciousness,” “Dispositions” and “Obedience.”
Unit 4 discusses signs and countersigns of spirituality. Topics include “Moralism versus Mysticism,” “Idealization,” “Detachment,” “Appraisal,” “Social Presence,” “Work and Leisure” and “Compassion.”
Contact : secretary@aquinas-acaademy.com
Details
Cost: $160 or $266 (includes reader) for those doing the group work
Where: Level 5, 141 Harrington Street, Sydney 2000
When: Tuesday evenings, August 10 - September 21, 2010