On Peter Abelard and Bernard of Clairvaux

On Peter Abelard and Bernard of Clairvaux

Thursday, May 7, 2020
8:00PM ET
Registration required

Join us at 8:00PM ET (7:00PM CT) on Thursday, May 7th as we cosponsor, together with the Lumen Christi Institute, a webinar on Zoom with Willemien Otten. Dr. Otten will speak on “On Peter Abelard and Bernard of Clairvaux” as a part of the spring webinar series Reason and Wisdom in Medieval Christian Thought. The Saint Benedict Institute is a cosponsor of this event.

This event is free and open to the public, but online registration is required. For more information and to register for this webinar, click here.

Peter Abelard (d. 1142) and Bernard of Clairvaux (d. 1153) were contemporaries who both emerged from the new twelfth-century schools. But their dispositions, personalities, and eventual conflict have come to represent a conflict between the rising scholastic and the traditional monastic cultures of learning. Professor Willemien Otten will introduce these iconic twelfth-century personalities, the direction of their work, and the theological controversy that put them on opposing sides.

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Willemien Otten is Professor of Theology and the History of Christianity; also in the College; Associate Faculty in the Department of History, Social Sciences Division at the University of Chicago. She holds an M.A. and PhD from the University of Amsterdam. Otten studies the history of Christianity and Christian thought with a focus on the Western medieval and the early Christian intellectual tradition, including the continuity of Platonic themes. She is coeditor of Eriugena and Creation (2014), On Religion and Memory (2013), and the Oxford Guide to the Historical Reception of Augustine (430–2000) (2013). Her most recent project is entitled “Natura Educans: The Psychology of Pantheism from Eriugena to Emerson.”

Hildegard of Bingen, Doctor of the Church

Hildegard of Bingen, Doctor of the Church

Thursday, April 30, 2020
8:00PM ET
Registration required

Together with the Lumen Christi Institute, we will cosponsor the fourth installment of the spring webinar series, Reason and Wisdom in Medieval Christian Thought. Renowned medievalist Barbara Newman, will present on “Hildegard of Bingen, Doctor of the Church.” The webinar will be held on Zoom at 8:00PM ET (7:00PM CT) on Thursday, April 30th. The Saint Benedict Institute is a cosponsor of this event.

A German Benedictine Abbess, Hildegard (1098-1169) produced works of visionary theology drawn from her mystical vision and one of the largest surviving collections of medieval musical compositions.

As a female religious in the 12th century, she held a remarkable influence in the Church through preaching tours across Germany and correspondence with popes, emperors, and other monastic reformers. In 2012, she was named a Doctor of the Church by Pope Benedict XVI.

This event is free and open to the public, but online registration is required. For more information and to register for this webinar, click here.

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Barbara Newman is John Evans Professor of Latin; and Professor of English, Religious Studies, and Classics at Northwestern University. Her work is focused upon medieval religious culture, comparative literature, and women's spirituality. She has authored or edited 10 books, most recently a translation of Mechthild of Hackeborn's The Book of Special Grace (2017)  She has also written three books on Hildegard of Bingen: an edited volume, Voice of the Living Light: Hildegard of Bingen and Her World (1998); an edition and translation of Hildegard's collected songs, Symphonia Armonie Celestium Revelationum (1988, rev. 1998); and Sister of Wisdom: St. Hildegard's Theology of the Feminine (1987). Professor Newman has been a Fellow of the Guggenheim Foundation, the American Council of Learned Societies, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Alice Berline Kaplan Center for the Humanities at Northwestern. Professor Newman is a past president of the Medieval Academy of America 

Anselm of Canterbury on the Rationality of Faith

Anselm of Canterbury on the Rationality of Faith

Thursday, April 17, 2020
8:00PM ET
Registration required

Join us on Thursday, April 16th, at 8:00PM ET (7:00PM CT) for the second installment of the Lumen Christi Institute’s Spring Webinar Series, Reason and Wisdom in Medieval Christian Thought. Professor Aaron Canty, who teaches theology and medieval thought at Saint Xavier University, will present on “Anselm of Canterbury and the Rationality of Faith” on Zoom. The Saint Benedict Institute is a cosponsor of this event.

Anselm was a startlingly original monastic writer and thinker who drank deeply of Augustinian and patristic theology but formulated his own theological and philosophical writings in spare and compelling chains of reasoning. His Why God Became Man, Monologion, and Proslogion each chart new ways to practice 'believing in order to understand (credo ut intelligam).'

This event is free and open to the public, but online registration is required. For more information and to register for this webinar, click here.

Aaron Canty is professor of religious studies at Saint Xavier University. His current research focuses on the development of medieval Christology, eschatology, and scriptural exegesis. He is author of Light and Glory: The Transfiguration of Christ in Early Franciscan and Dominican Theology (Catholic University of America Press, 2011), A Companion to Job in the Middle Ages, eds. Franklin T. Harkins and Aaron Canty (Leiden: Brill, 2017), and an edition of excerpts from John of La Rochelle’s commentaries on the Synoptic Gospels (in Archivum Franciscanum Historicum).

An Augustinian Theology of Mass Incarceration

Thursday, February 27, 2020
7:00PM
Mulder Chapel, Western Theological Seminary
101 E. 13th Street, Holland, MI 49423

On Thursday, February 27, Western Theological Seminary is welcoming Dr. Gregory Lee, who will present a talk on “An Augustinian Theology of Mass Incarceration.” The lecture will be held at 7:00PM in Western Theological Seminary’s Mulder Chapel (101 E. 13th Street, Holland, MI 49423). This event is hosted by the Girod Chair of Western Theological Seminary and the Saint Benedict Institute is a co-sponsor.

The United States incarcerates far more individuals than any nation in the world, at radically disparate rates for different racial groups. This lecture draws on the thought of Augustine to encourage new approaches toward criminal justice. Augustine’s understanding of personal sin stresses the possibility of redemption for individual wrongdoers, and his account of collective evil exposes systemic injustice as a pervasive feature of humanity’s fallen condition. These insights commend Christians’ solidarity with oppressed communities, and the exercise of mercy and restorative practices in response to criminal offenses.

Dr. Gregory Lee is associate professor of theology and urban studies at Wheaton College and a core faculty member for Wheaton in Chicago, a residential program in the Woodlawn neighborhood of Chicago. His scholarship draws on Augustine’s theology to analyze contemporary social issues, focusing especially on race, class, and justice. He lives with his family in the inner city of Chicago, where he is theologian in residence at Lawndale Christian Community Church.

This event is co-sponsored by the Girod Chair of Western Theological Seminary, the Hope-Western Prison Education Program, and the Saint Benedict Institute.

Taking Advantage of Freedom: What to Do with Liberty When You Have It [PHOTOS & VIDEO]

On Monday, February 17th at 7:00PM, Dr. David Deavel presented his talk, "Taking Advantage of Freedom: What to Do with Liberty When You Have It” in Winants Auditorium (Graves Hall, 263 College Ave., Holland, MI 49423).  This event was co-hosted by Markets & Morality and the Saint Benedict Institute.

While political, economic, and intellectual freedom is a precious gift to humans, our long history shows that we are ready to give it away. Why is that? One answer might be given from the Nobel-Prize-winning Russian writer, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1918-2008): when people don’t understand and use the freedom they have, they will throw it away to the detriment of themselves and their loved ones. This lecture will give a brief introduction to the life and career of Solzhenitsyn and then outline four enemies of freedom along with the way to defeat them. The goal is to take advantage of freedom in order to preserve it and flourish as individuals and societies.

David Paul Deavel, Ph.D. is editor of Logos: A Journal of Catholic Thought and Culture and a visiting assistant professor at the University of St. Thomas. His Ph.D. is in historical theology from Fordham University. The 2013 winner of the Novak Prize, his book, Solzhenitsyn and American Culture: The Russian Soul in the West, co-edited with Jessica Hooten Wilson, is forthcoming this fall. He is a senior contributor at The Imaginative Conservative and has written over 300 articles and reviews in a wide variety of books and popular and scholarly journals including: America, First Things, Journal of Markets & Morality, Library of Law and Liberty, National Review, Nova et Vetera, and the Wall Street Journal.

Co-sponsors for this event include Hope College’s departments of History, Political Science, and Religion, and the Tocqueville Forum.

Traditional Latin Mass [PHOTOS]

On Wednesday, January 29th at 7:30PM, the Saint Benedict Institute hosted a Traditional Latin Mass in Winants Auditorium (Graves Hall, 263 College Ave., Holland, MI 49423) commemorating the Feast of Saint Francis de Sales, the patron saint of our parish in Holland. The Mass was sung by Gaudete Grand Rapids, a brand new professional choral ensemble dedicated to propagating the beautiful chant and polyphony of the Roman Rite. They sang the Mass for Four Voices by William Byrd, motets by Anton Bruckner and Maurice Duruflé, as well as Gregorian chant. 

This event was free and open to the public.

Gaudete Grand Rapids is a small, professional choral ensemble dedicated to performing perennial Latin liturgical music in the context for which it was written, the Traditional Latin Mass. Director Jonathan Bading ('18) converted to the Catholic faith upon witnessing the Traditional Latin Mass in all its musical splendor, his main impetus for founding Gaudete.  While now a choir of 12, their five founding members recorded a promotional album, Woman, Behold Thy Son, which can be purchased at gaudetegr.bandcamp.com (digital and CD) or following Mass. All funds will go towards supporting their first season, of which this Mass is the inaugural event. 

Jonathan Bading recently shared his conversion story on the Journey Home.  You can watch his beautiful testimony here.

Co-sponsors of this event included the Departments of Music and Religion at Hope College.