Christian Spirituality

Cet article, issu d’une communication au colloque  « Foucault et les religions » organisé par Jean-François Bert à l'Université de Lausanne, essaie de montrer pourquoi la catégorie de « spirituel », est souvent inadéquate pour décrire les pratiques « religieuses » ou « philosophiques » de l’Antiquité, mais aussi d’autres sociétés et d’autres époques, dans la mesure où son sens est aujourd’hui à la fois imprécis et marqué par l’imaginaire savant du XIXe siècle. De ce constat naît la proposition d’un programme de recherche comparatiste, se réclamant du projet archéologique de Michel Foucault.

In 1990 I became the Founding Director of the Boston College Presidential Scholars Program, and directed it until 2010.  This essay was my attempt to articulate the philosophy and spirituality of the Program as I envisioned it, within the context of Jesuit education.  It developed from a talk that I presented to the Scholars in 1997 and was published as a booklet that was distributed to all applicants for the Program and to all entering freshman Presidential Scholars throughout my time as Director.

This paper was presented at "Wondrous Fear and Holy Awe," a meeting of the Society for the Study of Christian Spirituality (SSCS) at University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN: June 29-July 2, 2013. It traces some similarities in the spirituality of Old Order Mennonites to the early monasticism of St. Benedict. This presentation is based on a larger body of research published as, "Echoes of Ancient Wisdom: Old Order Mennonite Spirituality in Monastic Perspective" in the Journal of Mennonite Studies, Vol. 31, 2013.

En étudiant l’ensemble de l’œuvre de Claude Hopil et en procédant à un bilan critique, nous proposons de situer ces textes plus nettement que ne l’a fait la critique jusqu’alors parmi les énoncés mystiques équivoques et suspects, objet de poursuites et de mises en procès, à la fin du XVIe siècle et au début du XVIIe siècle. L’œuvre repose sur un principe de coïncidence des contraires : contestation mutuelle de la poésie et de la théologie (critique de la poésie par la théologie et critique de la théologie par la poésie) qui est dans le même mouvement célébration réciproque de la poésie et de la théologie (sublimation de la théologie par la poésie et sublimation de la poésie par la théologie). Après avoir étudié en particulier les procédés de désémantisation du discours de la théologie scolastique par la poésie, nous montrons que cette poésie de l’extase permanente, de l’anéantissement déifiant, relève du courant de la spiritualité abstraite parisienne (Benoît de Canfield, Laurent de Paris), dionysienne, marquée par la terminologie rhénoflamande contestée de la « suressence ».

While studying Claude Hopil’s complete work and making a critical survey, we propose to place his texts among the ambiguous and suspect mystical statements, which have faced prosecutions and trials, in the late 16th century and in the early 17th century. The work stands on the principle of coincidence of contraries: mutual questionning of poetry and theology (critique of poetry by theology and critique of theology by poetry) which is in the same movement mutual celebration of poetry and theology (sublimation of theology by poetry and sublimation of poetry by theology). We study in particular the way in which the speech of scholastic theology gets meaningless in the poems. Then, we demonstrate that this poetry of permanent ecstasy, of deifying annihilation, belongs to the stream of Parisian abstract spirituality (Benoît de Canfield, Laurent de Paris), Dionysian, marked by the controversial mystical terminology of "suressence".

Meditazione scritta in occasione della celebrazione liturgica della XXX domenica del ciclo A della Chiesa Cattolica: viene con brevità approfondito il comandamento dell'amore, di Dio e del prossimo, con particolare attenzione a quale dio e quale prossimo vanno amati.

Learn how an online self-assessment and instant report can be used to reflect on and facilitate personal spiritual growth. Youth and adult versions are available for free use online, and a short paper version (available in English, French, Spanish, and Portuguese) extends use to informal groups away from internet access.

Personal Piety: four approaches to an elementary form of the religious life. Within the field of religious studies, four ar¬eas offer fruitful approaches to analysing the phenomenon of personal piety. (1) The first is the philosophy of religion. The term ›personal piety‹ reflects this discipline’s dichotomy of re¬ligion into an institutional and a philosophical (or individual) variety. The tendency to think in terms of this dichotomy became established in the eighteenth century and is still considered valid today. (2) In the late nineteenth century, psychologists of religion began to collect and interpret testimonies of personal piety. Two ma¬jor such interpretations are current today: per-sonal piety as a means of helping souls in need of healing (William James), and personal piety as regression to the lost religious world of one’s childhood. (3) Within the history of religions, the example of Egypt is particularly relevant. Hellmut Brunner has interpreted personal piety as being the consequence of the dissolving ar¬chaic worldview: when one’s faithful support of the comprehensive social and cosmic order is no longer felt to guarantee one’s success in life, individuals increasingly came to rely on the friendship and help of a deity. (4) From the perspective of the phenomenology of religion, the distinction, made in traditional Catholic theology, between the ›spirituality‹ of religious virtuosi and the ›personal piety‹ of ordinary be¬lievers offers a relevant comparison. The article explores each of these four approaches mainly on the basis of Christian testimonies. Only through the analysis of examples from a variety of perspectives can we develop a viable notion of personal piety.

Рассматривается проблема понимания лжи и истины в высокой культуре христианского Средневековья. В работе анализируются: онтологическое учение об истине,
разработанное церковными интеллектуалами Запада и Востока, следствия этого учения в сфере этики и эпистемологии, опыт построения типологии лжи в исследуемой культуре, а также свойственные ей средства духовной терапии, нацеленные на
борьбу с ложью.