Christian Spirituality

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

This course is offered as a systematic and historical introduction to Christian Spirituality with a systematic focus on its nature, stages, and goal; an historical focus on different traditions and representative figures; a thematic focus on the kinds of language and literary figures that are used to describe the spiritual life (e.g., in terms of a journey, maturation, mountain-climbing, and kinds of relationship, etc.), and a practical focus on the disciplines that cultivate it and are conducive to its end. Other than Scripture, various saints and spiritual authors to be read include Catherine of Siena, Guigo II, Gregory of Nyssa, Augustine, Benedict, Bernard of Clairvaux, Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross, Therese of Lisieux, Symeon the New Theologian, Gregory Palamas, and Seraphim of Sarov.