Experiencing God: The History of Catholic Spirituality
Apply for the School of Spiritual Formation at the Avila Institute to take courses such as today’s featured course: “Experiencing God: The History of Catholic Spirituality”.
This summer at the Avila Institute, Professor Patrick Linbeck is teaching a new course in the School of Spiritual Formation titled “Experiencing God: The History of Catholic Spirituality”. This course is designed around Fr. Jordan Aumann’s book “Christian Spirituality in the Catholic Tradition”. Professor Linbeck is an incredibly knowledgeable instructor with especially deep knowledge of the Franciscan tradition as well as the Catholic spiritual tradition as a whole. Professor Linbeck teaches his courses in a style that draws students into meditation on the truths being revealed through the course.
The Catholic Church is rich in tradition, and the mystical tradition of the Church has no shortage of diversity and depth. From the various different religious orders to the wide range of spiritual renewal movements throughout the centuries, we have a lot to learn from the various different traditions within the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church. Despite their differences, the various different religious communities each bring different spiritualities to the table while remaining faithful to the unchangeable doctrines of Jesus Christ revealed to us through the Church. It is through coming to know the different spiritualties in the Church that we can come to appreciate the richness of tradition in the Church. The upcoming course, Experiencing God: The History of Catholic Spirituality, will help you to learn about the various different traditions that fall under the Tradition and orthodoxy of the Catholic Church.
“In an age that is unsympathetic to systematic theology but attracted to the experiential approach, perhaps the historical survey will be of great help in discerning what is of perennial value in Christian spirituality. And since there were heterodox tendencies and movements almost from the beginning, one can likewise learn from history the mistakes and errors of the past and thus perhaps avoid repeating them in the present.”
— Fr. Jordan Aumann
Experiencing God: The History of Catholic Spirituality is one of three courses being offered in the School of Spiritual Formation this summer. The other upcoming courses include Discernment of Spirits and The Theology of Christopher Nolan. Our most popular program, the School of Spiritual Formation, offers the faithful an opportunity to deepen their faith through encounter with the mystical tradition of the Church. Students often finish the courses having been transformed spiritually through them. You can apply here. The courses are all online, and you can take as many or as few courses as you like in the School of Spiritual Formation. For a full list of upcoming course offerings, visit the Avila Institute website.
About Dylan Jedlovec
Dylan Jedlovec is an Operations Administrative Assistant at the Avila Foundation, parent organization of SpiritualDirection.com, the Avila Institute for Spiritual Formation, and Divine Intimacy Radio. Finishing up an undergraduate degree in Marketing and Economics from Samford University, Dylan is first and foremost a disciple of Christ and a son of the Church. Dylan has a heart for evangelization on college campuses, and has worked closely with FOCUS as a student missionary and served as President of the Catholic Student Association at Samford. As a member of the University Fellows Program at Samford, Dylan developed a love for the writings of the Saints, particularly the Doctors of the Church, through his studies of the core texts of the Western Intellectual Tradition. This love for the rich intellectual tradition of the faith brought him to the Avila Foundation, where he seeks to further the kingdom through feeding Christ’s sheep. In his free time, Dylan enjoys watching baseball, reading, hiking, running, and lifting weights (although you can’t really tell).
