Christian Spirituality - 2023.02A

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Christian Spirituality - 2023.02A

Date
-
Registration Opens
Instructor
Christine Luna-Munger

What kinds of contemplative and communal prayer (i.e., discipleship) form us as practitioners of the way of Jesus, rooted in the presence of God?  How do we order our days so that we are connected to God in times of strength and in times of struggle?  The many ways of defining spirituality have a common theme of lived experience, or in Alister McGrath’s words, “spirituality is the outworking in real life of a person’s religious faith—what a person does with what they believe.”

In this seven-week course, you’ll try on ancient and modern ways of praying alone and in community, with silence and with sound, with stillness and with movement.  This course will integrate historical and experiential approaches to understanding different ways of praying within the Christian tradition.  Together, we will explore apophatic and cataphatic understandings of prayer, the role of the head and heart in prayer, our image of God, practical approaches to discernment, and a life-long orientation to spiritual growth through spiritual direction and faith development.  Course content will include weekly on-line lectures and on-line discussion forum to exchange thoughts, experiences, ideas, and to pose questions. You’ll keep a regular journal to reflect on how you are meeting God in these practices.  As a final project, you’ll create a rule of life – a set of practices and commitments for the journey ahead. 

Readings:

  • The Way of a Pilgrim (Anonymous – a classic of Orthodox spirituality)
  • Practical Mysticism by Evelyn Underhill
  • Soul Feast: An Invitation to the Christian Spiritual Life by Marjorie Thompson
  • The Way of Discernment by Elizabeth Lieber
  • Additional articles

Save these dates and times for Zoom meetings: Monday evenings, 7:00-8:30pm CT, February 6 & 20 and March 6 & 20, 2023

Christine Luna Munger, PhD currently serves as the director of the Episcopal House of Prayer. She previously served as Coordinator of the Spiritual Direction Certificate and Professor of Theology at St. Catherine University, where she was also the director of Encuentro, a high school youth in theology initiative. She has taught at University of St. Thomas and College of St. Benedict/St. John’s University. Christine has published articles, videos, and other spiritual direction resources for Spiritual Directors International (SDI), and she regularly writes, teaches, and leads group prayer sits at EHoP. Christine is a mother of two young children. She is bilingual (English & Spanish) and enjoys all forms of dance and being outdoors.

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Christine Luna-Munger