Each year the Albertus campus community does common study on an aspect of our mission, Catholic Identity or Dominican tradition. This study gives us a common language and understanding of the heritage of the College. Engaged in this study are the members of the Board of Trustees, administration, faculty, staff and alumni board.
This year the study involves an introduction to Meister Johann Eckhar–Dominican preacher, theologian and spiritual writer–readings and a discussion on the four pillars of the Dominican mission and life: study, prayer, community and service.
The first article for study is entitled: “The Pillars Revisited: A Fresh Look at Dominican Spirituality,” by Donald Georgen, OP., associate professor of systematic theology at Aquinas Institute of Theology in St. Louis, Missouri. In this article Georgen gives some new language to express the traditional pillars. He explains study as a love of truth, prayer accompanied by action as integration, community as friendship and service as freedom. For a college in the Dominican tradition, these pillars provide a foundation to a holistic pursuit of truth by members of the college community.
Fr. Georgen will be giving the St. Catherine of Siena lecture on Meister Eckhart, Wednesday, April 6, 2016 at 5:15 p.m. in the Behan Community Room, Campus Center.
In addition to the Georgen article, the campus community is also reading and discussing the reflections on the four pillars written by faculty members: Sean P. O’Connell, Ph.D. (study); Jeremiah Coffey, Ph.D. (prayer); Deborah A. Frattini, M.F.A. (community); and Robert A. Bourgeois, Ph.D. (service). These articles appeared in the spring 2015 issue of From the Hill. In these reflections the section on study is presented as a journey of living the truth and growing in wisdom; the section on prayer recalls the changes in theological and spiritual understanding during the 90-year history of the college; the section on community emphasizes a college community built on rights, respect, recognition and resolve and the section on justice describes a spirituality of justice which recognizes our responsibility to be sisters and brothers to one another.
Submitted by Sr. Anne Kilbride, OP.