Identity, Vocation and Mission

Class Description

Online Class

In this unit, students will explore how the three interconnected elements of Ignatian spirituality — identity, vocation and mission — play out in their lives.  Students will be guided to address such fundamental questions as: Who am I before God? What are my deepest desires? With whom am I called to be? Where do I belong? What am I called to do? How am I generative in my life? Answers to these questions will be informed by the Christian vision of the world rooted in the experience and writings of the sixteenth-century Basque saint, Ignatius of Loyola. He documents his encounter with God in these writings particularly in the Spiritual Exercises. The dynamic of the Spiritual Exercises will be used as a template for spiritual growth.

LEARNING OUTCOMES

Upon successful completion of this unit, it is expected that students will be able to:

1. analyse use of the graces prayed for in the four “Weeks” of the Spiritual Exercises as a guiding matrix;
2. describe the Ignatian understanding of the interplay between imagination, desire and mission;
3. outline the development of a discerned sense of missional identity as informed by prayer and spiritual conversation;
4. synthesise their lived experience with the identity, vocation, mission dynamic of the Spiritual Exercises.

LECTURER

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DATE

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TIME

Online

VENUE

Jesuit College of Spirituality, 175 Royal Parade, Parkville VIC 3052

FEES

Students enrolled for academic credit | $2,266 Domestic Students | $2,925 International Students

Audit students (not for academic credit) | $1,133

RECOMMENDED READING

Alphonso, Herbert, The Personal Vocation. 9^th ed, Rome: Editrice Pontificia Universita Gregoriana, 2006.

Barry, William A. Finding God in All Things: A Companion to the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius. Notre Dame, IN: Ave Maria Press, 1991.

Decrees of General Congregation 35 http://www.saintpeters.edu/jesuit-identity/files/2012/08/GC35_Decrees.pdf  (Accessed 26 July 2016).

Eakin, Paul John, How Our Lives Become Stories: Making Selves, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1999.

Erikson, Erik H., Identity and the Life Cycle. New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company, 1994.

Fleming, David L., What is Ignatian Spirituality?, Chicago, IL: Loyola Press, 2008.

Grondin, Christian, “Ignatian Identity in Transition”, The Way, 42/4, October 2003, 32-45.

Linn, Denis, Matthew Linn, and Sheila Fabricant, Healing the Eight Stages of Life, New York, NY: Paulist Press, 1988.

Modras, Ronald, Ignatian Humanism: A Dynamic Spirituality for the 21st Century, Chicago, IL: Loyola Press, 2004.

Munitiz, Joseph & Philip Endean, Saint Ignatius of Loyola: Personal Writings, London, UK: Penguin Classics, 1996.

Palmer, Parker J., A Hidden Wholeness: The Journey Toward an Undivided Life, San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2009.

Traub, George W. An Ignatian Spirituality Reader: Contemporary Writings on St. Ignatius of Loyola, the Spiritual Exercises, Discernment, and More. Chicago, IL: Loyola Press, 2008.

Traub, George W., “Do You Speak Ignatian? A Glossary of Terms Used in Ignatian and Jesuit Circles,” in A Jesuit Education Reader, ed., George W. Traub, Chicago IL: Loyola Press, 2008.