Course Description
This seminar takes up Amos Wilder’s appeal in his 1976 book Theopoesis: “A creative theopoetic is called for to relate our Christian experience to the new sensibility of our time…. When imagination fails, doctrines become ossified, witness and proclamation wooden.” Pope Francis has called for something similar—via pulchritudinis: “Proclaiming Christ means showing that to believe and follow him is not only something right and true, but also something beautiful, capable of filling life with new splendor and profound joy.” The seminar studies works—from ancient to contemporary—that generate the Christian imagination and further via pulchritudinis in preaching.
Bibliography
St. Augustine, On Christian Doctrine;
Humbert of Romans, Treatise on Preaching;
St. Francis de Sales, On Preachers and Preaching;
St. John Henry Newman, The Idea of a University;
Vatican Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, Homiletic Directory.