Spring 2024 Dahlgren Chapel Sacred Lecture

Speaker: Stephen Sundborg, S.J., Special Assistant to the President, Georgetown University

This sacred lecture is an exploration of what is a personal spirituality, how we identify the characteristics of the spiritualities of others, and how this helps us to identify our own spirituality. It studies the markers of the two very different spiritualities of Ignatius of Loyola, the founder of the Jesuits, and of the more contemporary Carmelite nun, Ruth Burrows, and seeks to learn how to better identify and understand our own personal spirituality.

Stephen Sundborg, S.J., special assistant to the president of Georgetown University, attained a doctorate in spirituality from the Pontifical Gregorian University. He served as provincial of the Northwest Province of Jesuits and as president of Seattle University.

The early Jesuits instituted a practice called sacred lectures, popularizing and significantly amplifying a tradition that existed before the founding of the Society of Jesus. Sacred lectures were distinct from their ministry of preaching within the context of a liturgy. The lecturer sat in a chair or bench in the main body of the church, and did not stand at a pulpit as if preaching a sermon. Sacred lectures were not strictly academic exercises. Seeking to instruct, edify, and challenge, the Jesuit lecturer applied the content of the lecture to the daily life of lay people who usually composed the audience. In purpose and style, the sacred lectures today would be called adult education or adult faith formation.