Open Classroom

CERTIFICATES FOR CATHOLIC EDUCATORS

May 25–August 21

$400

The essential mark of a Catholic school is that it presents “a Catholic worldview throughout the curriculum” (Archbishop Michael Miller, The Holy See’s Teaching on Catholic Schools, 2006). This certificate program introduces educators to the holy wisdom found in a fully integrated Catholic education. This program is guided by the Congregation for Catholic Education’s document “The Religious Dimension of Education in a Catholic School,” which provides a practical roadmap for renewing a school by grounding all its activities in the faith. The program consists of seven courses:

·     The Mystery of the Human Person

·     Our Philosophic Heritage

·     The Book of Nature: Science and Faith

·     A Providential God: The Drama of Human History

·     The Artistic and Literary Patrimony of Christianity

·     Educating the Christian Person

·     The Worshiping Person

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CERTIFICATES FOR CATHOLIC EDUCATORS

May 25–August 21

$400

This certificate program provides training in the seven liberal arts, which are the streams that lead through the essential disciplines of the mind to the ocean of divine wisdom: God himself, the source of all truth and the end of all our striving for wisdom. The program consists of seven courses:

·     Grammar and the Power of Words

·     Perfecting Thought Through Logic

·     Rhetoric: Empowering Truth

·     Imagination and the Art of Geometry

·     Arithmetic and the Power of Number

·     The Heavenly Art of Astronomy

·     Music: Understanding the Mysteries

May 25–August 21

$400

Based upon the book of the same title by Eugene Kevane, this course focuses on the contributions to the field of evangelization and catechesis made by Augustine of Hippo, drawing upon Instructing Beginners in Faith (DCR) and On Christian Doctrine (DDC), but also upon some his other works, especially the Confessions and some of his early dialogues. It will propose a thematic paradigm for an Augustinian approach to the apostolate centered around the four themes of interiority, studiositas, sobriety and amicitia/societas.

May 25–August 21

$400

This course helps students to understand the unity of God’s plan of salvation from Creation to the Second Coming. By a thorough overview of the Old and New Testaments, this course introduces Catholic exegetical approaches and theological interpretation, aiding students in reading Scripture as the work of God. Students engage some comparative primary texts and grapple with historiographical questions that help them to demonstrate the reliability of the Bible. With a special focus on the themes of covenant and mission, the course illustrates how Jesus fulfills God’s promises and how he invites his followers to share in his work of evangelization.

May 25–August 21

$400

The four canonical Gospels constitute “the principal witness for the life and teaching of the incarnate Word, our savior” (Dei Verbum 18). For believers, the highest aim of all study of the Gospels is to know Jesus Christ ever more fully. In this course, students will gain insight into how historical, literary, and theological tools can be fruitfully engaged to that end. The relationship between the Gospels and the Old Testament receives special consideration. The course primarily follows a canonical itinerary, attending to the distinctive characteristics of each of the Evangelists’ portrayals of the one Lord Jesus Christ.

May 25–August 21

$400

This course will explore the literature of worship and wisdom in the Old Testament. Through an in-depth engagement with these ancient texts in light of recent scholarship, students will examine the historical background, literary provenance and poetic purposes of the diverse books of Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, Sirach and Wisdom. Rather than limiting the scope to form-critical and compositional concerns, the course will consider the function of the Psalms in the cult of ancient Israel and the social role and development of wisdom literature in the life of post-exilic Judaism. Furthermore, this course will uncover the roots of Christological interpretation of the Psalms in the New Testament, and the use of Psalms in Jewish and Christian traditions of prayer. The course will highlight the theological significance of these texts’ structures, their inner coherence, their original meaning and their relevance for the life of the Church today.

May 25–August 21

$400

Students will read substantially the entire Catechism of the Catholic Church together with selections from the Fathers of the Church, noted saints such as St. Augustine, and key post- conciliar papal teachings.

May 25–August 21

$400

Students will be introduced to the history of the Church and her mission of evangelization and catechesis by reading texts from Ignatius of Antioch, Athanasius, Augustine, Benedict, Gregory the Great, Bernard, Francis de Sales, John Henry Newman, and Karol Wojtyła (John Paul II).

May 25–August 21

$400

“Whoever finds me finds life” (Proverbs 8:35). Wisdom hereby summons us to the intellectual and spiritual pursuit of Christ, “who became for us Wisdom from God” (1 Corinthians 1:30). In this course we reflect on Jesus Christ as the revelation of the trinitarian God, the head of the Church, the source and rule of moral life, and the priest and victim of the Eucharistic sacrifice. Through this Christological lens we recognize the unity of ecclesiology, Mariology, asceticism, ethics, soteriology, mystagogy, and eschatology. St. Augustine’s ecclesial prayer of the Psalms provides an entry point for our reflection on Christ according to these aspects.

May 25–August 21

$400

This course explores the main features of St. Thomas Aquinas’s teaching on the person of Jesus Christ and what St. Thomas calls his “actions and sufferings in the flesh.” We will focus on St. Thomas’s method of contemplating Jesus Christ as Sacred Scripture presents him and as the Church has received Scripture's presentation through time. As Thomas de Vio Cajetan observed, Aquinas so deeply revered the teaching of Scripture and the Church Fathers that "in a certain way he seems to have inherited the intellect of all," and this is especially the case in his Christology in the Summa theologiae, his unfinished masterwork. Our goal is not only to learn about how St. Thomas contemplated Christ in his historical context, but more importantly to contemplate Jesus Christ himself, the "Wisdom of God," along with St. Thomas, under his tutelage.