Inside the Core: Core and Catholic Studies Host Augustine and Lonergan Event

Inside the Core we look forward to a special event focusing on an author important to Core I and Core II, St. Augustine of Hippo, in connection with Jesuit theologian and philosopher, Bernard Lonergan. In Core I, students read excerpts from Augustine’s Confessions, and in Core II, students read from his City of God. In light of this background, the Core and Catholic Studies are pleased to present Benjamin Hohman, editor of Interpreting the Self: Dimensions of Conversion in Augustine’s Confessions, who will be giving a talk on Augustine and Lonergan, on Monday, September 28 from 2 to 3:15 p.m. in the Chancellor’s Suite. Monsignor Richard Liddy, who arranged the event, will moderate.

Monsignor Liddy, a long standing expert on the writings of Bernard Lonergan, who was actually his professor in his studies in Rome years ago, said, “This book, Interpreting the Self, is a volume on Augustine by various contemporary scholars especially familiar with Fr. Lonergan’s work…. The essays focus on particular aspects of ‘conversion’ in Augustine: psychological, intellectual, moral and religious.” Monsignor Liddy himself has an essay in the volume focusing on Augustine’s intellectual conversion. The bookstore will make copies of the volume available at the event, so attendees can purchase a copy and get it signed by the editor/author Professor Hohman and Monsignor Liddy.

Augustine has always been a part of the Core, as well as an important part of the Catholic Intellectual Tradition since his own conversion, told about so movingly in Book VIII of The Confessions. He writes of his conversion experience:

Late, late have I loved You, O Beauty ever ancient, ever new, Late have I loved You. For see, You were within and I was without, and I sought You out there. Unlovely, I rushed heedlessly among the lovely things You have made. You were with me, but I was not with You. These things kept me far from You; even though they would not have been at all unless they were in You. You called and cried aloud and forced open my deafness. You gleamed and shined and chased away my blindness. You breathed fragrant odors and I drew in my breath; and now I pant for thee. I tasted, and now I hunger and thirst. You touched me, and I burned for Your peace.

His influence spread through his sermons and writings during his lifetime while bishop of Hippo in North Africa and extends to the church today, in fact to our own Holy Father Pope Leo, who said after his election to the papacy, “I am an Augustinian, a son of St. Augustine, who once said, ‘With you I am a Christian, and for you I am a bishop.’”

Bernard Lonergan, whose works have been studied by many faculty in the Praxis Program, begun by Monsignor Liddy and run out of the Center for Vocation and Servant Leadership and the Catholic Studies Center, follows in the spirit of Augustine in his examination of conversion of both mind and heart.

Please join us for an inspiring conversation on two great thinkers in the Catholic intellectual tradition, both important to the Core and to our Mission at Seton Hall.

Categories: Faith and Service