Annual Boston College events to be held online

Chestnut Hill, MA- Boston College School of Theology and Ministry’s popular annual summer events, the Evelyn Underhill Lecture in Christian Spirituality and the St. Mary of Magdala Day Celebration will be held online this year. As part of Boston College’s pandemic response, campus was closed for public events in July of 2020 and the lectures were cancelled. As public vaccination ensues and Boston College works to return to regular operations, the STM’s department of continuing education is able to host events online. Ordinarily the lectures draw considerable crowds, including attendees from out of state. According to continuing education representatives, it is hoped that the online format will provide access for participants who would not normally be able to attend.

The Underhill Lecture is a twenty-year-old tradition at Boston College that has featured such figures as Thomas Keating, Richard Rohr, Rowan Williams, and Simone Campbell of the “Nuns on the Bus.” Andrew Prevot, author of Thinking Prayer: Theology and Spirituality Amid the Crises of Modernity, will offer this year’s lecture, on July 10th at 10:00 a.m. The title of his presentation is “The Mysticism of Ordinary Life: Whose Mysticism? Whose Ordinariness?”

The School of Theology and Ministry has been offering the St. Mary of Magdala Day Celebration for over 10 years. Inspired by the figure of Mary Magdalene as the first person to announce the resurrection of Jesus, the annual celebration features a liturgy with a female preacher, as well as a scholarly presentation on the legacy of women in the Church. This year M. Shawn Copeland, the well-known womanist and Black Catholic theologian, will offer a lecture entitled “Run, Sister, Run: The Figure of Mary Magdalene in the Negro Spiritual.” This presentation will take place Friday, July 23rd at noon.

For more information visit: https://www.bc.edu/content/bc-...