A “world pregnant with God”? Insights from St. Angela of Foligno toward 21st Century Ecological Conversion 10/07

2021 Franciscan Zoom Lecture #14: Dr. Diane Tomkinson, OSF

A “world pregnant with God”? Insights from St. Angela of Foligno toward 21st Century Ecological Conversion

This lecture will be on our YouTube Channel by mid October. Please subscribe to our YouTube Channel to be notified when it is published.

St. Angela of Foligno (d. 1309) was canonized by Pope Francis in October 2013, culminating three decades of renewed interest in the mystical “experience and teaching” of this medieval wife and mother, whose mid-life conversion, in the midst of personal and social crisis, gradually transformed her into a wisdom figure for an expanding circle of brothers and sisters in the early Franciscan movement and beyond. Angela’s mystical theology and spirituality resonates with important themes articulated in Pope Francis’ 2015 encyclical, Laudato Si: On Care for Our Common Home, particularly the recognition that “everything is connected” and the Pope’s related call for an “integral ecology” of mutual care for all people and creatures of our planet, particularly those who are most vulnerable. This presentation will explore key episodes from Angela’s texts that recount her intensifying awareness of and response to divine Love embracing and indwelling all creatures. We will consider what insights Angela offers for our own responses to Pope Francis’s call for the ongoing personal and systemic conversion urgently required of 21st century humans in mutual care for all our sisters and brothers in our common home.