Continuing Education

Continuing Education at the Franciscan School of Theology offers affordable, high-quality instruction by some of the world’s foremost Franciscan scholars and educators. FST continuing education courses are open to the public and take place the last week of June and first week of July. 

Classes are held online (via Zoom) 9:15 am-12:30 pm PDT, Monday through Friday. The cost is $250 per one-week session; participating in each week earns one CEU credit.

Course Information (Summer 2024)

June 24-28 — Fr. Joe Chinnici, OFM
The Lives of Francis and Clare: A Hall of Mirrors

Examining the lives of Francis and Clare often produces an historical Rorschach test. So multi-faceted is their spiritual experience, that from the very beginning multiple perspectives have been offered, ones that monasticize them, others submitting them to ecclesiastical needs, others projecting onto their experience contemporary demands of empathy (Max Scheler), a means of grounding the mystical experience (Evelyn Underhill) or critiquing capitalism (Vida Dutton Scudder). Pope Francis has articulated a view of the Franciscan experience related to the ecological demands of the 21st century. Using new insights into the relationship between Francis and the desert fathers and mothers and the relationship between Francis and Clare and the social disruption and violence marking their society, this course will first review a few basic interpretations of their spiritual heritage. Longer units will then examine particular Franciscan responses pertinent to our contemporary challenges: for examples, the quest for a spiritual anthropology, the development of purity of heart, the necessity of praxis, mourning, and the embrace of human fragility. The whole will be an exploration reinterpreting the Franciscan heritage for life in the 21st century.

July 1-5 — Br. Bill Short, OFM
St. Francis of Assisi: Writings and Charism

Francis of Assisi has left us a remarkable collection of writings, ranging from meditations on the words of Christ to norms for organizing life in a small community. This course will examine the full range of those texts, some 30 in all, from the saint’s autographs (those that survive in his own handwriting) to fragments of his “lost” writings contained in the writings of Clare of Assisi and others. Over the course of an intense week, we will study his Letters, Rules, Prayers and Admonitions, learning about their medieval historical context, and reflecting on their insights about living according to the Gospel then and now.

*Due to the July 4th holiday, this course will take place on July 1, 2, 3, and 5.