Made in God’s Image: A Fresh Vision for Human Flourishing
For a world in need of good news, this year’s conference programme is full of hope and promise as we are reminded that each and every one of us is made in the Divine Image. What does this mean and how can knowledge of your true identity empower you to flourish?
Through eight thought provoking talks, you will learn how to greater reflect the Divine Image in a world in so much need of healing.
This year, we have been blessed with eight renowned speakers, authors and experts, who will help bring this core message of Saint Edith Stein to life and transform how we grow in our love and spirituality.
Some Highlights of Last Year’s Conference
2022 Programme Schedule (All times: London time)
Eight Life Changing Online Talks
A Glimpse Beyond the Veil: Reading the Scriptures with Edith Stein – Joanne Mosley
The “veil” is an important term in the Scriptures, and it was also for Edith Stein. This talk will focus on aspects of Edith’s life and writings so as to explore the themes of: “the New hidden in the Old”; the face of Christ that emerges from the pages of God’s word; and contemplation that draws us into the mystery of the inner life.
Who Do You Think You Are? Exploring Identity in the Light of Scripture and the Mystical Tradition – Heather Ward
We are living in a time when human identity and the nature of selfhood are hotly debated issues and in which we hear so many confusing and contradictory voices. What does it mean to say “I”? Is my identity dependent upon my personality, my life-style choices, my self-definition? How do I hear Gospel language about losing and gaining myself?
Adam as the Image of God – Margaret Barker
Adam means ‘human being’, both male and female. English versions of the Bible say s/he was created to have dominion over all living creatures, to be fruitful and multiply, to fill the earth and subdue it’. It is unlikely that the first Christians would have recognised that Adam. We shall look at the older picture of Adam and recover something of the biblical vision of what it means to be human.
What happened to Edith Stein and her companions? – Fr Paul Hamans (Roermond, Netherlands)
In this talk, Fr Hamans will explore the history behind the murder of catholic Jews and how it all started as a response to the Letter of the Dutch Bishops of July 26, 1942. What happened to Saint Edith Stein and her Sister Rosa will be highlighted followed by a presentation on their companions to Auschwitz.
St. Edith Stein in the 21st Century: Contributions to a Post-Secular Age – Fr Pier Giorgio Pacelli (Washington D.C., US)
In this talk, Fr Pier look at the recent move in the humanities called “post-secularism” and how the writings of St. Edith Stein might contribute to such a movement.
God-given Reality: Adam and Eve – Exploring the Creation Narrative in Genesis (TBC)
The Story of a Soul: Edith Stein’s spiritual anthropology and its implications for pastoral care today – Peter Tyler (St Mary’s Twickenham, UK)
Stein’s philosophical anthropology makes nuanced use of the German term Seele (‘soul’). This lecture explores this by placing it within twentieth century debates about the nature of self. As well as Stein’s own phenomenological exploration of the soul the talk also aims to elucidate the implications of such a ‘soul-philosophy’ for contemporary psychoanalytic and transpersonal theory and practice.
‘Male and female he created them: The image of God, gender theory, and human flourishing’ – Prof David Albert Jones (St Mary’s Twickenham, UK)
This paper will look at the relationship between gender and being created in the image of God. Is the image of God equally in male and female? In what sense is the image of God gendered? What did Augustine say about male and females being made in the image of God? What have recent Papal and Vatican statements said about ‘gender theory’ and how this threatens acknowledgement of the truth about human beings as created in the image of God as male and female?
Day One Programme Schedule: Friday 8th July
1:00-1:30pm Registration / Login
1:30-2:00pm Opening Session
2:00-3:00pm Keynote: Joanne Mosley (Oxford, UK)
A Glimpse Beyond the Veil: Reading the Scriptures with Edith Stein
3:00-4:00pm Sabbath
4:00-5:00pm Keynote: Caroline Farey (Worcester, UK)
Re-creation of Reality: New Adam and New Eve (A Meditative Exploration of the New Creation with Sacred Art)
5:00-6:00pm Supper Break
6:00-7:00pm Keynote: Margaret Barker
Adam as the Image of God
Day Two Programme Schedule: Saturday 9th July
10:00-11:30am Workshops
I am carefully and wonderfully made” (Ps. 139:14)’: Lessons at the Potter’s House – Audrey Hamilton
God-given Reality: Adam and Eve – Exploring the Creation Narrative in Genesis – Carolyn Farey
11:30-12:30pm Lunch break
12:30-1:30pm Keynote: Fr Paul Hamans (Roermond, Netherlands)
What happened to Edith Stein and her companions?
1:30-4:00pm Sabbath
4:00-5:00pm Keynote: Fr Pier Giorgio Pacelli (Washington D.C., US)
St. Edith Stein in the 21st Century: Contributions to a Post-Secular Age
5:00-6:00pm Supper break
6:00-7:00pm Keynote: Heather Ward (Derbyshire, UK)
Who Do You Think You Are? Exploring Identity in the Light of Scripture and the Mystical Tradition
Day Three Programme Schedule: Sunday 10th July
10:00-11:30am Workshops
Living in the Cellars of Knowledge – Heather Ward
Discerning God’s Plan with Edith Stein – Matt Blake
11:30-12:30pm Lunch break
12:30-1:30pm Keynote: Peter Tyler (St Mary’s Twickenham, UK)
The Story of a Soul: Edith Stein’s spiritual anthropology and its implications for pastoral care today
1:30-4:00pm Sabbath
4:00-5:00pm Keynote: Prof David Albert Jones (St Mary’s Twickenham, UK)
‘Male and female he created them: The image of God, gender theory, and human flourishing’
5:00-5:30pm Break
5:30-6:15pm Panel Discussion: Prof. Peter Tyler (Chair)
6:15pm Closing with shared prayer
6:45-8:00pm Conference Dinner
There will be two workshops running concurrently on each day,
please note you can only choose to attend one workshop.
Saturday 9th July
10:00 -11:30am Workshops
I am carefully and wonderfully made” (Ps. 139:14)’: Lessons at the Potter’s House – Audrey Hamilton
St Teresa reminds us that God can be found among the pots and pans, the stuff of everyday life. Even more wonderful is the spiritual truth that the biblical prophets and preachers used their everyday experience of pottery and pottery making to illustrate about the relationship between the potter and the clay. These insights which this presentation will explore can be life-transforming.
God-given Reality: Adam and Eve – Exploring the Creation Narrative in Genesis (TBC)
Sunday 10th July
10:00 -11:30am Workshops
Living in the Cellars of Knowledge – Heather Ward
Living in the cell of self-knowledge, a phrase attributable to St Catherine of Siena, might be said to be a fundamental reality for Christian spiritual life, as it was, indeed, for many in the Graeco-Roman world who aspired to live “the good life”. In this workshop we will be looking at the different dimensions of this imperative to “know yourself” as they appear in the works of mystics & theologians & consider how this might enable a response to the apparent contradiction between self- awareness & self-forgetfulness that so concerned Samuel Taylor Coleridge in his poem Self-Knowledge
E coelo descendit γνωθι σεαυτόν. – Juvenal, Satire XI.27.
γνωθι σεαυτόν! – and is this the prime
And heaven-sprung adage of the olden time! –
Say, canst thou make thyself? – Learn first that trade; –
Haply thou mayst know what thyself had made.
What hast thou, Man, that thou dar’st call thine own? –
What is there in thee, Man, that can be known? –
Dark fluxion, all unfixable by thought,
A phantom dim of past and future wrought,
Vain sister of the worm, – life, death, soul; clod –
Ignore thyself, and strive to know thy God!
Discerning God’s Plan with Edith Stein – Fr Matt Blake, OCD
This presentation will reflect on Edith’s Stein’s insights into God’s plan for us even in challenging times: “Things were in God’s plan which I had not planned at all. I am coming to the living faith and conviction that – from God’s point of view – there is no chance and that the whole of my life, down to every detail, has been mapped out in God’s divine providence and makes complete and perfect sense in God’s all-seeing eyes.” – Matt Blake
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Registration and Payment
Full Online Access All 3 days of the Conference
£100
By continuing you will be taken through to our payment platform which may require you to register and provide further details
Full Online Access All 3 days of the Conference – RESIDENTIAL
£300
By continuing you will be taken through to our payment platform which may require you to register and provide further details
Online DAY 1 Only
£40
You are purchasing to attend Day 1 of the conference only and will be entitled to receive Day 1 programmes only. By continuing you will be taken through to our payment platform which may require you to register and provide further details
Online DAY 2 Only
£40
You are purchasing to attend Day 2 of the conference only and will be entitled to receive Day 2 programmes only. By continuing you will be taken through to our payment platform which may require you to register and provide further details
Online DAY 3 Only
£40
You are purchasing to attend Day 3 of the conference only and will be entitled to receive Day 3 programmes only. By continuing you will be taken through to our payment platform which may require you to register and provide further details
Online Access at the Priory DAY 1 Only
£50
You are purchasing to attend Day 1 of the conference only and will be entitled to receive Day 1 programmes only. By continuing you will be taken through to our payment platform which may require you to register and provide further details
Online Access at the Priory DAY 2 Only
£50
You are purchasing to attend Day 2 of the conference only and will be entitled to receive Day 2 programmes only. By continuing you will be taken through to our payment platform which may require you to register and provide further details
Online Access at the Priory DAY 3 Only
£50
You are purchasing to attend Day 3 of the conference only and will be entitled to receive Day 3 programmes only. By continuing you will be taken through to our payment platform which may require you to register and provide further details