Magis Lecture | The Making of St. Ignatius
Fr. Sam Conedera, SJUniversity of St. Louis
5:00 Mass* | 5:45 Drinks & Hors d’Oeuvres | 6:30 Lecture | 7:15 End
Cosponsored by the Bollandist Society, St. Ignatius College Prep. Supported by the Fr. Paul V. Mankowski, S.J., Memorial Fund for Jesuit Scholarship at Lumen Christi.
Free and open to the public. Registration required. For questions, please contact Marial Corona at mcorona@lumenchristi.org.
Although the Church calls upon the saints as heavenly intercessors, their lives on earth unfold in time and space in the midst of their fellow men. The recognition of the saints’ holiness begins with the people who know them face-to-face, who often provide divergent testimonies and conflicting images. How do hagiographers sift through a variety of sources—eyewitness testimonies, narrative accounts, and physical remains—to write historically reliable lives of the saints?
In this lecture, Fr. Sam Zeno Conedera will explore the contribution of Pedro de Ribadeneyra, an early Jesuit and the first official biographer of St. Ignatius, to the hagiography of the Spanish Golden Age. His prodigious literary output, including multiple lives of Ignatius, shows how the Society of Jesus has always treated the saints with both devotion and careful historical study and invites us to do the same.
* The Solemnity of All Saints, celebrated on November 1, is a Holy Day of Obligation.
ABOUT THE MAGIS SERIES
The Magis Series on Faith and Reason is a partnership between the Lumen Christi Institute and St. Ignatius College Prep to bring accessible yet sophisticated lectures on the Church's intellectual tradition to the broad lay public. The event is open to everyone from high school students to retirees. No affiliation with St. Ignatius is needed. Anyone who desires a lively entree into the mind of the Church is welcome and encouraged to attend.
Fr. Sam Conedera, SJ is Assistant Professor of History at Saint Louis University. He holds a PhD in history from UCLA, an MA in philosophical resources from Fordham University, and a BA in sacred theology from Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome. He is the author of Ecclesiastical Knights. The Military Orders in Castile, 1150-1330 (2015, Fordham University Press), and Alfonso Salmerón (1515-85) on the Scriptures (Forthcoming, Durham University Press). Fr. Conedera is a Jesuit of the USA Western Province, ordained a priest in June 2017.
