Culture and Spirituality - Holy Names University

Culture and Spirituality from Holy Names University is a Campus Certificate Area Studies degree that prepares you for a Liberal Arts career. The Sophia Center cultivates a capacity for a listening heart by celebrating Earth, Art, and Spirit and offers a Masters of Arts degree in Culture and Spirituality, a nine-month Certificate in a semester and weekend format and a one-semester Sabbatical. The program seeks to integrate the inward journey of personal transformation and the outward journey of social transformation, ecology, spirituality and justice, meditation and restoration, the intellectual and artistic, drawing on religious perspectives from the world's wisdom traditions, science, women and indigenous people. With this in mind the program prepares participants to be leaders in the fields of ecological sensitivity, social justice and spiritual fulfillment. The Sophia Center creates an international learning community that undertakes with integrity and depth the redeeming work of our time and the historical mission to which all humanity is called: the ?Great Work? of our generation of transforming the entire cultural paradigm to protect humanity and the planet from destruction while encouraging a new era of well-being for the entire Earth Community. Sophia Center students engage in this transforming process: they honor an approach that is rooted in courage, strength and compassion. They join a highly respected international faculty of scholars, social and environmental justice leaders, and spiritual practitioners who energize a world of living ideas and illuminate the complexities of modern spirituality. Drawing on sources as diverse as the medieval mysticism of Hildegaard of Bingen, the contemporary prophecies of Teilhard de Chardin, the quantum physics of Fritjof Capra, the cosmological vision of Thomas Berry, the insights of indigenous cultures, the work of eco-feminism and the spiritual practices of classical traditions of world religions. The Sophia Center in Culture and Spirituality offers the students of the world a meaningful immersion into and investigation of the convergent forces of religion, art, justice, and science. Sophia Center has established shared educational arrangements with other institutions: the Graduate Theological Union (GTU) in Berkeley, Genesis Farm Learning Center in New Jersey, and the California Institute for Integral Studies (CIIS) in San Francisco. At Sophia Center, students understand the New Cosmology through core courses and seminars, experience it through creative processes and forums, and express it through field placements, internships, and projects, as they fashion a dynamic integration of the New Creation Story and the Story of Geo-justice (personal, social, and ecological), and engaged cosmology. The Sophia Center draws upon the wisdom of yesterday and today while preparing participants to meet the challenge of tomorrow as they deepen their capacity to listen with the ear of the heart, recognize and explore. They experience the divine in self, life and all creation, the wonder, beauty and belonging that resides in the vast universe and the recesses of their soul. In summary, the Sophia Center nurtures an integral and inclusive human presence that is open to the divine, celebrates ultimate mystery, and is designed to create a compassionate community of life for the children of every species. The curriculum makes available the work of cultural historian and geologian, Thomas Berry. You are invited to visit our campus, attend classes, and meet individually with the program director of the Sophia Center. In addition to full-time students, the Sophia Center welcomes auditors and parttime students. View more details on Holy Names University . Ask your questions and apply online for this program or find other related Area Studies courses.