The ExCorde Programme: an annual series of lectures given by respected scholars who share a love of their subject and speak from the heart.

THURSDAY 15 OCTOBER 7PM

Wounded Angels, is the latest collection of poetry by USA author, poet and Franciscan priest, Murray Bodo. The author of numerous books, including the best-selling Francis, the Journey and the Dream. Bodo’s poems, stories and articles have appeared in magazines and literary journals in the United States and Ireland. He resides in Cincinnati, Ohio and spends part of the year in Assisi as a pilgrim guide for Franciscan Pilgrimage Programs.

“Francis of Assisi is credited with saying, ‘Preach the gospel at all times; if necessary, use words.’ Bodo has lived a life faithful to this calling. And, when he finds it necessary to use words, he uses them beautifully.” (Rose Marie Berger, Associate Editor, Sojourners)

THURSDAY 12 NOVEMBER 7PM

Séamus Mulholland OFM PhD

Duns Scotus was a Franciscan friar and ordained a priest in March 1291. His philosophical and theological endeavours were undertaken as a priest and as a Franciscan. Scotus, therefore, is a Franciscan and priest first before he is a philosopher-theologian. This reflection will seek to explore how Scotus understood the ‘power of the priesthood’ [the prominent medieval understanding] especially through his reflections on grace, the sacraments, the Eucharist, Real Presence etc. As with most of Scotus’s thought, his approach to these matters is complex, contrary to the prevailing mood and expressed with nuanced subtlety – but always brilliant and challenging.

THURSDAY 3 DECEMBER 7PM

Rev’d. Joseph O’Hanlon PhD – Christ:  A Priest Forever

The Letter to Hebrew Christians (sic), as elsewhere in the New Testament, has an understanding of  the nature of Christ’s saving work and of how human hearts are set on entry into a new future Nonetheless Hebrews has a distinctive voice which needs to be heard in our time and in our place.

THURSDAY 21 JANUARY 7PM
Dr Edward Ondrako OFM – Cardinal Newman’s Epistomology of Faith in a Franciscan Key

As Aristotle was to the ancient and  medieval world, Immanuel Kant is to the modern and post-modern world. Rev. Dr. Edward J. Ondrako, OFM Conv., currently, scholar in residence at FISC, will share the fruit of his research in a Franciscan key into several parallels in the thought of Bl. John Duns Scotus (d. 1308)  and John Henry Newman (d. 1890), two who laboured in England and knew the  empirical tradition. Scotus knew its form in the early fourteenth century. Newman knew the original empirical tradition and   understood the modern empirical Kantian form at Oxford. In brief, this lecture focuses on Newman and will be an introduction to parallels, hardly noticed yet in the scholarly world, between Scotus’ and Newman’s attempt to understand the light (epistemological questions) and what the light was illuminating (the metaphysical questions) without becoming blinded by the light. The light helped both Scotus and Newman to apprehend and to give assent in a profoundly personal quest for truth.

THURSDAY 11 FEBRUARY 7PM

Rev’d Prof. Thomas O’Loughlin – Priests ‘from’ or Priests ‘for’ the Community: The Ratio of Ordained Ministers to People in the Early Church.

In recent centuries priests have become specialists who are trained to provide pastoral care for relatively large numbers of Christ’s faithful – and the size of the group they serve is simply a matter of logistics. They are ordained ‘for’ this specialist full-time task. This is in marked contrast to earlier times and to the language of service and ministry that we still use in formal descriptions of the presbyterate.

This language still recalls that priests are ‘from’ a community who are ordained to actualise specific gifts of the Spirit within a local church. This paper will examine the theological and pastoral implications of each model.

THURSDAY 18 MARCH 7PM
Rev’d.  Joseph O’Hanlon PHD - Whose Faith Follow: The Call to Faith in the Letter to Hebrew Christians

A gallery of Old Testament saints who lived by faith are offered for our admiration and imitation. How are we enriched by appropriating these men and women into our family of saints?

Joseph O’Hanlon, a native of Cavan, a priest of Nottingham diocese, a lecturer at Allen Hall London. His books include the Dance of the Merry Makers, Mark My Words, Beginning the Bible and Walk One Hour and he has contributed to many journals and periodicals. A lifetime of teaching the Bible and a passion for communicating scholarship to the Christian in the pew has ensured that he is in great demand as a speaker and conference lecturer.