2024 Summer Institute | The Lazarus Outside Our Door

Originally Published on OST.EDU

Monday, June 17

June 17-19 | In-Person and Online Options Available | $90

By Oblate School of Theology

Date and time

June 17 · 3pm – June 19 · 9pm CDT

Location

Online

Refund Policy

Contact the organizer to request a refund.

Eventbrite’s fee is nonrefundable.

Agenda

Mon. June 17th

Tues. June 18th

Wed. June 19th

3:00 PM – 7:00 PM

Check In

7:00 PM – 8:30 PM

Keynote: Fr. Greg Boyle

8:30 PM – 10:00 PM

Social

About this event

• 2 days 6 hours

2024 Summer Institute

June 17-19 | In-Person and Online Options | $90

Description

The Summer Institute is held annually in June at OST and draws around 400 people, both in person and online, to engage critical issues shaping the discourse of contemporary theology and spirituality. Organized around a major theme and keynote speaker, the Summer Institute invites faculty and facilitators from local, national, and international institutions to offer meaningful contributions of research and reflection, engaging attendees and one another in fruitful dialogue.

All presentations will be recorded and will be available for viewing through July 31, 2024. An automated follow-up email will be sent on June 21with instructions on how to re-watch.

Theme: Lazarus Outside Our Door – Being Good News for the Poor

Summer Institute Keynote Speakers

Fr. Gregory Boyle

Fr. Gregory Boyle is among the most recent recipients of the Presidential Medal of Freedom. A native Angeleno and Jesuit priest, from 1986 to 1992 he served as pastor of Dolores Mission Church in Boyle Heights, then the poorest Catholic parish in Los Angeles that also had the highest concentration of gang activity in the city.

Father Boyle witnessed the devastating impact of gang violence on his community during the so-called “decade of death” that began in the late 1980s and peaked at 1,000 gang-related killings in 1992. In the face of law enforcement tactics and criminal justice policies of suppression and mass incarceration as the means to end gang violence, he and parish and community members adopted what was a radical approach at the time: treat gang members as human beings.

In 1988 they started what would eventually become Homeboy Industries, which employs and trains former gang members in a range of social enterprises, as well as provides critical services to thousands of men and women who walk through its doors every year seeking a better life.

Father Boyle is the author of the 2010 New York Times-bestseller Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassion. His new book, Barking to the Choir: The Power of Radical Kinship, was published in 2017.

He has received the California Peace Prize and been inducted into the California Hall of Fame. In 2014, President Obama named Father Boyle a Champion of Change. He received the University of Notre Dame’s 2017 Laetare Medal, the oldest honor given to American Catholics. Currently, he serves as a committee member of California Governor Gavin Newsom’s Economic and Job Recovery Task Force as a response to COVID-19.

Brother Don Bisson

First and foremost a spiritual director, Brother Don and is widely respected as a specialist in the training, formation and supervision of spiritual directors.

A Marist brother based in Esopus, New York, he has graduate degrees in liturgy, spirituality, and transpersonal psychology, and earned his Doctor of Ministry at the Pacific School of Religion specializing in Spiritual Direction and Jungian Psychology. With more than 100 live audio recordings available, Brother Bisson is internationally recognized for his lectures, workshops, and retreats on the interrelationship of Christian spirituality and Jungian psychology.

His soulful humanity makes Don attractive to the hundreds of people who find their way to virtually everything he offers. He is a man committed to “walking the talk.” From this commitment comes a grounded wisdom and an authentic humility. His gems of wisdom have been formed in the heat and pressure of the deep underground passage of his own healing journey in God. Compassion for what it means to be human is the result, alongside clarity about the compelling call of the Spirit to “wake up” and participate consciously in God’s purposes in our world. This waking up is not an achievement but a process that invites him–and us–into a transformation that is ongoing.

Mr. Donald H. Morrison

Don currently serves as Chairman of the Board at Laconic Global Inc. and is the Chairman of the Dalai Lama Center for Ethics and Transformative Values at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Don is also the Founder and Chair of the Thomas Merton Centre in Toronto.

Previously Don served for six years on the Board of the Mastercard Foundation (the largest foundation in Canada) where he helped establish the organization’s first working relationship with an African government which became a model for subsequent development in other countries. In addition, Don served on the Board of the Mind and Life Institute, an organization created by His Holiness the Dalai Lama, to conduct research and develop programs that sought to understand the link between contemplative practice and a compassionate heart. In 2014, he founded and chaired Ontario Global 100, a network of CEOs dedicated to helping Ontario businesses initiate and implement global expansion.

Previously, Don was the Chief Operating Officer of Research In Motion, maker of the BlackBerry, from 2000 to 2011. Don globalized the company’s operations from two countries to 175 countries over 11 years.

Don is the Founder of the Morrison Family Foundation, providing financial support to Sick Children’s Hospital in the field of research on asthma and other respiratory conditions, and more recently, established a nursing college in rural Kenya which was rated number one in the country in 2023.

Don holds an MBA and BA from the University of Toronto and graduated from the Executive Program at the University of Virginia, Darden Business School as class president.

Dr. Stephen Breck Reid

Dr. Stephen Breck Reid was appointed vice provost for faculty diversity and belonging in the fall of 2022. Along with his appointment as vice provost, Dr. Reid is a professor of christian scriptures at the George W. Truett Seminary. He is a member of the Society of Biblical Literature and the Catholic Biblical Association. He has served in ministerial roles in Baptist, Church of the Brethren, Mennonite, and Presbyterian congregations.

As vice provost for faculty diversity & belonging, Dr. Reid supports excellence and equity in the Baylor faculty by facilitating the flourishing of underrepresented faculty through improved interactions with non-underrepresented faculty, staff, and students and seeks greater recognition of the contributions of underrepresented faculty. Dr. Reid and his office support these goals through faculty hiring, retention, tenure, and promotion appropriate for Baylor as a R1 Christian university.

Dr. Reid also works with individual departments in developing educational and curricular programming for faculty that addresses discipline-specific concerns regarding diversity and our Christian heritage. He is a liaison for various faculty-focused diversity initiatives, conducts scholarly work in diversity as an academic discipline, and collaborates with Student Life, the Office of the President, and other diversity leaders across campus.

Dr. Reid holds a B.S. in religion from Manchester University, an M.Div. from Bethany Theological Seminary, and a Ph.D. from Emory University. He has served on several seminary faculties, including as an academic dean at Bethany Theological Seminary

Fr. Ron Rolheiser

A Roman Catholic priest and member of the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate, Fr. Rolheiser served as president of Oblate School of Theology in San Antonio, Texas for fifteen years before retiring from that position in September 2020. He remains a fulltime faculty member at OST.

Fr. Rolheiser is a theologian, professor, and award-winning author. Apart from his academic knowledge in systematic theology and philosophy, he has become a popular speaker in contemporary spirituality and religion and the secular world. He writes a weekly column that is carried in many newspapers around the world. He is a popular speaker in the areas of contemporary spirituality and religion and the secular world. For more information about Ron and his books visit his website at www.ronrolheiser.com.

Additional Speakers to be Announced!

Book your group rate room at a local partner hotel:

Drury Plaza Hotel San Antonio Airport | 2024 Summer Institute

For information or to register by phone, contact Victoria Rodriguez, Associate Registrar, at vrodriguez@ost.edu or (210) 341-1366 EXT 240.