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Associate Professor of Christian Spirituality
B.A., Stetson University; Ph.L., St. Michael's Institute, Gonzaga University
M.Div., S.T.M., and S.T.L., Jesuit School of Theology at Berkeley
Ph.D., Graduate Theological Union
Email: fmcaloon@jstb.edu
Phone: (510) 549-5031
Download a syllabus for the following courses:
About the Professor
... and dost thou touch me afresh?
Over again I feel thy finger and find thee.
--"The Wreck of the Deutschland"
I love teaching Christian spirituality and Hopkins because in the conjunction of prayer and poetry "there lives the dearest freshness deep down things" -- the encounter with self, the search for God's touch, the feeling that Christ finds me in all the imperfect particularities of my life, and therein invites, encourages, and challenges me to act justly, compassionately, faithfully. In Hopkins' words:
...the just man justices;
Keeps grace: that keeps all his goings graces;
Acts in God's eye what in God's eye he is -
Christ. For Christ plays in ten thousand places,
Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his
To the Father through the features of men's faces.
--"As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame"
Fr. McAloon joined the faculty in August 2003 from Santa Clara University. As Assistant Professor of Spirituality Fr. McAloon will teach courses such as "Varieties of Contemporary Christian Spirituality," "Ignatian Discernment," a MA/STL seminar entitled "The Academic Study of Christian Spirituality," and a course on Ignatian spirituality and hermeneutics entitled "Prayer, Poetry, and the Spirituality of Gerard Manley Hopkins."
Recent Publications
- "dost thou touch me afresh?": Transforming Prayer through the Poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins (Paulist Press, forthcoming).
- "Reading for Transformation through the Poetry of Gerard Manly Hopkins" (Spiritus: A Journal of Christian Spirituality, forthcoming).
- Forty Day Journey with Gerard Manley Hopkins (Augsburg Books, 2009).
- The Language of Poetry as a Form of Prayer: The Theo-Poetic Aesthetics of Gerard Manley Hopkins (Edwin Mellen Press, 2008).
- "Discourse, Dialogue, and Discovery in the Academic Study of Christian Spirituality." In Proceedings of the Sixty-first Annual Convention, 2006, The Catholic Theological Society of America, San Antonio, Texas, 108-109.
- "Praying with Hopkins" In Hopkins Variations: Standing round a Waterfall, edited by Joaquin Kuhn and Joseph J. Feeney. Philadelphia and New York: St. Joseph's University Press and Fordham University Press, 2002.
Recent Presentations
- "'touch me afresh?': Consolation, Desolation, and Conversion in Hopkins," The Dublin Conference, The Jesuit Centre, Milltown Park, Dublin, Ireland, October 2007.
- "Hopkins As Formator: Theological and Spiritual Formation at the Graduate Level through the Writings of Gerard Manley Hopkins," The Oxford Conference, Oriel College, Oxford University, England, September 2004.
- "A New Historicist Glance at Gerard Manley Hopkins," Gonzaga University, 2003.
- "Prayer, Poetry and Spiritual Transformation," paper delivered at Hopkins: the Rome Conference, The Gregorian University, Rome, Italy, October 2002. Posted at http://www.regis.edu/hopkinsrome.
- "Jesuit Spiritual Practices," Bannan Center for Jesuit Education, Santa Clara University, 2002.
- "All Shall Be Well: The Anchoritic Spirituality of Julian of Norwich," Santa Clara University Medieval and Renaissance Studies Program lecture series, 2002.
- "Poetry and Prayer, Reading for Transformation through the Poetry of Gerard Manley Hopkins," a paper delivered by special invitation to the annual meetings of the Society for the Study of Christian Spirituality and the American Academy of Religion, Denver, Colorado, November 2001.
- "Praying Hopkins: A Method for Exploring the Spiritually Transformative Potential with Hopkins' Poetics," Regis University, Denver, Colorado, 2001.
- "To Seem the Stranger: Prayer, Poetry, and Hopkins," International Gerard Manley Hopkins Society, 2000 Summer School, Monasterevin, Ireland.
Research Interests
Christian Spirituality, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Ignatian Spirituality, cultural poetics/new historicism, hermeneutics, prayer, and poetry
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