This weekend, I was honored to be invited once again to return to the massive annual Religious Education Congress in the Archdiocese of Los Angeles to deliver a public lecture entitled “From Dust to Glory.” In it, I surveyed the narrative arc of salvation history and how God wants to take man who is but dust and raise him through grace to share in the divine life. The climax of the talk was a deep dive into the Church’s doctrine of theosis, or divinization, and what it means on the ground for our lives. In a word, my thesis–following the wider Catholic spiritual tradition–is that there is no theosis without kenosis, no glorification without sharing in the self-emptying love of Jesus Christ on the cross.
You can find my radio interview here at Ave Maria in the Afternoon’s Substack hub.
