Academic Calendar 2015/2016 - Holy Women:Mystics, Saints & Visionaries

RLCT 3306  Holy Women:Mystics, Saints & Visionaries

Prerequisites:

Any 18 credits completed

Hours:

Three hours of lecture per week for one term.

Credits:

3

Description:

Spiritual women who have felt limited in their traditional roles within religious cultures have sometimes found a fuller religious experience in personal encounters with Divinity. To be outside of mainstream religious practice has afforded some women a more intensely spiritual life, which has focused on moral purification, holiness, intellectual study, discipline, meditation, prayer and solitude. The fruits of these efforts has brought these women unexpected revelations and visions, and conferred upon them the status of mystics, saints and visionaries, revered by men and women in monastic orders. This course will examine some of these holy women, focusing on the stories of their lives, their visions, their struggles and their contribution to spiritual direction and self-realization for women. This course may be credited towards Gender Equality and Social Justice.