Upcoming Talk and Book Release Party with Jared Ortiz, Hope College professor and executive director of the Saint Benedict Institute
Dr. Jared Ortiz, who is a member of the Hope College religion faculty and executive director of the Saint Benedict Institute, will talk about his new book, “You Made Us for Yourself: Creation in St. Augustine’s Confessions,” on Thursday, Oct. 13, at 7 p.m. in the Maas Center auditorium at Hope.
The public is invited. Admission is free.
Ortiz’s lecture, “You Made Us for Yourself: Creation, Worship, and Human Destiny in St. Augustine,” will explore Augustine's rich understanding of creation as God's gift of a beautifully ordered cosmos which is in dynamic motion back toward Him and whose destiny is to be transfigured through Christian worship. It is being presented by the Saint Benedict Institute and co-sponsored by the college’s Center for Ministry Studies and Department of Religion.
Ortiz, who is an assistant professor of religion, joined the Hope faculty in 2012, the same year that he completed his doctorate at the Catholic University of America. He teaches Catholic studies and is co-founder and executive director of the Saint Benedict Institute, the Catholic spiritual and intellectual center that serves Hope College. Ortiz teaches courses on the Incarnation, church history, Catholic Christianity, theological hermeneutics and early Christianity. His scholarship focuses on early Christian theology, especially St. Augustine. He also has scholarly interest in liturgy and Latin patristic thought. Ortiz’s book “You Made Us for Yourself: Creation in St. Augustine’s Confessions” was published with Fortress Press in April 2016.
The Saint Benedict Institute is a ministry of St. Francis de Sales Catholic Church in Holland. It seeks to promote and nurture intellectual work done from the heart of the Catholic Church, to foster an ecumenical community of Catholic Christians and friends committed to the renewal of culture, and to aid in the formation of intellectually and spiritually mature Christians by making available the riches of the Catholic tradition to Hope College and the wider community. More information can be found at saintbenedictinstitute.org.
The Maas Center is located at 264 Columbia Ave., between 10th and 13th streets.