March 3, 2015
Senior to explore Gospel depictions of Jesus’ death
The Rev. Donald Senior, C.P., will present “Contemplating the Face of the Crucified Christ: Four Gospel Portraits” on Monday, March 16, as part of the Escobedo Saint John’s Bible Lecture Series at St. Mary’s University.
Senior is President Emeritus of Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, the largest Roman Catholic graduate school of ministry in the United States.
The event will be held at 7 p.m. in the University Center’s Conference Room A on campus. Volumes of The Saint John’s Bible will be on display, and a reception will follow.
The presentation will focus on the moment of Jesus’ death in each of the four Passion narratives. Each evangelist reflects on the death of Jesus and its meaning from a different vantage point. Savoring these differences helps us explore the profound theology of the four Gospels and the meaning of Jesus’ encounter with death.
Senior is a member of the Passionist Congregation and received his doctorate in New Testament studies from the University of Louvain in Belgium in 1972. He is the general editor of the acclaimed Catholic Study Bible. He’s also involved in interreligious dialogue, particularly with Jewish and Muslim communities.
He received the O’Connell-Douglass Award for contribution to interreligious and ecumenical harmony and the Gutenberg Award for biblical scholarship in 2013. Last year, he was awarded the Order of Lincoln Award – Illinois’ highest honor for public service. He currently serves as the President of the Council of Religious Leaders of Metropolitan Chicago. Pope John Paul II appointed him as a member of the Pontifical Biblical Commission in 2001, and he was reappointed in 2006 by Pope Benedict XVI.