Mid-Summer RetreatOur Franciscan Journey of Transformation - St. Francis of Assisi Parish
July 21, 22, 23
9:30 AM – 10:15 AM / 7:00 PM – 7:45 PM
Presented by
Fr. Garrett Galvin, OFM
President/Rector of Franciscan School of Theology
Day/Night 1: Our Call and Conversion
The most famous conversion story in the Bible is that of St. Paul. St. Francis of Assisi also has a famous conversion story. While St. Paul’s experience is very other worldly, St. Francis’ experience is very earthly and incarnational. Other saints such as Augustine were moved by visions and words, but St. Francis was moved by lepers and the marginalized. As opposed to the Beatific Vision that we hear so much about, St. Francis experienced the Beatific Embrace. St. Paul focuses us on the vertical and the one who called us (Gal 1:6), and St. Francis grounds that call in the horizontal and equality.
Day/Night 2: Christ’s Faith and our Salvation
In recent years a number of scholars have argued that we should focus more on the faith which Christ himself has rather than our faith in Christ. If we aren’t earning our salvation through “works” or earning it through our faith, what are we doing? We are going on a journey of conversion or restoration. This journey grounds us in the first chapter of Genesis and the Gospel of Luke. The Bible starts with a tradition of blessing, and this is how Jesus starts his ministry in Luke’s Gospel. Luke’s Gospel invites all of us to a joyful journey of discovering Jesus on the Way.
Day/Night 3: Ongoing Conversion
The way good people resist God by not believing in themselves. We are called to participate in something larger than ourselves. We need to be open and recognize that God is doing new things in the world with an American pope. In the Franciscan view, there is not an isolated, transcendent, utterly other oneness at the deepest depth of divinity; rather there is a spreading firstness and primal fruitfulness. We don’t believe the Gospels; we become the Gospels. As humans, we don’t face crises every day, but we are called to ongoing conversion and to live more deeply in God’s love than five years ago. Belief must shift from assent or trust to participation.
About the presenter:
Fr. Garrett Galvin, OFM, is the President/Rector of Franciscan School of Theology, the only freestanding Franciscan graduate theological school in North America dedicated to the Franciscan intellectual tradition. FST, an independent, accredited institution, is located on the campus of University of San Diego and enjoys a service and curricular affiliation with the USD.
Fr. Galvin earned his undergraduate degree from the University of California, Irvine. After graduation he joined the Franciscan Friars in 1992. He was ordained in 2000 and worked in parishes in San Francisco and Oceanside, Ca. for three years, primarily in Latino Ministry, before returning to studies.
After receiving his doctorate from the Catholic University of America, he began teaching full time at FST and the Graduate Theological Union in 2009, where he taught a variety of courses on the Old and New Testament as well as Hebrew.
In 2011 he published a book entitled Egypt as a Place of Refuge. He is also the author of David’s Successors: Kingship in the Old Testament (2016) as well as chapters in The Paulist Biblical Commentary (2018) and The Jerome Biblical Commentary for the Twenty-First Century (2022).
He has served as President of the Franciscan School of Theology at the University of San Diego since 2019.