Introduction

This lecture was given on April, 2 2022 at St. Albert the Great Priory as part of the intellectual retreat "To Be Human in the Presence of God: St. Thomas Aquinas and Desert Spirituality." For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website at www.thomisticinstitute.org. About the speaker: Fr. O’Donnell grew up in Syracuse, New York. After two years as a student at Providence College he entered the Order of Preachers in 1963 and was ordained a priest in 1970. In 1971 he earned an MA in Liturgical Studies from the University of Notre Dame and in 1980 earned an STD degree in the area of Liturgical Spiritual Theology from the Pontifical Faculty for Spirituality, the Teresianum, in Rome. He has previously taught at the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception, St. Charles Seminary in Philadelphia, PA and the Angelicum in Rome. In addition to teaching he currently serves as a vice-postulator for the cause for sainthood of Father Michael J. McGivney, the founder of the Knights of Columbus and as vice-postulator for the cause of Rose Hawthorne, founder of the Dominican Sisters of Hawthorne, NY. He previously survived as postulator for the cause of canonization of Father Paul of Graymoor, which has also been submitted to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints in Rome. With Robin Mass, Ph.D., Fr. O’Donnell is the author of Spiritual Traditions for the Contemporary Church and has contributed to A Love That Never Ends: A Key to the Catechism of the Catholic Church.