Join together online with the global community in prayer for peace in Ukraine. Wednesdays at 12 p.m. EST (UTC -5)

Beyond the Binary: Expanding Understandings of the Imago Dei

Heart created by chalk dust in rainbow colors

ON-DEMAND WEBINAR
Beyond the Binary: Expanding Understandings of the Imago Dei
with Jane Aseltyne, IHM, MA

To be made in the image of God, the imago Dei, is a core belief in the Christian tradition. We believe that the image resides in all of us and reveals a God who created us out of gratuitous love. While we rightly hold this belief firmly, questions arise regarding our understanding of this central teaching. What exactly does it mean to be made in God’s image and likeness? Who defines it? Is anyone excluded from bearing the image of God?

In this webinar, Jane Aseltyne, IHM, MA, explores these questions through an LGBTQ+ lens, centering the experience of a community that has historically (and currently) been relegated to the margins of the Church and society. She challenges us to think more expansively about what it means to be bearers of God’s image, with an eye toward justice and inclusion.

Jane Aseltyne, IHM, MA

Jane Aseltyne, IHM, MA, recently earned her Master of Arts in Theology at Catholic Theological Union. Her studies focused on systematic theology and spirituality, which opened up doors to studying and researching in the area of queer theology. Her thesis sought to develop a more inclusive understanding of what it means to be made in the image and likeness of God, particularly concerning gender and sexual orientation. She supports the LGBTQ+ community through New Ways Ministry and her parish, St. James on Wabash in Chicago, where she co-leads her parish’s LGBTQ+ support group. Her writing has appeared in Global Sisters Report, the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) Occasional Papers, Human Development Magazine, New Ways Ministry, and the faith-based blog, Wisdom’s Dwelling. Past experience includes communications work with the online ministry A Nun’s Life Ministry and work with disenfranchised populations, including teenagers and the elderly. She currently serves at Bethany House of Hospitality, working with women seeking asylum in the United States. Follow her on Instagram.

heart photo credit: Alexander Grey on Unsplash

Registration

Name
Email
May we send you occasional emails to update you on upcomng webinars and other news from the Margaret Brennan Institute?

Stay in Touch

Sign up for more information about the Margaret Brennan Institute, including upcoming webinars.

Prayer for me, then, has been an entering into my own heart and experience and finding its meaning in the experience of Jesus and of his Mother who is the perfect Christian and faith-filled believer.

Margaret Brennan, IHM, in New Catholic World (Jan/Feb 1977, p. 21)

The experience of God and ways of knowing the holy are the same as our mode of knowing all other things. And that mode is sensuality.

Margaret Brennan, IHM, in Compass: A Jesuit Journal (Sept/Oct 1994, p. 18)

You never come to the bottom, do you? How do you come to the bottom of coming to know God? God is so big that you just come to know different things about God all the time. As you learn more about the world you learn more about God.

Margaret Brennan, IHM, in a voice recording on September 15, 2015

To resist evil and violence both within and outside us is to acknowledge ourselves as purposeful agents of salvation, and of responsibility, to ourselves and others, capable of moral discernment, courage, creativity and solidarity.

Margaret Brennan, IHM, in What Was There For Me Once: A Memoir (2009, p. 79)

Spirituality is what our faith looks like in everyday life. Spirituality is about getting to the bottom of our restlessness. It is here that God comes. It is here where God is.

Margaret Brennan, IHM (Presentation at the Summer Pastoral Theological Institute at St. John Center for Youth and Family in Plymouth, Mich., on Aug. 12, 1999)

Spirituality is the capacity to live deeply in the concrete, creative order of things even as we stretch through and beyond them.

Margaret Brennan, IHM, in Compass: A Jesuit Journal (Sept/Oct 1994, p. 19)

When both our light and our darkness are integrated then our inner and outer lives are integrated. Losing ourselves and then finding ourselves again is the pattern of our journey through life.

Margaret Brennan, IHM, at St. Paul’s Retreat Center (May 11, 2009)

Prayer is … the challenge to find Jesus, to respond to him, to rejoice in his goodness, and mercy, and tender love … in the encounters of every day and in the challenging, often ambiguous signs of our times.

Margaret Brennan, IHM, in New Catholic World (Jan/Feb 1977, p. 21)

I grew into a great love of the Church as the Mystical Body of Christ and of the liturgy, through which the life of the Church is most deeply expressed.

Margaret Brennan, IHM, in What Was There For Me Once: A Memoir (2009, p. 45)

Support the Margaret Brennan Institute

Donate Now