Barbara Nicolosi Harrington, PhD
Barbara Nicolosi Harrington is an award-winning writer, commercial screenwriter, internationally known public speaker and communications consultant with significant experience in the non-profit sector. She has served as a university professor of screenwriting, cinema, Great Books and theology. Currently, she is director of worship for Saint Stephen Martyr Catholic Church in Chesapeake, Virginia in the United States of America.
In a tradition that dates back to the first centuries of Christianity, many newly initiated Christians were prepared for lives of faith through a formation with spiritual, liturgical, and communitarian dimensions. This period of formation was called mystagogy, a word which, in Greek, means “leading through the mysteries.”
Our program of mystagogy will have four primary goals:
1) To break open Magisterial teaching on the lay state (selections from Vatican II as well as letters/encyclicals from recent popes) as well as classic spiritual texts to build a thoughtful, practical devotional life;
2) To introduce the various spiritual charisms in the Church (i.e. Dominican, Carmelite, Franciscan, Salesian, etc.) so that they may develop a personal program of spirituality rooted in the uniquely Catholic legacy;
3) To deepen the prayer life through study, communal prayer, the practice of meditation, Mass, and the Liturgy of the Hours; and
4) To establish a fully Catholic life and mission, including a formation in the art of the Church, the corporal and spiritual works of mercy, and the commitment to a specific personal work of service.
