Understanding Our Story

Understanding Our Story presents a concise introduction to the original, transformative thinking of Adrian van Kaam, CSSp, PhD (1920-2007). While many books are available on ""spiritual formation"" and ""Christian disciplines,"" no other author of our time has offered such a holistic and comprehensive explanation of Christian formation and its relationship to the human spirituality of all persons. Understanding our Story culls the most seminal ideas and vocabulary from van Kaam's eleven volumes on formation science, formation anthropology, and formation theology, and provides examples of his theoretical-practical research drawn from everyday life, Scripture, Christian writers, and van Kaam's life story itself. In doing so, it makes his extensive work available to scholars in the field of spiritual formation, and gives all readers the opportunity to utilize his insightful thinking to more fully understand the myriad ways in which God reforms and transforms lives into the image of Christ. In the pluritraditional world in which we live, where so many faith and formation traditions demand our attention, van Kaam's formative spirituality provides a means of respectful dialogue with formationally relevant truths from others and of wise appraisal of ideas that are (and are not) conducive to, and compatible with, the Christian revelation.


About the Author
Rebecca Letterman, PhD, is Associate Professor of Spiritual Formation at Northeastern Seminary in Rochester, New York, and is a frequent retreat leader for churches and various organizations in the Upstate New York region.

Susan Muto is a renowned speaker, author, teacher, and dean of the Epiphany Academy of Formative Spirituality. A single laywoman living her vocation in the world and doing full-time, church-related ministry as the executive director of Epiphany Association, Muto has led conferences, seminars, workshops, and institutes throughout the world.

Professor Muto received her PhD in English literature from the University of Pittsburgh, where she specialized in the work of post-Reformation spiritual writers. Beginning in 1966, she served in various administrative positions at the Institute of Formative Spirituality (IFS) at Duquesne University and taught as a full professor in its programs, edited its journals, and served as its director from 1981 to 1988. An expert in literature and spirituality, she continues to teach courses on an adjunct basis at many schools, seminaries, and centers of higher learning. She aims in her teaching to integrate the life of prayer and presence with professional ministry and in-depth formation in the home, the church, and the marketplace.

As the editor and co-author of many books by and with Rev. Adrian van Kaam, CSSp, PhD (1920-2007), as a frequent contributor to scholarly and popular journals, and as herself the author of over thirty books, she has achieved recognition as an excellent researcher and teacher in her field. In fact, her many books on formative reading of scripture and the masters are considered to be premiere introductions to the classical art and discipline of formative spirituality and its systematic, comprehensive formation science, anthropology, and theology. She lectures nationally and internationally on the treasured wisdom of the Judeo-Christian faith and formation tradition and on many foundational facets of living human and Christian values and virtues in today's world.

Professor Muto holds membership in numerous honorary organizations and has received many distinctions for her work, including a Doctor of Humanities degree from King's College in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. She was also one of four Catholic writers to be honored in 2009 with a lifetime achievement award by the Catholic Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania. She is the recipient of the 2014 Aggiornamento Award presented by the Parish and Community Library Services Section of the Catholic Library Association in recognition of an outstanding contribution made by an individual or an organization to the ministry of renewal modeled by Pope John XXIII (1881-1963). For more information on her life and ministry, go to www.epiphanyacademyofformativespirituality.org.