Fr. John Mark Solitario explores the transformative power of grace offered by Christ, emphasizing the perfection of charity and voluntary poverty as a means to participate in divine goodness and a sure path to eternal life.

This lecture was given on July 10th, 2024, at Theodore House at Stonyhurst.

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About the Speaker:

Fr. John Mark Solitario, O.P. is a coordinator for campus outreach at the Thomistic Institute. He met the nuns and friars of the Order of Preachers at the Dominican Monastery of the Mother of God in his hometown of West Springfield, MA. Their lives of Christian totality, marked by sacrifice, prayer, and preaching but above all, a supernatural goodness and joy, made a huge impact on him. After studying the liberal arts and philosophy at Christendom College and teaching high school theology as a member of Providence College’s PACT program, Father entered the Dominican novitiate in Cincinnati, OH, and went on for theological studies at the Dominican House of Studies. Following the solemn profession of religious vows, he was ordained a priest of Jesus Christ in 2019. Focusing on the Universal Call to Holiness in the theology of the Spanish Dominican Juan Arintero, Fr John Mark earned his licentiate in sacred theology in 2020. He is delighted to be working with students and professors as they seek to know better the truth about God and his creation through the patronage of St. Thomas Aquinas.

Keywords: Abandonment of Riches, Evangelical Poverty, Grace and Divine Goodness, Incarnation Theology, Material Detachment, Perfection of Charity, Saint Augustine’s Eighty-Three Questions, Saint Jerome’s Commentary on Matthew, Voluntary Poverty, Way of Perfection