Epiphany Association was co-founded in 1979 by Reverend Adrian van Kaam, C.S.Sp., Ph.D., (1920-2007) and Susan Muto, Ph.D. It is an organization dedicated to providing the formational and educational resources needed for the in-depth, ongoing spiritual renewal of life and world in the light of the Judeo-Christian faith and formation tradition.

The word "epiphany," from the Greek epiphania, means a radiant appearance or significant manifestation. In the Judeo-Christian tradition, it connotes any revelation or enlightening presence of God, disclosed to us through people, events, and things.

Epiphany Association, through its excellent publications, its teaching, consultation, and educational programs, its prodigious research efforts, specializes in formation anthropology and formation science, together with the systematic, comprehensive formation theology they serve. These interrelated, unique, and original fields were initiated and developed by Adrian van Kaam beginning in the Netherlands in the 1930's. The heart of the overall art and discipline of formative spirituality is the distinctively human or spiritual formation of our Christian character and personality rooted in those pathways of wise and balanced, moral and spiritual living to be found in Holy Scripture, in Church doctrine and in the literature of spirituality, particularly in the writings of the classical masters.

Formation theology teaches the application of that wisdom in our everyday life. It takes into account the "informational theology" of the Church and translates it into an experiential, formative process, focusing on how we live in the light of what we know and believe about God. It is the sincere aim, the lifelong work of the Epiphany Association, its co-founders, staff and associates, to dedicate themselves to be critical and creative, humble and obedient, in their systematic integration of the formative wisdom traditions of Christianity and humanity.

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Susan Muto, Ph.D.

Susan Muto, Ph.D., executive director of the Epiphany Association, and a native of Pittsburgh, is a renowned speaker, author, teacher, and Dean of the Epiphany Academy of Formative Spirituality. A single lay woman living her vocation in the world and doing full-time, church-related ministry in the Epiphany Association, she has led conferences, seminars, workshops, and institutes throughout the world.

Professor Muto received her Ph.D. 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. In faithfulness to the principles of the original European Epiphany approach, she addresses her teachings to the contemporary needs of laity, clergy, and religious.

As co-editor of Epiphany Connexions, Epiphany Inspirations (on-line), and Epiphany International, as a frequent contributor to scholarly and popular journals, and as herself the author and coauthor of over thirty books, Doctor Muto keeps up to date with the latest developments in her field. In fact, her many books on formative reading of Scripture and the masters are considered to be premier introductions to the basic, classical art and discipline of spiritual formation and its systematic, comprehensive, formation 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 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.

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Father Adrian van Kaam, C.S.Sp., Ph.D.

Father Adrian van Kaam, C.S.Sp., Ph.D., was the originator of formation science and its underlying formation anthropology. These new disciplines serve his systematic and systemic formation theology. Taken as a whole, all three fields comprise the art and discipline he named formative spirituality.

He inaugurated this unique approach in Holland in the 1940’s. Upon coming to the United States in 1954, he went to Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland where he received his doctorate in psychology. Shortly thereafter he became an American citizen.

From 1954 to 1963, he taught his original approach to psychology as a human science at Duquesne University. Then in 1963 he founded the Graduate Institute of Formative Spirituality, received the President’s Award for excellence in research, and taught there as a professor in this field until its closing in 1993. He is also the recipient of an honorary Doctor of Christian Letters degree from the Franciscan University of Steubenville, Ohio.

The author of numerous books on spiritual formation, an inspiration to many, a renowned speaker, a prolific poet, Father Adrian’s work enjoys worldwide recognition. Currently he serves as senior researcher and chaplain-in-residence of the Epiphany Academy of Formative Spirituality, which he co-founded with Doctor Susan Muto as part of their over-twenty-five year commitment to the Epiphany Association and its worldwide mission and ministry.

Father van Kaam was born April 19, 1920 in The Hague, Holland. He professed his vows August 29, 1940 at the Seminary in Gemert Netherlands and was ordained to the priesthood there on July 21, 1946. In 1954 after ministering in Holland for eight years, Father came to the United States and was appointed to the faculty in the Psychology Department of Duquesne University, where he received the President’s Award for Excellence in Teaching. In 1963 he founded what would become the graduate Institute of Formative Spirituality and remained a professor in this field until its closing in 1993. He was also the recipient of an honorary Doctor of Christian Letters degree from the Franciscan University of Steubenville and author and coauthor of many books in the fields of spiritual formation, religious education, and psychology as a human science. In 1979 he co-founded with Doctor Susan Muto the Epiphany Association which serves as a resource center dedicated to post-graduate study in the classical and contemporary field of formative spirituality. Father retired to Libermann Hall, Bethel Park in 2004. From 2005 until his death, he lived serenely under the skilled care of the Little Sister of the Poor on the North Side of Pittsburgh.

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Dear Friend,

Please accept this invitation to become a member of the Epiphany Association. Being a member of Epiphany means that you will share with like-minded others a vision of and a commitment to ongoing in-depth spiritual formation. As an Epiphany Associate, it is assumed that you will do all that you can in your circle of family members, friends, and colleagues, parishes and congregations to make the connection in heart, mind, and will between what you believe and how you live.

Associates are expected to practice their faith and to encourage others to do likewise by the quality of their presence to the Lord and by their love for spiritual reading and meditative reflection, prayer, and contemplation, silence, and action. Associates agree therefore, to study and to express in their day to day lives the basic truths of spiritual deepening taught by classical faith and formation traditions, and by the art and discipline of foundational formative spirituality.

• will guarantee your reception of Epiphany Connexions, the newsletter we publish to enhance our commitment to formative spirituality, to keep you up to date with the programs we sponsor and the formational opportunities available to you under the auspices of our Epiphany Center in Pittsburgh.
• will entitle you to receive a fifteen percent discount on all books, video and audio resources.
• will place you on our permanent mailing list to receive program brochures and other important mailings along with our Advent and Lenten “Letters of Reflection” and many other benefits.

In regard to our commitment to foster ongoing spiritual formation, Associates:

• will be asked to pray daily for their own and one another’s needs, utilizing, as often as possible, our Epiphany prayer:
  Thank you, Lord for this new day in which you call me to be an epiphany of your care and concern. Radiate your presence through me in my family, in my places of labor and leisure. Give me grace to meet you in the sacrament of every day ness. Let me share in the beauty of your hidden life in Nazareth. When I fail, let me experience in joy your forgiveness in which I am immersed always, everywhere. Teach me to turn obstacles and failure, benefits and successes into formation opportunities. Strengthen my commitment to be a manifestation of your love and tender mercy. Amen.

Further, Epiphany Associates:

• will be encouraged to talk about the need to grow in spiritual maturity in family and parish life and to celebrate in whatever way they can the founding purpose and vision of the Epiphany Association: to foster the spiritual formation of life and world for the sake of dedicating oneself more wholeheartedly to one’s familial, professional, and social commitments.
• will be eligible to attend a retreat every other year for all Associates to be held at a central location and to be conducted by informed and Christ-formed facilitators in the field of formative spirituality. These gatherings will be occasions for us to meet one another for the first time or to renew our friendship, to pray together, to share our faith, and to enjoy the grace of spiritual repletion.
• will be urged to share with interested others belonging to our denomination what the Epiphany mission and ministry mean in our own life; what a difference it has made in our understanding of graced formation, reformation, and transformation; in our sense of appreciation for spiritual ecumenism and the common concerns we have for the teaching of the Ten Commandments, the Beatitudes, the Lord’s Prayer, the evangelical counsels of obedience, poverty and chastity, the virtues of faith, hope, and charity, the gifts and fruits of the Holy Spirit.

Should you decide after a suitable time of prayer and appraisal to accept this invitation to become an Epiphany Associate, please call us toll free at 1-877-324-6873. An annual donation of $20 is requested.

Susan

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We are badly in need of boosting our endowment funds for the Epiphany Association over the next five years. We are seeking 50 people who can pledge $2,000 per year for that period. We call them in prayer our "Epiphany Angels." Might you be one of them? If so, please call us on our toll-free line: 877-324-6873. "Little Angel" donations of any amount are also deeply appreciated.

The official registration and financial information of the Epiphany Association may be obtained from the Pennsylvania Department of State by calling toll-free, within Pennsylvania, 1-800-732-0999. Registration does not imply endorsement.

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