About Susan

SusanProfile4Welcome to my website!

I was raised as a Catholic, but I spent twenty years of my adult life practicing Buddhism (including being ordained as a Tibetan Buddhist nun) before returning to Catholicism in 2001.  Subsequent to my return, I trained as a spiritual director in the Ignatian tradition and then received training in retreat house ministry and joined the adjunct ministerial staff of St. Ignatius Retreat House  in New York (sadly, now closed).  I have continued to offer individual spiritual direction as well as giving retreats and other programs of spiritual formation in parishes and for other groups since my 2007 move to the Twin Cities.

I started blogging at Creo en Dios! in 2008.  In 2012 Oxford University Press published my first non-legal book, Growing in Love and Wisdom: Tibetan Buddhist Sources for Christian Meditation, and I have been spending a lot of time giving talks and other programs related to the book.  I hope to complete two book manuscripts on which I have worked in recent years, one about my conversion from Catholicism to Buddhism and back to Catholicism, and the other on the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius.

I have served a number of positions at the University of St. Thomas since arriving in the Twin Cities.  Having left my position as Director of the Office for Spirituality at the University of St. Thomas and given up my status as a tenured professor in the law school, I now serve as Distinguished Senior Fellow at the University of St. Thomas.  I am also an adjunct instructor in Theology at St. Catherine’s University, teaching course for their Masters in Theology program, and Co-Director of a Contemplative Practices initiative at St, Catherine’s, funded by a Lilly grant.  Academics love titles and I have a bunch of them; if you are interested in those or my various legal publications,  you can check out my St. Thomas faculty web page.

If you want to learn more about my spirituality, check out Mystic Mag’s interview of me on their blog here.

What else can I tell you about me?  I have a husband (Dave) and a married daughter (Elena) now pursuing her Doctor of Musical Arts in vocal performance.  I love hiking, poetry, and cooking.  I play the accordion.

Perhaps most important is this: my deepest desire is to fall each day ever more deeply in love with God, to live each moment out of the truth of my relationship with God, and to help others grow in their relationship with God.

Come along!

RSS Creo en Dios

  • What It Means to Heal November 16, 2023
    I am at Eastern Point Jesuit Retreat House this week on the retreat team for an Ignatian Colleagues Program retreat. Yesterday, I offered the reflection at our afternoon Mass, for which the Gospel was St. Luke’s account of Jesus’ healing of ten lepers. Following is a truncated version of my reflection:  More than the other […]
  • Happiness or Meaning? March 23, 2023
    I have often benefitted from the writing of Rabbi Jonathan Sacks. Although he is now deceased, I continue to receive excerpts of his writing from the Rabbi Sacks Legacy, which shares his teachings and writings. The piece that appeared in my inbox this morning was titled The Pursuit of Meaning. It began by referencing the […]

RSS Recent Podcasts

  • Walking With Jesus During Lent February 14, 2018
    Tonight was the opening session of the Lenten Ignatian Retreat at St. Thomas More.  After this initial large group meeting, small retreat groups will meet weekly, and participants will pray each day with materials we provide to them that are based on Weeks 2 and 3 of the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius. I gave […]
  • Women of the Bible: Rachel and Leah September 19, 2016
    Today was the second session of the Fall Reflection Series that Jennifer Wright and I are offering at the University of St. Thomas (on the Minneapolis campus) this year.  The theme for this five week series is Women of the Bible. In last week’s opening session, Jennifer spoke about Sarah and Hagar.  (You can find her talk […]
  • Women of the Bible: Sarah and Hagar September 15, 2016
    Monday was the first session of the Fall Reflection Series that Jennifer Wright and I are offering at the University of St. Thomas (on the Minneapolis campus) this year.  Our theme for the five week series is Women of the Bible. Monday I briefly introduced the series and Jennifer spoke our our first subjects: Sarah […]