Jayme Hennessy, STD, is professor emerita and adjunct professor of Salve Regina University. She holds a doctorate of sacred theology in moral theology from Weston Jesuit School of Theology (2008), a licentiate of sacred theology from Barrington College (2001), a master’s degree in religious studies from Providence College (1992), and a bachelor’s in church music from Barrington College (1976). Her scholarly work focuses on the intersection of aesthetics and ethics in moral and spiritual formation. While this research is rooted in the visual piety of the late medieval period, its patterns of meaning remain relevant for our own time as we consider the role of images and the imagination in religious life. She is currently collaborating on an interdisciplinary project that analyzes the intersection of mathematics and religious studies in analyzing the symbolization of beauty and infinity in the geometric patterns of the zellige tilings of Al-Andalus and Morocco.
We need images that bring the Annunciation into our world, to shape our perception to behold the “now” of the Incarnation, to see, to hear, and to respond to the call to bear mercy into the world.