My guest this week is Dr. Ilia Delio. We had a great conversation based around her fascinating new book, The Hours of the Universe: Reflections on God, Science, and the Human Journey (affiliate link). Ilia has such an interesting background as both a scientist and a theologian, and she’s integrating these disciplines in ways that can breathe new life into issues of both science and faith. As you’ll hear, this is much deeper than trying to “reconcile” science and religion. I loved this conversation and I know you’ll get a lot out of it.

Topics we discussed included:

• Ilia’s rich background
• The inspiring life of Trappist monk Thomas Merton, and books by/about him (affiliate links):
  • Monica’s Furlong biography of Merton
  • The Seven Storey Mountain
  • New Seeds of Contemplation
• The mystery of God of which my guest was enamored
• Integrating evolution and Christian faith by acknowledging the dynamism of God
• French Jesuit priest and scientist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
• The divine as the depth dimension of everything that exists
• God as Being itself
• Finding God at the core of who we are
• Discovering a place of at-homeness within ourselves
• The unique God dimension within each of us
• The essential practice of solitude and opening to the beauty all around us
• The priority of experience over ideas about the divine
• Mindful presence and availability
• Finding simplicity in a state of being and receptivity
• The danger in watering down the message of Jesus Christ
• Taking the material world seriously
• Recognizing the mutually affirming harmony of contrasts
• The lived experience of God in all of creation

Ilia Delio, OSF, PhD, is a Franciscan Sister of Washington, DC, and an American theologian. She specializes in the areas of science and religion, with interests in evolution, physics, and neuroscience and the import of these disciplines for theology.

Ilia currently holds the Josephine C. Connelly Endowed Chair in Theology at Villanova University, and is the author of twenty books including the award-winning Care for Creation (coauthored with Keith Warner and Pamela Woods) which won two Catholic Press Book Awards in 2009, first place for social concerns and second place in spirituality.

Her book The Emergent Christ won a third place Catholic Press Book Award in 2011 for the area of Science and Religion.

Her recent books include The Unbearable Wholeness of Being: God, Evolution and the Power of Love (affiliate link), which received the 2014 Silver Nautilus Book Award and a third place Catholic Press Association Award for Faith and Science.

Ilia holds two honorary doctorates, one from St. Francis University in 2015, and one from Sacred Heart University in 2020.

Find Ilia online at the Christogenesis website and on Twitter.