Mission Statement

The mission of the Epiphany Academy of Formative Spirituality is to pursue Christian excellence in the working places of family, community, society, and Church throughout the world. To fulfill this ecumenical aim, we rely on the grace of God, who guides our lives and whose Spirit inspires our research, publication, teaching, and consultation. Our goal is to witness to a world, often depleted of a sense of the sacred, a way to seek and find the epiphany of God's presence in our personal, ecclesial, and social lives.

Displayed on the donor wall inside the multipurpose room of the Academy is the following mission statement that informs and inspires all who enter our doors:

From 1979 until now Epiphany Association has met the needs of parents, pastors, teachers, counselors, chaplains, and directors in pursuit of a deeper understanding of the spiritual life in accordance with the wisdom of their faith and formation traditions. Content to follow the dictates of the hidden life, we have instead been invited by God to the forefront of the 21st century’s concern for the meaning of life—beyond mere functionalism to family values, beyond selfism to social concerns, beyond routine religiosity to renewed fervor for and fidelity to the Church.

Epiphany aims to foster the graced formation, reformation, and transformation of laity, clergy, and religious:

By developing and communicating a biblically and spiritually grounded approach to everyday life, its sorrows and joys, its obstacles and opportunities.
By preparing associates through the religious and educational resources we develop to exemplify the Epiphany vision and mission among people of their own and other faith groupings and in the community, city, state, and nation where God places them under whatever circumstances.
By encouraging ourselves and all those entrusted to our care to grow daily in loving commitment to the Mystery in an atmosphere of prayerful reflection and committed concern.
By dedicating our gifts and talents to the betterment of our world and to the personal, familial, occupational, and professional spheres of service for which we are responsible.
By making every epiphany session, wherever it is held, a spiritual oasis in which associates and friends can replenish themselves for the sake of recommitting themselves to the apostolic, charitable, and social enterprises to which God leads them in their respective worship sites, services, and communities.
By supporting both materially and spiritually, insofar as this is possible, the establishment of formative and informative programs and projects for persons interested in studying formation science as well as the articulation of this science in the literature and theology of their respective faith traditions.
By keeping open channels of interfaith and cooperation under the graced guidance and authority of each associates’ own faith community.

In summary, we are an international organization whose prototype began in the 1940's in the Netherlands with Father Adrian and a circle of friends committed to all facets of faith formation.

Epiphany is ecumenical in the deepest sense, promoting in a respectful climate of prayer and study, a spiritual ecumenism helpful to the always ongoing formation of all believers in fidelity to their own faith traditions.

Our purpose is to unfold slowly, methodically, and consistently a basic, universal, and classical approach to the process of Spirit-guided formation, reformation, and graced transformation, in accordance with our unique-communal life call in Trinitarian love.

Our specialty focuses on a systematic, solidly rooted presentation through books, articles, audio, and video resources of a universally relevant, truly classical science, anthropology, and theology of spiritual formation titled formative spirituality.

We research, teach, and publish these findings under the auspices of our Epiphany Academy of Formative Spirituality through pre- and post-graduate level courses, seminars, and training sessions offered in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and through our joint-ventures with the Saint Vincent/Seton Cove Spirituality Center in Indianapolis, Indiana, and All Hallows College in Dublin, Ireland.