scholarly journals “O Sweet Cautery”: John of the Cross and the Healing of the Natural World

Horizons ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 308-331
Author(s):  
Mary Frohlich
Keyword(s):  
Human Person ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Divine Love ◽  
Presence Of God ◽  
Full Capacity ◽  
The Cross ◽  
John Of The Cross ◽  
The Web ◽  
Lengthy Process ◽  
The Way

Contrary to what may appear in a superficial understanding of his spirituality, John of the Cross strongly affirms the goodness of creation and its capacity to mediate the presence of God. He specifically identifies the web of mutual interactions among creatures as a primary manifestation of divine love, and he affirms that the more a person participates in God, the more he or she participates fully and joyfully in this community of creatures. Activation of creation's full capacity to mediate divinity, however, depends on the full fruition of the human person in God. Experientially, this involves a lengthy process of a back-and-forth rhythm between the glimpse of God in creation and the complete renunciation of dependence on creaturely knowledge in favor of faith. John's writings invite us to participate in the healing of the natural world by pursuing this contemplative rhythm all the way to its fruitional climax.

Savoring God

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gloria Maité Hernández
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Oral Tradition ◽  
Divine Love ◽  
Central Moments ◽  
Presence Of God ◽  
The Cross ◽  
John Of The Cross ◽  
The Relationship

This book compares two mystical works central to the Christian Discalced Carmelite and the Hindu Bhakti traditions: the sixteenth-century Spanish Cántico espiritual (Spiritual Canticle), by John of the Cross, and the Sanskrit Rāsa Līlā, originated in the oral tradition. These texts are examined alongside theological commentaries: for the Cántico, the Comentarios written by John of the Cross on his own poem; for Rāsa Līlā, the foundational commentary by Srīdhara Swāmi along with commentaries by the sixteenth-century theologian Jīva Goswāmī, from the Gauḍīya Vaiṣṇava school, and other Gauḍīya theologians. The phrase “savoring God” in the title conveys the Spanish gustar a Dios (to savor God) and the Sanskrit madhura bhakti rasa (the sweet savor of divine love). While “savoring” does not mean exactly the same thing for these theologians, they use the term to define a theopoetics at work in their respective traditions. The book’s methodology transposes their notions of “savoring” to advance a comparative theopoetics grounded in the interaction of poetry and theology. The first chapter explains in detail how theopoetics is regarded considering each text and how they are compared. The comparison is then laid out across Chapters 2, 3, and 4, each of which examines one of the three central moments of the theopoetic experience of savoring that is represented in the Cántico and Rāsa Līlā: the absence and presence of God, the relationship between embodiment and savoring, and the fulfillment of the encounter between the divine and the lovers.

Edith Stein: Her empathic theology of the human person

2017 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 20-41
Author(s):  
Eric McClellan
Keyword(s):  
Human Person ◽  
Edith Stein ◽  
Mystical Union ◽  
Untimely Death ◽  
Phenomenological Philosophy ◽  
Triune God ◽  
The Cross ◽  
John Of The Cross

Because of her untimely death Edith Stein does not directly articulate a coherent theology of the human person. Nevertheless, can a coherent theology of the human person be discerned in her work? This article argues yes. Given this answer, what coheres this theology gleaned from her diverse work? It is argued that the answer is Stein’s phenomenological philosophy of empathy. To explain these conclusions Stein’s philosophy of empathy is first considered followed by reflections on biblical and contemporary exemplars of empathy who interested Stein. It is contended that Stein’s theory of empathy elucidates her exegesis of the kenotic mystical path of St John of the Cross. The hallmark of mystical union is the experience of divine bliss. Mystical bliss is ephemeral and not an end in itself but a transformation leaving the mystic with an enduring sense of joy. According to Stein empathic union with the triune God hypostatically frees the mystic to vicariously experience the suffering of Christ and through Christ the suffering of all humanity. In the manner of Christ, the fulfilled mystic voluntarily undertakes a selfless life dedicated to the expiatory suffering of other persons irrespective of who they are and what they have done. Such a life is both personally and cosmically salvic.

scholarly journals An Illustration to Ælfric’s De temporibus anni in Ælfwine’s Prayerbook

2020 ◽  
Vol 138 (2) ◽  
pp. 234-258
Author(s):  
Loredana Teresi
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Present Form ◽  
Close Connection ◽  
British Library ◽  
Present Essay ◽  
The Cross ◽  
The Way

AbstractThe present essay discusses a diagram found in London, British Library, Cotton Titus D.xxvii+xxvi, the so-called Ælfwine’s Prayerbook. The diagram, which appears on fol. 21 v (see Figure 1), has been interpreted by most scholars as an incomplete tidal rota or an incomplete wind rota (as it contains only 4 out of the canonical 12 winds). A detailed, comparative analysis of the features of the diagram, however, proves that the hypothesis of the tidal rota must be discarded in favour of that of the wind diagram. Moreover, an analysis of the manuscript contents and of the way in which the manuscript was written reveals a close connection between the diagram and Ælfric’s De temporibus anni, showing that the diagram is complete in its present form, and was inspired by the Ælfrician text. My study shows that the rota constitutes an illustration to the discussion of the winds appearing in the De temporibus anni and, at the same time, a representation of the Cross and of the close connection between God and the natural world, perfectly integrated within Ælfwine’s interests and architectural plans, as well as within the “visual-exegetical method” (Kühnel 2003) of the period.

scholarly journals Liturgy and Apophaticism

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (9) ◽  
pp. 721
Author(s):  
Nicolae Turcan
Keyword(s):  
Language Game ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Kingdom Of God ◽  
Presence Of God ◽  
Apophatic Theology ◽  
Orthodox Theology ◽  
Way Of Thinking ◽  
Present Text ◽  
The Way

The Orthodox liturgy is a religious phenomenon that can be analyzed phenomenologically and theologically alike, given the emphasis that both phenomenology and Orthodox theology place on experience. By proposing the Kingdom of God instead of the natural world without being able to annihilate the latter in the name of the former, the liturgy seeks divine-human communion. Through the dialogue of prayer, through symbolic and iconic openings, as well as through apophatic theology, the liturgy emphasizes the horizon of mystery as a horizon essential to the way man positions himself before God. The present text attempts to demonstrate that apophaticism, understood as an experience of the mysterious presence of God, is one of the crucial dimensions of the Orthodox liturgy; and that this apophatic presence of God reveals a way of thinking which does not become onto-theology, not even when using concepts borrowed from metaphysics. The overcoming of onto-theology is achieved here not by abandoning concepts such as “being” and “cause” but by placing the language game in the field of prayer and apophatic theology.

scholarly journals Sublime Communion and the Costs of Evolution

2018 ◽  
Vol 84 (1) ◽  
pp. 22-38
Author(s):  
Denis Edwards
Keyword(s):  
Natural World ◽  
Pope Francis ◽  
Important Resource ◽  
What Is Said ◽  
The Sublime ◽  
The Cross ◽  
Mystical Theology ◽  
John Of The Cross ◽  
Theological Understanding

Both the crisis of life on our planet and major developments in the sciences demand a rethinking of the theological understanding of the human in relationship to the rest of the natural world. Since Pope Francis’s theology of sublime communion provides an important resource for this work, the first section of the article analyses what is said of this communion in Laudato Si’. In the second section, a critical theological issue is raised, one not dealt with in the encyclical, concerning the costs of evolution: the pain, predation, violence, death, and extinction built into the natural world. In the last two sections, it is proposed that the word sublime that Pope Francis uses is capable of embracing the harsh side of creation, through a brief survey of the distinction between beauty and the sublime in philosophical aesthetics, and then through an exploration of the use of the word sublime in the mystical theology of John of the Cross.

scholarly journals Różne stany doskonałości. Proboszcz z Ambricourt według Bernanosa i Bressona

2019 ◽  
Vol 40 ◽  
pp. 165-173
Author(s):  
Maciej Gorczyński
Keyword(s):  
Film Studies ◽  
Literary Studies ◽  
Dark Night ◽  
Saint John ◽  
The Senses ◽  
The Cross ◽  
John Of The Cross ◽  
The Way

Different state of perfectness. The priest from Ambricourt according to Bernanos and BressonIn the paper the author draws a comparison between Georges Bernanosʼ Journal d’un curé de campagne The diary of a country priest, and Robert Bresson’s adaptation of the book. The aim of the comparison is to show, how different artistic principles affected the way the holiness is presented. The author claims that it is not actually holiness, but a peculiar state, which Saint John of the Cross called Dark Night of the Senses. The paper represents fields of literary studies, and film studies.

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