The Satisfied Life

The Satisfied Life
Author: Jane Ellen McAvoy
Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers
Total Pages: 153
Release: 2009-07-01
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 1606087592

Christianity centers on the life and death of Jesus as Christ. Often Christians focus on the importance of Christ's Sacrifice as the means of human salvation, and the faithful are encouraged to imitate this suffering through self-sacrifice and self-denial. More than a few Christians, particularly women, have found such encouragement to self-sacrifice to be a means for continuing oppression--men over women, colonizers over the colonized, the powerful over the powerless. In The Satisfied Life, Jane McAvoy constructs a feminist theology of atonement--or satisfaction for sin--that draws on the insights of six medieval women mystics: Julian of Norwich, Mechthild of Magdeburg, Hildegard of Bingen, Margery Kempe, Hadewijch of Brabant, and Catherine of Siena. These Christian writers reveal alternatives to a theology of oppression. Salvation, for them, means experiencing the death and resurrection of Christ not as life-denying, but as a life-affirming celebration of God's love for us through the sustaining love of Jesus.

Gifted Origins to Graced Fulfillment

Gifted Origins to Graced Fulfillment
Author: Kerrie Hide
Publisher: Liturgical Press
Total Pages: 254
Release: 2001
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9780814650936

2002 Catholic Press Association Award Winner The classical expression of soteriology (salvation theology) has tended to spiritualize salvation and place it on a supernatural plane where it loses contact with the existential lives of people. In the face of this heritage, questions have risen from contemporary experience that challenge the Christian tradition. Does life have meaning? Is love at the core of all reality? In Gifted Origins to Graced Fulfillment, Kerrie Hide searches for responses to these questions. Hide examines the soteriology presented in the Revelations of Divine Love, composed by Julian of Norwich. She analyzes the understanding of salvation expressed in the Visions, or showings of Julian and expands previous theological inquiry into Julian's texts. After demonstrating how Julian's theology is a trinitarian theology of love, Hide addresses each aspect of Julian's soteriology within the framework of her trinitarian formula. The theological precis reveals that, for Julian, salvation is a process of oneing in a mystical, three-part journey from our origins with God to our ultimate return to God. Hide's analysis provides a hermeneutic for examining mystical literature theologically and demonstrates the important contribution mystical theology makes to the broader field of theology. She contributes a systematic study of Julian's understanding of salvation not undertaken previously. In Part One, Hide examines Julian's Visionary experience and her expression of the experience that led others to reflect on, record, and write about her texts. She also presents a hermeneutic for interpreting Julian's showings. Part Two presents Julian's soteriology as a trinitarian soteriology of oneing and explores how our life is in three stages. In Part Three, Hide delves into our gifted origins. She surveys Julian's creation theology and her anthropology. Part Four focuses on Christology. This section presents Christ's role in redemption through the cross, through his work as servant, and through his function as mother. Part Five inquires into graced endings. The chapters examine the present experience of graced fulfillment in the power of the Holy Spirit and the hope for fulfillment in the eschaton. Finally, in Part Six, Hide draws together Julian's understanding of salvation. She appraises the relevance of these teachings for today. Chapters are Julian of Norwich," *A Hermeneutic for Interpreting the Showings, - *Oneing Through the Trinity, - *Oneing in Being, - *Oneing Through the Crucifixion, - *Oneing Through the Servant, - *Oneing Through Christ, Deep Wisdom and Mother, - *Oneing Through the Holy Spirit, - *One ing in the Eschaton, - and *Julian's Spiritual Understanding.

Mysticism and Space

Mysticism and Space
Author: Carmel Bendon Davis
Publisher: CUA Press
Total Pages: 289
Release: 2008
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0813215226

"To understand both the theological and spatial parameters, Davis considers the mystical experience as being not only an exclusively "inner" apprehension but also an embodied one that takes place in what she designates as "mystical space." In conception mystical space is analogous to the literary figure of the mise en abyme, an impression of infinite regress that duplicates within all its layers the qualities of the larger, initiating structure without. Such a conception acknowledges that space has been widely conceptualized through the centuries, and it allows both medieval and contemporary theories of space to be employed in examining the mystics' lives and works".

Anchoritism in the Middle Ages

Anchoritism in the Middle Ages
Author: Catherine Innes-Parker
Publisher: University of Wales Press
Total Pages: 286
Release: 2013-04-30
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 178316039X

This volume explores medieval anchoritism (the life of a solitary religious recluse) from a variety of perspectives. The individual essays conceive anchoritism in broadly interpretive categories: challenging perceived notions of the very concept of anchoritic ‘rule’ and guidance; studying the interaction between language and linguistic forms; addressing the connection between anchoritism and other forms of solitude (particularly in European tales of sanctity); and exploring the influence of anchoritic literature on lay devotion. As a whole, the volume illuminates the richness and fluidity of anchoritic texts and contexts and shows how anchoritism pervaded the spirituality of the Middle Ages, for lay and religious alike. It moves through both space and time, ranging from the third century to the sixteenth, from England to the Continent and back.

Julian of Norwich and the Problem of Evil

Julian of Norwich and the Problem of Evil
Author: Richard Norton
Publisher: Lutterworth Press
Total Pages: 115
Release: 2023-10-26
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0718896165

Julian of Norwich's Revelations of Divine Love grapples with the same fundamental question that has vexed philosophers and theologians since the advent of monotheistic religion, and continues as a barrier to belief for many today. Namely, if God is so good, how can natural disaster, genocide, trauma - and my present suffering - occur? Historically, there have been two apparently very different approaches to the problem: the pastoral, or practical, on the one hand and the systematic on the other. However, Richard Norton suggests that these two lines of thought may not be as separate as they seem, and may indeed be dependent on one another for their cohesion. Drawing on Julian's medieval experience of personal and population-wide suffering, alongside that of more recent theologians such as Dorothy Solle and Jurgen Moltmann, Norton constructs a compassionate model of theodicy that can be of use to both pastoral and systematic theologians. Throughout, he remains sensitive to the raw atrocity of evil, while preserving a vision of God as the one who ensures that all shall be well.

The Shewings of Julian of Norwich

The Shewings of Julian of Norwich
Author: Georgia Ronan Crampton
Publisher: Medieval Institute Publications
Total Pages: 232
Release: 1994-09-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 1580444644

This fascinating first-person account of the visions experienced by the anchoress Julian of Norwich in May of 1373 is remarkable for its vivid prose and as an example both of early autobiographical writing in the vernacular and of a spiritual document. This practical edition includes a gloss, an introduction, notes, and a glossary, making it valuable to students of Middle English and medieval mysticism alike.

Revelations of Divine Love, Translated from British Library Additional MS 37790

Revelations of Divine Love, Translated from British Library Additional MS 37790
Author: Julian (of Norwich)
Publisher: DS Brewer
Total Pages: 108
Release: 1998
Genre: Literary Collections
ISBN: 9780859914536

The Revelations of Julian of Norwich (sixteen visions inspired by the crucified Christ which she received during a serious illness) are recorded in two versions: the short text, written near the time; and the better-known second version, completed some twenty years later. The short text has a personal quality which Julian chose, probably for reasons of modesty, to edit out in her later version, but it has a simplicity and natural grace which give a clear sense of Julian as a person, and has been chosen by Frances Beer as the basis of this translation. Also included is Julian's doctrine of the Motherhood of God, excerpted from the long text. The introduction covers Julian's life and places her in the larger context of the fourteenth-century English mystical tradition.

Apophasis and Pseudonymity in Dionysius the Areopagite

Apophasis and Pseudonymity in Dionysius the Areopagite
Author: Charles M. Stang
Publisher: Oxford University Press on Demand
Total Pages: 245
Release: 2012-02-09
Genre: Religion
ISBN: 0199640424

This book examines the writings of an early sixth-century Christian mystical theologian who wrote under the name of a convert of the apostle Paul, Dionysius the Areopagite, and argues that the pseudonym and the corresponding influence of Paul are the crucial lens through which to read this influential corpus.