REL 305: Mysticism (Dr. Halman): Find Books

A new English-language resource on Clare and the Poor Ladies of San Damiano. Alberzoni provides a careful, contextual reading of the sources surrounding the foundation of the group living with Clare in the decades of change after the death of Francis.

Drawing upon the writings of medieval women, this book distinguishes the historical figure of Clare of Assisi from the uses made of her spiritual legacy in debates over the role of women in the Franciscan Order in later medieval Italy.

In this authoritative and engaging new biography, Augustine Thompson, O.P., sifts through the surviving evidence for the life of Francis using modern historical methods. The result is a complex yet sympathetic portrait of the man and the saint. Francis emerges from this account as very much a typical thirteenth-century Italian layman, but one who, when faced with unexpected crises in his personal life, made decisions so radical that they challenge his own society--and ours. Unlike the saint of legend, this Francis never had a unique divine inspiration to provide him with rules for following the teachings of Jesus. Rather, he spent his life reacting to unexpected challenges, before which he often found himself unprepared and uncertain. The Francis who emerges here is both more complex and more conflicted than that of older biographies.

This book combines the latest scholarship and the most current English translation of the Early
Documents with the author's own translation of the writings of Francis in offering this new edition of First Encounter with Francis of Assisi. This relatively brief text is an excellent introduction to Francis and the world in which he lived.

In his fairly short life - he lived from 1181 or 1182 to 1226 - Francis of Assisi wrote relatively little, but he taught, preached and lived so influentially, so charismatically, that his voice still speaks to us across the centuries. His Canticle of Brother Sun has been paid little attention by literary critics, despite being one of the first known works of literature in the Italian language. Bringing the skills of a literary historian to the subject, Brian Moloney comments on the canticle line-by-line and considers its genesis to reveal it as a carefully composed work of art, rather than as a spontaneous effusion of feeling.

In September, 1219, as the armies of the Fifth Crusade besieged the Egyptian city of Damietta, Francis of Assisi went to Egypt to preach to Sultan al-Malik al-Kamil. Although we in fact know very little about this event, this has not prevented artists and writers from the thirteenth century to the twentieth, unencumbered by mere facts, from portraying Francis alternatively as a new apostle preaching to the infidels, a scholastic theologian proving the truth of Christianity, a champion of the crusading ideal, a naive and quixotic wanderer, a crazed religious fanatic, or a medieval Gandhi preaching peace, love, and understanding. Al-Kamil, on the other hand, is variously presented as an enlightened pagan monarch hungry for evangelical teaching, a cruel oriental despot, or a worldly libertine. Saint Francis and the Sultan takes a detailed look at these richly varied artistic responses to this brief but highly symbolic meeting. Throwing into relief the changing fears and hopes that Muslim-Christian encounters have inspired in European artists and writers in the centuries since, it gives a uniquely broad but precise vision of the evolution of Western attitudes towards Islam and the Arab world over the last eight hundred years.

Dr Peter Tyler presents a penetrating analysis of the life, work and context of St Teresa of Avila - this most popular and influential of all saints. To coincide with her anniversary year in 2015 he presents an accessible volume on the saint including the background to her life and times, her mystical theology, instructions on prayer and relevance for today.The book consists of three parts - the context of Teresa's life; an examination of the texts themselves and finally an exploration of Teresa's relevance to our 'postmodern world' including chapters on Teresa and psychology, mindfulness, meditation and personal development. This book is a major contribution to Teresian scholarship and a welcome addition to her anniversary celebrations.

The Spanish mystic Teresa of Avila (1515-82), author of one of the most acclaimed early modern autobiographies ( Vida , 1565), has generated a wealth of literary, historical and theological studies, yet none to date has examined the impact of textual models on Teresa's self-construction. In looking at the issue of the self, Carrera draws on revisions of the hermeneutic process (Ricoeur) and on analyses of the connections between discourse, power and the subject (Foucault), and applies a valuable historical perspective. Through a close reading of contemporary Spanish devotional books and confessors' manuals, she establishes important connections between Teresa's autobiography and the practices of meditative reading and sacramental confession in sixteenth-century Spain.

The disunity of the church is a social and theological scandal for it betrays the prayer of Jesus that we 'will be one . . . so that the world will believe' (John 17:21). As a Baptist whose academic background focused on the Orthodox Church and whose teaching has included Catholic and Protestant contexts, this division is for Elizabeth Newman personal and professional. Attending to the Wounds on Christ's Body rests on the conviction that the broad tradition of Christianity already contains resources to heal the church, namely the saints of the church. Newman examines especially how Teresa of Avila (1515-1582) speaks to the whole church today in the midst of political, economic, and ecclesial brokenness. Teresa's reliance upon three scriptural figures -- dwellings, marriage, and pilgrimage-- helps make sense of an ecclesial way of life that is inherently unitive, a unity that stands in contrast to that of the nation-state or the global market. Teresa's scriptural journey offers an alternative at once liturgical, political, and economic. This Doctor of the Church provides "medicine" that can repair wounds of division that separate brothers and sisters in Christ.

This is a passionate book about a gifted woman. It is written from a psychological viewpoint using the developmental point of view of a number of contemporary developmental psychologists, both men and women. It is a critique of contemporary American shallowness and is an apologia for a feminist ethic and a feminist sense of prayer in a world dominated by competition, abstraction, and unthinking labor.

This book explores how identities emerge, persist and change and which power resources are tapped in the course of this process -- topics that are of great importance in academic and popular debates today. The thrust of this collection of papers from experts in various fields is two-sided, cutting against both the post-modern view of identity as merely a shifting assemblage of images and categories marketed through the media and the view of identity as something fixed and rooted in primordial authenticity. The contributors illustrate the dynamics of identification as performance and narrative, as power and meaning, and as an interplay between self and other, difference and similarity.

Grazia Mangano Ragazzi offers an in-depth examination of the concept of discretion in the spiritual writings of Saint Catherine of Siena (1347-1380), who is honored as one of the few female ''Doctors'' of the Catholic Church and who in 2000 was named a co-patroness of Europe by Pope John PaulII. Despite her illiteracy, which necessitated that she dictate to a scribe, Catherine is revered for her writings, which reveal spiritual reflection of remarkable depth. At the same time she is an inspiring example of one who remained active in the political and ecclesiastical life of her timewithout sacrificing an intense contemplative life. This book investigates the concept of "discretion," to which Catherine dedicates chapters IX to XI of her Dialogue and letter 213. Discretion, Ragazzi argues, is a helpful tool for interpreting the whole edifice of Catherine's spirituality.

In Christianity, the body is a potentially transformative vehicle, and the writings of Hadewijch of Brabant, a thirteenth-century beguine, engage with this tradition in ways both singular to her mysticism and indicative of her theological milieu. This study links the embodied poetics of Hadewijch s visions and letters to the work of such mystics and visionaries as Julian of Norwich, Hildegard of Bingen, and Marguerite of Oingt. It introduces new criteria for re-assessing the style, language, interpretative practices, forms of literacy, and uses of textuality in women s mystical texts.

A volume of essays exploring the phenomenon of anchoritic enclosure in the Middle Ages and its effect on established religious communities and the laity.

"The women mystics of medieval Europe represent the very first feminine voices heard in a world where women were nearly silent. Monica Furlong presents writings by and about eleven of these Christian mystics who lived and worked between the eleventh and fourteenth centuries."

This text revives the works of five powerful mystics of the Middle Ages and provides a valuable inspirational resource for all spiritual seekers.

The European Middle Ages bequeathed to the world a legacy of spiritual and intellectual brilliance that has shaped many of the ideals, preconceptions, and institutions we now take for granted. An Introduction to the Medieval Mystics of Europe examines this phenomenon in vivid and scholarly accounts of the lives and achievements of those men and women whose genius most inspired their own and subsequent ages. These great mystics explored and consciously realized the relationship between human life and unconditioned transcendence. Representing both the contemplative and scholastic traditions, the mystics in these studies often found their solutions to ultimate questions in radically different ways.

Opening a window onto a long-neglected world of women's experience, this text features eleven essays that examine the writings of medieval women mystics from England, France, Germany, Italy, and the Low Countries, providing close readings of a number of important texts from the viewpoint of different literary theories.

Bernard McGinn's The Presence of God series is one of the most respected histories of Christian mysticism in print today. In this new book, Bernard and Patricia McGinn draw from the series to take a closer, personal look at the mystical vision of 12 great spiritual masters living before the Reformation. What were the deep insights of these early mystics? How can we apply their wisdom to our lives today? Chapters include Hildegard of Bingen on cosmic vision, John Cassian on prayer and purity of heart, and Bernard of Clairvaux on spousal love.

The religious communities of early modern Eastern Europe particularly those with a mystical bent are typically studied in isolation. Yet the heavy Slavic imprint on Jewish popular mysticism and pervasive Judaizing tendencies among Christian dissenters call into question the presumed binary quality of Jewish-Christian interactions. Editor Glenn Dynner presents twelve essays that chart contacts, parallels, and mutual influences between Jewish and Christian mystics. With cutting-edge research on folk healers, messianists, Hasidim, and Christian sectarians, this volume presents instances of rich cultural interchange and bold border transgression.

This distinctive comparison of Islamic and Christian mysticism focuses on the mystic journey in the two faith traditions - the journey which every believer must make and which leads to the Divine.The author clears away misconceptions and highlights similarities and differences in the thought and lives of six key mystics: Al-Kalabadhi, Al-Daylami, Al-Qushayri, Julian of Norwich, Thomas a Kempis and Teresa of Avila. He considers the ways of Perfection on the Mystic Path and asksin what ways these authors have embarked on the mystic journey. He looks at the themes they have in common, as well as their differences, and asks how they envisage the concept of 'union' with the Deity.

The Middle Ages saw a flourishing of mysticism that was astonishing for its richness and distinctiveness. The medieval period was unlike any other period of Christianity in producing people who frequently claimed visions of Christ and Mary, uttered prophecies, gave voice to ecstatic experiences, recited poems and songs said to emanate directly from God and changed their ways of life as a result of these special revelations. Many recipients of these alleged divine gifts were women. Yet the female contribution to western Europe's intellectual and religious development is still not well understood. Popular or lay religion has been overshadowed by academic theology, which was predominantly the theology of men. This timely book rectifies the neglect by examining a number of women whose lives exemplify traditions which were central to medieval theology but whose contributions have tended to be dismissed as "merely spiritual" by contemporary scholars.