Sanctity in Other Words


Book Description

This is the first in a new series of 'presentations for beginners' by one of the world's most distinguished writers on the spiritual life. It treats briefly, succinctly, essentially - with that activity which should be the cheif concern of all of us. It tells what sanctity is and is not, how to and how not to go about it.




The Crown of Sanctity


Book Description

2,000 years ago, the Son of God prayed to His Father, “Thy Will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven.” This prayer, the greatest ever uttered by the lips of man, will not go unanswered. Jesus has revealed to an Italian mystic named Luisa that the time has now at last arrived for its fulfillment; that is, for the restoration of what was destroyed by Adam 6,000 years ago in the Fall of Man. In brief: the entire world is about to be radically transformed like never before in its history. This is probably something you should know about. This book has been written to inform you about the transformation and to enable you to take part in it and hasten it. But this transformation will not be achieved through human effort. It will be given directly from Heaven by way of God's greatest Gift: the Gift of Living in the Divine Will, which is the Crown of Sanctity, and which even now we must all strive to receive. In this sanctity is found The Culmination of Deification, the Fruitfulness of Mystical Marriage, the Aspiration of the Unification of Wills, and the Essence of Marian Consecration. This is none other than the Triumph of the Immaculate Heart of Mary promised at Fatima. It is the coming of the Kingdom of God. This is a long book, but its length should turn away no one, as a thorough and detailed table of contents is given so that each reader can easily select only those sections in which he is interested for his perusal. And any reader is sure to find much that interests him. Within these pages is a treasury of resources; not only concerning Luisa's revelations directly, but also on new arguments for God's existence and the truth of Christianity, extensive Catechesis on Private Revelation in general and on the spiritual life in general (including overviews of the greatest teachings on spirituality in the history of the Church), and details on the Era of Peace as revealed to Luisa and many other mystics, visionaries, and seers (Fatima, Medjugorje, Venerable Conchita, Fr. Gobbi, and dozens more). You will not regret reading this book. This is our great hope and our petition: "Your Kingdom come" - a kingdom of peace, justice, and serenity, that will re-establish the original harmony of creation. – Pope St. John Paul II




Saints and Sanctity


Book Description

Provides insight into a key issue of Christian history which still has a huge influence on ecclesiastical practice and politics.




Insanity and Sanctity in Byzantium


Book Description

Prologue. Insanity and religion -- Part I. Sanctified insanity: between history and psychology -- The paradox that inhabits ambiguity -- Meanings of insanity -- Part II. Abnormality and social change: early Christianity vs. rabbinic Judaism -- Abnormality and social change -- Socializing nature: the ascetic totem -- Epilogue. Psychology, religion, and social change




Sanctity, Gender and Authority in Medieval Caucasia


Book Description

From the early fourth century, the veneration of saints and relics spread rapidly across Christendom from the British Isles to Iran. In late antique Caucasia, the cult of the saints was immediately integrated into Armenian and Georgian identity and political discourses. It was used to legitimise royal rule, sanctify domains and dynasties, define political realms and justify political decisions. This book is the first systematic study of this history. Discussing a wide variety of sources from Armenia, Georgia, Byzantium and Russia which have not been examined together before, it investigates the interaction of sanctity, holy relics, gender and politics in the medieval Caucasus, with a particular focus on Georgia. Nikoloz Aleksidze analyses three chronological eras: the first section focuses on late antiquity and the early Middle Ages, when the cult of the relics was formed in Caucasian writing; the second explores the medieval era, when the Bagratids ruled in Georgia and the cults of figures such as St George, the Mother of God and Queen Tamar were shaped and politicised; and the third navigates a similar entanglement of sanctity, gender and political rhetoric in Russian Imperial and Georgian national discourse.




The Sanctity of Human Life


Book Description

Heated debates are not unusual when confronting tough medical issues where it seems that moral and religious perspectives often erupt in conflict with philosophical or political positions. In The Sanctity of Human Life, Jewish theologian David Novak acknowledges that it is impossible not to take into account the theological view of human life, but the challenge is how to present the religious perspective to nonreligious people. In doing so, he shows that the two positions—the theological and the philosophical—aren't as far apart as they may seem. Novak digs deep into Jewish scripture and tradition to find guidance for assessing three contemporary controversies in medicine and public policy: the use of embryos to derive stem cells for research, socialized medicine, and physician-assisted suicide. Beginning with thinkers like Plato, Aristotle, Kant, and Nietsche, and drawing on great Jewish figures in history—Maimonides, Rashi, and various commentators on the Torah (written law) and the Mishnah (oral law)—Novak speaks brilliantly to these modern moral dilemmas. The Sanctity of Human Life weaves a rich and sophisticated tapestry of evidence to conclude that the Jewish understanding of the human being as sacred, as the image of God, is in fact compatible with philosophical claims about the rights of the human person—especially the right to life—and can be made intelligible to secular culture. Thus, according to Novak, the use of stem cells from embryos is morally unacceptable; the sanctity of the human person, and not capitalist or socialist approaches, should drive our understanding of national health care; and physician-assisted suicide violates humankind's fundamental responsibility for caring for one another. Novak's erudite argument and rigorous scholarship will appeal to all scholars and students engaged in the work of theology and bioethics.




Teresa of Avila and the Politics of Sanctity


Book Description

Teresa of Avila, one of history's most beloved mystics, wrote during a time of intense ecclesiastical scrutiny of texts. The determination of the Counter-Reformation Church to dominate religious life and control the content of theological writing significantly influenced Teresa's career as reformer and writer. Gillian T. W. Ahlgren explores the theological and ecclesiastical climate of sixteenth-century Spain in this study of the challenges Teresa encountered as a female theologian and mystic. As inquisitional censure increased and the authority of women's visions and ecstatic prayer experiences declined, Teresa's written self-expressions became, of necessity, less direct. Her later writing was heavily encoded and scholars have only recently begun to decipher those protective codes. Ahlgren demonstrates how Teresa's rhetorical style and theological message were directly responsive to the climate of suspicion created by the Inquisition and how they thus constituted a challenge to sixteenth-century assumptions about women. The only female theologian to be published in late sixteenth-century Spain, Teresa sought to provide a clear defense of mystical experience, particularly that of women. Ahlgren suggests that the rhetorical strategies Teresa developed to protect women's visionary experiences were subsequently used by Church officials to rewrite aspects of her life and thought, transforming her into the model for official Counter-Reformation sanctity.







The Four Foundations of Sanctity


Book Description

I urge you at least to have enough courage and resolution to make a clean break with the standards, sentiments and inclinations of the world, and to despise all its empty speeches and deceptive opinions, just as the world makes a show of impious temerity in despising the laws and maxims of Christianity. It is in this alone that true courage and perfect generosity consist: for what the world calls courage and power of character are nothing but cowardice and pusillanimity. This, then, is what I mean by detachment from the world: renouncing the world, and living in the world as though not of it. Aeterna Press




Counter-Reformation Sanctity in Global and Material Perspective


Book Description

This book explores the making of saints’ cults in the early modern world from an interdisciplinary perspective, considering the entangled roles of materiality and globalization processes. It brings together work across diverse media, objects, and materials as well as communities, cultures, and geographies to reframe a more synoptic, materials-centric, and comparative history of the making and remaking of saints’ cults, with a special focus on the long Counter-Reformation. The contributions engage with dynamics of local and universal and draw attention to the vital role of textual, visual, and material hagiographies in the creation and promotion of saints’ and would-be saints’ cults. The book fosters novel conceptualizations and cross-pollination of ideas across traditions, regions, and disciplines and expands hagiography’s horizons by reconsidering canonical saintly figures and reframing lesser-known cults of saints and would-be saints. The book will be of interest to scholars of religious and early modern history as well as art history and visual and material studies.