Gomez, Cristina Lledo This article explores the idea that motherhood is an invitation to engage with the paschal mystery and can thus be a salvific experience in the lives of women. This is of even greater significance for a Christian mother who can explicitly name the experience as her own sharing in the paschal event of Jesus. This article will focus on crisis moments of motherhood in a contemporary Western context, exploring particularly the issues raised in first becoming (...) a mother, and on the initial years of motherhood. (shrink)
Contemporary developments in economicmethodology have produced a vibrant agenda ofcompeting positions. These include, amongothers, constructivism, critical realism andrhetoric, with each contributing to the Realistvs. Pragmatism debate in the philosophies of thesocial sciences. A major development in theneo-pragmatist contribution to economicmethodology has been Quine's pragmatic assaulton the dogmas of empiricism, which are nowclearly acknowledged within contemporaryeconomic methodology. This assault isencapsulated in the celebrated Duhem-Quinethesis, which according to a number ofcontemporary leading philosophers of economics,poses a particularly serious methodologicalproblem for economics. This problem, (...) asreflected in Hausman's analysis, consists ofthe inability of economics to learn fromexperience, thereby subverting the capacity totest economic theories. In this paper wedispute this position. Our argument is basedon a combination of Quine's holism with VanFraassen's constructive empiricism, especiallythe latter's analysis of empirical adequacy andhis pragmatic approach to explanation. Theresulting reorientation of economic methodologyrestores the capacity of economics to learnfrom experience and reinstates the imperativeof developing alternatives to orthodoxtheorizing in economics. (shrink)
In one of the best critical analyses of economic rhetoric so far, Thomas Boylan and Paschal O'Gorman argue forcefully for the usefulness of distinguishing between what they call "local rhetoric", which they embrace, and "global rhetoric", which they rebuff (Boylan and O'Gorman, 1995, p.44. Also Cf. chap. 2: "Rhetoric/The abandonment of methodology?", pp. 36-60. The expression, "economic rhetoric", is theirs, p.38). As they put it, "[G]lobal economic rhetoric asserts that any philosophy of science which accommodates any method other than (...) the standards of literature has no relevance to the philosophy of economics" (p.44). A main point here is that.. (shrink)
The first part of this paper presents the mystery of Eucharist as the symbol or sacrament of, and hence as identical with, the central mystery of Christian faith: the paschal mystery of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. It also situates Rahner’s theology of Eucharist within the larger context of his theology as a whole, particularly his Christology. The humanity of Jesus as the real symbol or sacrament of the Logos provides the prime analogate for understanding Eucharist as (...) sacrament, and the two-fold movement of Christology as both descending and ascending provides the basic structure of sacramental activity as embodying both the divine offer of grace and human response to it. The second part considers Rahner’s contribution to specific problems in Eucharistic theology: real presence, the idea of transubstantiation, sacramental causality and institution by Jesus.The third and final part looks to the still unfinished agenda of Karl Rahner’s theology of Eucharist. He describes the task facing theology in the future as that of transposing theoretical beliefs into practical imperatives, “so that the theological as such becomes a principle of action.” For the Eucharist this means seeing Eucharist primarily in the context of the reign of God that was the center of the preaching and ministry of Jesus rather than only in the context of the church. More specifically, this means seeing the church’s Eucharist in the world within the larger context of the liturgy of the world. The liturgy of the world celebrates the ongoing transformation of the secular realm by the power of the Spirit in its movement towards its consummation in the final coming of God’s reign. (shrink)
On the 3rd of March 380, Theodosius, moved by the qualitas (pro reverentia religionis) of the pre-paschal period, a special time of preparation for Easter,mandates the suspension during Christian Lent of all penal trials which normally resulted in torture (Cod. Theod. 9,35,4 = Cod. Iust. 3,12,5). Lent is a specifically Christian time which developed to a large degree in the course of the fourth century, but which varied in duration and organization in the various churches. The law adapts the (...) judicial calendar for the administration of justice to the rhythms of Christian liturgy. Theodosius in 389 (Cod. Theod. 9,35,5; 9,35,7) decrees that during Lent supplicia corporis could not take place, due to the sacredness of those days intended as a salutary penance which culminates in Easter reconciliation. Since the duration of Lent varied within the various churches, civil authorities of the provinces were to be informed by local Christians of the beginning and end of Lent. (shrink)
Anselm (b. 1033; d. 1109) flourished during the period of the Norman Conquest of England (1066), the call by Pope Urban II to the First Crusade (1095), and the strident Investiture Controversy. This latter dispute pitted Popes Gregory VII, Urban II, and Paschal II against the monarchs of Europe in regard to just who had the right—whether kings or bishops—to invest bishops and archbishops with their ecclesiastical offices. It is not surprising that R. W. Southern, Anselm’s present-day biographer, speaks (...) of Anselm’s life as covering “one of the most momentous periods of change in European history, comparable to the centuries of the Reformation or the Industrial Revolution” (1990, p. 4). Yet it is ironic that Anselm, who began as a simple monk shunning all desire for fame, should nonetheless today have become one of the most famous intellectual figures of the Middle Ages. And it is even more ironic that this judgment holds true in spite of the fact that he wrote only eleven treatises or dialogues (not to mention his three meditations, nineteen prayers, and 374 letters). (shrink)
The Venerable John Henry Cardinal Newman seemingly had the “Midas touch” in reverse. Oxford, Littlemore, Dublin were all sites of failures; the “Achilli Affair” was a humiliation; the quarrel with Faber was an embarrassment. Nonetheless, most people today think of Newman as a rousing success story. Why? Newman serves as an object lesson in living the Paschal Mystery, whereby each moment of crisis can be transformed into a moment of grace.
