Bride Of Christ Research Articles

IMAGE OF MARY OF BETHANY AN INSPIRATION FOR MYSTICISM

The purpose of this article is to attempt to interpret Mary's gesture at the feast in Bethany, that is, anointing Jesus' feet with precious nard and rubbing them with her hair (Jn 12:3). The act of Martha's sister and Lazarus is logically incomprehensible; moreover, it breaks the conventions of the time. In the following steps, we will discuss the closer and further context of the pericope Jn 12:1-11, followed by the ritual of anointing in the ancient world. Analysing the Johannine text from an exegetical and theological angle will allow us to reveal Mary's role in the narrative as servant and disciple. Recognising the bridal metaphor in Jn 12:1-11 brings out the meaningful depth of the text. The image of the contemplative and generous Mary, symbolising the Church as the bride of Christ, is an inspiration for mysticism.

Peran Doa dalam Kehidupan Keluarga Kristiani sebagai Ecclesia Domestica

Prayer is an integral part of family life. It helps family to face many problems in society even as the vital cell of society, family needs more prayers. Christian Families, as “ecclesia domestica”, obtain their identity from the Church, the bride of Christ. They have duty to pray because prayer unites them to Christ, the centre of family. Moreover, Christian families as “ecclesia domestica” have the same mission as the Church. Christian families need prayer in their daily lives because, identical to the Church, they pray together as community to invoke the help of God for their families lives. Thus, based on this context, this paper wants to explain how prayers in Christian Families have a significant effect in assisting and protecting them from dangerous ideologies such as secularism that break families in modern society.

Brides of Christ. Women and monasticism in medieval and early modern Ireland. Edited by Martin Browne osb, Tracy Collins, Bronagh Ann McShane and Colmán Ó Clabaigh, osb. Pp. xvi + 215 incl. 25 ills and 14 colour plates. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2023. £45. 978 1 80151 022 6

Brides of Christ. Women and monasticism in medieval and early modern Ireland. Edited by Martin Browne <scp>osb</scp>, Tracy Collins, Bronagh Ann McShane and Colmán Ó Clabaigh, <scp>osb</scp>. Pp. xvi + 215 incl. 25 ills and 14 colour plates. Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2023. £45. 978 1 80151 022 6

Brides of Christ: Women and Monasticism in Medieval and Early Modern Ireland ed. by Martin Browne, O.S.B., Tracy Collins, Bronagh Ann McShane, Colmán Ó Claibaigh, O.S.B (review)

Brides of Christ: Women and Monasticism in Medieval and Early Modern Ireland ed. by Martin Browne, O.S.B., Tracy Collins, Bronagh Ann McShane, Colmán Ó Claibaigh, O.S.B (review)

Holy Harlots in Medieval English Religious Literature: Authority, Exemplarity and Femininity, by Juliette Vuille

Juliette Vuille investigates the figure of the holy harlot in medieval English literature: those female saints who, following a sinful (read: sexual) youth, repent in favour of a particularly ascetic spirituality. Vuille’s ambitious project encompasses English literary history from the ninth to the sixteenth centuries and considers works in three of England’s vernacular languages: Old English, Middle English, and Anglo-Norman. She argues that the holy harlot offers a ‘much more inclusive and overarching presentation of femininity’, one that allows womanhood to symbolise both the best and worst in humanity (p. 223). Medieval English literature constructs the holy harlot with such capaciousness, she contends, that she comes to represent Everyman, a symbol of humanity writ large as both fallen and redeemed. The first chapter investigates the earliest Old English lives of holy harlots from the ninth and tenth centuries. Vuille posits that pre-Conquest England provided particularly fertile ground for lives of holy harlots to flourish, given the multiplicity of non-traditional paths for women to religious life, and the pre-existing literary traditions for heroic women. She argues that, contrary to their Latin sources, these Old English texts represent the holy harlot’s conversion to sanctity as a queer transcending of gender, allowing any reader to ‘move beyond trajectories set by one’s gender’ (p. 56). These queer possibilities were closed off, however, after the Norman Conquest, as Vuille discusses in her second chapter. By the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, Vuille contends, hagiography had been deeply affected by the rises of romance and affective piety. As both harlot and lady of romance, the saint could therefore represent the worst and best of femininity, transforming from prostitute into bride of Christ. Rather than transcend femininity, the harlot saint embraced it, thereby aligning herself fully with Christ’s feminised humanity. In her third chapter, Vuille demonstrates how the lives of holy harlots changed following the advent of Wycliffism. In response to Mary Magdalene’s prominence in the Wycliffite defence of lay preaching, she argues, John Mirk wrote a version of the Magdalene’s life that minimised her radical preaching, while Osbern Bokenham, more sheltered by the influence of his powerful patroness, instead presented a Magdalene who retained her persuasive speech but worked in harmony with clerical authority. The multivalent possibilities of the holy harlot come into full bloom in Chapter Four’s discussion of the Digby Mary Magdalene. In rendering the Magdalene as simultaneously fallen and sanctified, Vuille argues that the play ‘stages the universality of the holy harlot mode to represent Everyman’ (p. 141). Vuille demonstrates the availability of that mode to women in particular in her final chapter, which focuses on how Christina of Markyate, Julian of Norwich, Margery Kempe and Elizabeth Barton took inspiration from Mary Magdalene in order to sanctify and justify their public spiritual lives.

The Bride of Christ with a hellish existence on earth: Insights from Eboni Turman, the black church and black liberation theology

This research is based on the reading of Eboni Turman’s work that focuses on body politics, especially through a theological paradigm. The study confirms that the body is a theological problem, and the extent of the problem stretches to the annals of Christian theology to the present, especially in light of racism, sexism and capitalism. The study will engage black womanist eschatology to draw from the rich well of seeing how the experience of black women gives new meaning to understanding the presence and coming of God through wrestling and struggle. The study will use the black church, especially in the United States of America (USA), to dialogue with. The researcher has previously done work on the black church in the USA and South Africa, as well as work on the contribution of African womanist theologians. Thus, the study uses the USA purely because of Eboni Turman’s discussion on the body as a theological problem.Contribution: The study seeks to invite men and the black church to remember the black sacred dance from old, which has remained with black women as they continue to dance, thus critiquing those who are out of rhythm and need it now more than ever.

Peran Gereja dalam Memotivasi Jemaat untuk Mencintai Alkitab

Bible is the Word of God and the word is God Himself. People of God must love the Bible because it is the Word of God; so believers must have read the Bible at least once in lifetime from Genesis to Revelation. In fact, the love of Bible decreasingly, so it is time for the church to motivate God’s people to re-commit to love the Bible. The church with discipleship basis which always and regularly teach the word of God could fulfil the calling to equip all disciples to be matured in Him and could be the bride of Christ. Writer used library research qualitative methodology to conclude there are ways to motivate people of God to observe His word. Church has discipleship, Word of God learning group, build some of facilities to support People of God to learn the Bible and issue certificate for whom completely read and meditate the Word of God in certain period.

The Bride of Christ with a hellish existence on earth: Insights from Eboni Turman, the black church and black liberation theology

HTS Teologiese Studies/Theological Studies is an acclaimed journal with broad coverage that promotes multidisciplinary, religious, and biblical aspects of studies in the international theological arena. The journal’s publication criteria are based on high ethical standards and the rigor of the methodology and conclusions reported.

Trans and Genderqueer Subjects in Medieval Hagiography. Edited by Alicia Spencer-Hall and Blake Gutt

As the epilogue to this important new contribution to medieval studies rightly recognizes, the fantasy of an ethnically unified Europe, where men were men and women knew their place, is one that has frequently been bandied about by white supremacists eager to seek historical support for their Islamophobic or transphobic views. St Joan of Arc, scrubbed of queerness and essentialized as the Maid of Orléans, has been transformed into a left-wing working-class hero or a right-wing nationalist while Christ has been figured as the very archetype of masculinity, and thus a reiteration of the supposed primacy of Adam over Eve, and, by extension, of man over woman. The essays in this volume, which adopt a range of approaches to trans and genderqueer issues, reveal that nothing could be further from the truth. Medieval authors and artists, fascinated by questions of fluidity, repeatedly reveal how identified gender is not necessarily synonymous with the sex or the gender assigned at birth. The result is a fascinating and provocative insight into medieval production that raises clear implications for a range of broader interdisciplinary debates. The essays themselves, skewed heavily in favour of AFAB subjects (assigned female at birth), cover a range of topics. In addition to two treatments, by Vanessa Wright and Amy V. Ogden, of St Euphrosyne, who lived as a eunuch in a monastery, M. W. Bychowski offers a fascinating reappraisal of St Marinos/Marina, focusing on questions of exemplarity. The novelty of Bychowski’s approach lies in dismissing outdated terms such as ‘transvestism’, and instead focusing on the saint’s decision to self-identify as male. This raises implications not just for Margaret and Pelagia, to whom Marinos/Marina is etymologically and conceptually related, but for later texts such as Jacobus de Voragine’s Legenda aurea, which performs a spectacular act of queer cleansing by reappraising the decision to don male attire as a mandate issued by the saint’s father, thus invalidating the display of agency and instead refocusing the narrative in part on notions of hegemonic masculinity. One slight criticism is that some essays are partially decontextualized. Caitlyn McLoughlin’s treatment of St Catherine of Alexandria, for instance, advances a number of informative observations but is weakened by the absence of references to previous critical studies of the saint or the broader theological or intellectual context of concepts such as her status as sponsa Christi [bride of Christ]. Conversely, a notable strength of the volume is Sophie Sexon’s treatment of Christ, who is approached from a non-binary perspective in which the wound in his side — appraised in conspicuously vulvic terms — is envisioned as the organ from which the Church was born. His depiction thereby succeeds in destabilizing the bounded categories of male and female. The volume is completed by essays on a range of other topics, including Kevin C. A. Elphick’s discussion of the much-neglected figure of Juana de la Cruz, as well as an extensive jargon-busting appendix which offers a number of invaluable pointers as to how language should be employed by those as yet unfamiliar with this fascinating emerging field.

Perspectives on church and mission: The missional church and metaphors for the church

The most important issues for the missional church should be to establish the relation between mission and the church. The methodology used is to listen to voices concerning relevant issues in the missional church. Many important aspects of the missional church are discussed to give an overview of contemporary challenges. Metaphors for the church, such as people of God, body of Christ, temple of God, bride of Christ and witness of God give many essential guidelines for how the church should engage the world. By evaluating these metaphors, new suggestions can be made. It is concluded that the church should always be the church of the living Christ, living new lives in this world with the eye on the world to come.Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: The relation of the Church and mission is of great importance. In the discipline of Missiology current ideas about the missional church call for new interpretations. Only by thoroughly interacting with the metaphors of the church can the missional church be understood in a new way.

The Life of Christina of Hane

The Life of Christina of Hane

The unfinished business of Church history

The Church will presumably have unfinished business until the day when Christ returns. And Church history will, in gruesome details, bear witness to the missed opportunities, the failures and wrongdoings and all the mistakes made. This is especially true in South Africa where racial tensions, violence, crimes and numerous other evils prevail, while the bride of Christ, in hiding from the realities of life, is awaiting death. The first part of the article explains why this is the case and the second part proposes some rectifications towards how adjudication and reconciliation can be attained through new life in a novel way of being Church to the world. Intradisciplinary and/or interdisciplinary implications: Christians, theologians and Church historians must openly and honestly expose the use and abuse of (Church) history, and the role that collective memory played in constructing misleading perceptions of the past through the implementation of motivated reasoning. A comprehensive, amended rewriting of Church history that includes all sources that fed Christianity in South Africa during the past nearly 370 years must reconceptualise our religious past towards a healing future. This can promote unity and bring closure to at least some issues while providing a renewed focus on the ongoing need for constant reformation, a renewed comprehension of spirituality, and inspiring Missiology towards a new, serving Christianity in a broken and bleeding society.

Angels and Angelology: The Ministering Spirits and Elect ‘sons of God’

Jesus Christ is central to Christianity as God and Saviour and He taught concerning the existence of angels, so as Orthodox Christians we ought to embrace the belief in angels. This article approaches the themes from a mainly Orthodox perspective and contends that angels are important, not only as part of a prescriptive Biblical world-view, but also as creatures serving God. Angelology or the study of angels such as this one, is part of systematic theology and is a key category of theology in Orthodoxy and Catholicism. It is metaphysical in that it studies being and all reality in the physical and spiritual realms. Angels as God’s agents, are considered from a biblical vantage point and the teachings of early Church Fathers who believed that God fashioned the angels long before He created the observable world. It is clear from Holy Scripture that angels protect people under the authority of the creator. Angels are non-corporeal despite manifesting at times in human form. They are messengers and ambassadors of the Most High. Their core function is to devote their existence to doing God’s will and they are assigned various missions on earth. They play a crucial role in reconciling fallen humanity with God as they praise Him and call on people to worship and adore Him. Angels are ordered in specific ranks in which diverse roles are played by them. As Orthodox adherents we believe they have been with us since the very creation and have helped to guide the Church as the ‘Bride of Christ’ who is its head. Angels will play an essential role when Christ returns at the Second Coming. People can be elevated above angels by responding to God’s saving work and may even get to judge angels. There are also fallen angels, headed by Lucifer, thus they are not infallible. Either way, angels form part of a significant component of divine revelation and should never be ignored. Angels should not be worshipped but rather venerated for their excellence as ministering spirits and servants of the Most High. According to Orthodoxy, human beings in the Christian faith need to make the Holy Bible, Holy Tradition and teachings of the early Church Fathers, their authority on all matters of spirituality and seek the support of the Paraclete. In African traditional cosmology (ATC) there is a shared spiritual belief in ancestors, which is also worth briefly touching on. A study such as this then serves to widen our understanding of God, and how He operates in His Creation.

Revelation and Apocalypse in Late Medieval Literature: The Writings of Julian of Norwich and William Langland

Revelation and Apocalypse in Late Medieval Literature: The Writings of Julian of Norwich and William Langland

Revelation and Apocalypse in Late Medieval Literature: The Writings of Julian of Norwich and William Langland

Revelation and Apocalypse in Late Medieval Literature: The Writings of Julian of Norwich and William Langland

Nuns as ‘Sponsae Christi’: The Legal Status of the Medieval Oblates of Tor de’ Specchi

This article examines the unusual history and legal status of the Tor de’ Specchi community, founded by Francesca Romana (d. 1440) in Rome, in the face of shifting expectations for religious women in Counter-Reformation Catholicism. It is argued that Francesca Romana had sought to carve out a religious path for women distinct from that of nuns as brides of Christ (‘sponsae Christi’). The article demonstrates the community's difficulties in maintaining this way of life in the face of Pope Pius V's 1566 bull Circa Pastoralis, which extended the Council of Trent's 1563 decrees on enclosure (clausura) to all nuns of every order.

Nexus of Christian Mysteries: The Filioque and its Doctrinal “Life-Significance”

AbstractNeither a recapitulation of the Catholic Church's teaching on the Filioque nor a comprehensive reconstruction of Thomas Aquinas’ theology of the Spirit, this paper is instead a response to several objections raised against Thomas’ defense of the Filioque by the highly-original Orthodox theologian Sergei Bulgakov. Following his patristic predecessors, particularly Augustine of Hippo and Cyril of Alexandria, and the conciliar tradition, Thomas situates the contemplation of the Spirit's procession within Christology—for He is the Spirit of Christ (see Rom. 8:9). The Christological framing of the Spirit's procession a Filio leavens theological examination of the doctrine's expansive influence on the understanding of other Christian Mysteries. By examining Matthias Joseph Scheeben's speculative reflections on the procession of the Spirit as analogous to the creation of Eve and illuminative of the Church as Bride of Christ, Bulgakov's most damning criticism, that the Filioque is a theologoumenon lacking in “life-significance” is rebutted. Finally, additional avenues of elaborating upon the Spirit's procession as indivisibly connected to other mysteries of the faith are advanced.

Ingresos forzados, vocaciones incentivadas y voces desesperadas en el Monasterio de Nuestra Señora de los Remedios de la ciudad de La Plata (Charcas 1574-1640)

The foundation of the first female convent in the seat of the Audiencia de Charcas was driven by the elite that, first and foremost, needed to house the orphan daughters of the conquistadors and their own offspring whom they would not offer a worldly marriage. House of refuge and solace to maids with religious vocation, Los Remedios also served as a furtive entrance to those who openly offended the conduct owed to their calidad and a place to host women who were forced or encouraged by their fathers, husbands, brothers or legal guardians to become the brides of Christ. This essay recovers the voices of women who did not choose to be nuns by their free will and had to embrace claustration following patriarchal obedience while giving testimony of their disagreement, abandonment, and hopes to return to worldly life.

Nuns' Priests' Tales: Men and Salvation in Medieval Women's Monastic Life by Fiona J. Griffiths

Reviewed by: Nuns' Priests' Tales: Men and Salvation in Medieval Women's Monastic Life by Fiona J. Griffiths Linda Zampol D'Ortia Griffiths, Fiona J., Nuns' Priests' Tales: Men and Salvation in Medieval Women's Monastic Life (Middle Ages Series), Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018; cloth; pp. 424; 29 b/w illustrations; R.R.P. US$69.95, £58.00; ISBN 9780812249750. This interesting study by Fiona J. Griffiths explores the way in which the priests who attended to the spiritual needs of medieval nuns made this service central to their own spirituality, and how they rhetorically justified and defended it. The timeframe considered, the late eleventh century to the end of the twelfth, was characterized by a reform of the Church and of the relations between the laity and the clergy. The following promotion of clerical celibacy made access to women one of the major differences between laymen and priests, resulting in an intense scrutiny of the relationship between nuns and the priests who took care of them. Mainstream attitudes declared it dangerous for the spiritual well-being of the priest, since temptation was considered unavoidable, and as an onus with no evident compensation. Therefore, priests who dedicated themselves to this activity appeared 'suspicious and problematic' (p. 18). This perspective, and the paucity of documents that provide the nuns' priests' viewpoint, made these men and their service, which was vital for the salvation of the nuns, mostly invisible in historiography too. This monograph focuses on these priests and the reasons that motivated their work, which was not considered a burden, but an opportunity. Some of them cultivated spiritual friendships with the women under their care, or founded religious communities that welcomed both men and women. Griffiths starts from the consideration that these men were not as exceptional as previously believed, and considers their writings as representative of larger trends, suggesting the existence of 'a culture of support for the involvement of men with religious women […] that had a distinctive vocabulary and rhetoric' (p. 37). Chapters 2 to 4 of this monograph focus on a variety of traditional figures whose endeavours included caring for women, as they represented a major rhetorical support for these priests' work. Chapter 2 looks at how exemplary men of the Bible were used as examples, keeping with trends of twelfth-century reform. Jesus's acceptance of women and his particular attention towards them in his ministry set clearly an important precedent. Other examples that supported the possibility of chaste relationships between men and women were that of John, who took care of Mary as his adoptive mother after Jesus's death; and of protomartyr Stephen, who was especially dedicated to widows. While offering these models for medieval priests, the gospels' narrative displays the spiritual strength of these women, who accompanied Jesus to his death. For being the first to witness [End Page 257] Jesus's resurrection and announcing it, these female followers were considered 'the apostles to the apostles'. To medieval writers, these exemplary female apostles were evidence that contemporary women too were spiritually worthy of the priests' help. Chapter 3 is dedicated to the example provided by church father Jerome with his care for Roman women, especially widows. His disparate relationships with female disciples became models for twelfth-century spiritual affiliations between nuns and priests, and could be used rhetorically by each, to shape and influence the forms they could take. Jerome's interpretation of devout women as brides of Christ too was influential in the perception of the role of the nun as domina (that is, 'female lord', p. 104) to the priest's role of servant of Christ. Chapter 4 analyses another model for inspiration in spiritual relationships, that of the 'saintly siblings' (p. 113). Although in conflict with the idea of spiritual kinship, blood kinship emerged already in the fourth century as model for monastic life. The Vitae of holy men, to enhance their piety, often depicted them as accompanied by sisters, or other female relatives. These relationships set influential precedents for monks, and a model for siblings that spiritually benefited both and, in some instances, could include former spouses too, without coming under suspicion. Chapter 5 considers the reasons...

The Politics of the Veil in Medieval Christianity

Saba Mahmood begins Politics of Piety with a question: ‘[H]ow should issues of historical and cultural specificity inform both the analytics and the politics of any feminist project?’ She notes that while many forms of ‘difference’ have been integrated within feminist theory, ‘religious difference’ has received comparatively little emphasis. She attributes this to the ‘vexing relationship between feminism and religion,’ arising from feminism’s firm situation within ‘secular-liberal politics.’ In this essay, I explore how Mahmood’s insights might enrich the study of premodern Christianity. My particular focus will be a central, yet highly contested, aspect of medieval women’s piety: the practice of nuns taking the veil during consecration, marking them as ‘brides of Christ’. I hope, with Mahmood, to consider how an analysis of ‘the particular form that the body takes might transform our conceptual understanding of the act itself’, offering new possibilities for the practice of feminist historiography.