Toward a Theology of the Body

By Mary Timothy Prokes

The term 'Body Theology' is rooted in the core mysteries of the Christian faith but has only recently become familiar. Prokes traces the major reasons for enduring ambivalence and misunderstanding... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0802843395
• ISBN13: 9780802843395
• Release Date: January 1996
• Publisher: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company
• Length: 192 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.4" x 8.4"

Customer Reviews

PERHAPS TOO TECHNICAL FOR THE NAKED LAYMAN; AN EXCELLENT SURVEY OF INCARNATIONAL THEOLOGY

Certainly I find reading this a bit thick without the gentle assistance of a supportive professor and the force of raging theological classmates, but perhaps you will do better with this excellent if highly academic, but very real text. God is alive today within our Body, and we so often now forget this truth and denigrate ourself and one another, when we are actually tearing down with insult, torture and homicide the Temple erected by Jesus Christ and God the Creator, rather than receiving one another, including the stranger, with love, humility, compassion, profound respect and gentleness as commanded. This excellent book, published in Britain (ironically by the Cromwell Press) and in the USA by Eerdman over ten years ago, weaves into one whole and seamless cloth the theological thought of Father Karl Rahner (as in Mary, Mother of the Lord: Theological meditations), Father Charles Curran (as from Themes in Fundamental Moral Theology) , then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (from his Communio article "Concerning the Notion of Person in Theology" of 1990) and much from then Pope John Paul II, including Original Unity of Man and Woman Catechesis on the Book of Genesis, and his Reflections on Humanae vitae: Conjugal morality and spirituality, as well as several others from this very prolific and productive Pope. We find reflection on a wide spectrum of theological authorities, from John Courtney Murray'ds The Problem of God: Yesterday and Today (The St. Thomas More Lectures Series) to Sainte Therese of Lisieux's Histoire d'une ame: Manuscrits autobiographiques, drawing for us a comprehensive understanding of the mystery of the Incarnation in which we now today take part. Please take and read carefully this excellent study of Body Theology, of under two hundred pages, which I would need and love a full semester of careful professorial guidance to understand and appreciate. Lucky are those faithful seminarians who now study under Sister Mary Timothy; I would give anything, including thirty wasted years of my life, to sit behind one of their sacred desks. Please do not confuse this work with the several others inspired by Pope John Paul, such as Theology Of The Body For Beginners (subtitled A Basic Introduction to Pope John Paul II's Sexual Revolution, and perhaps more accessible to the layman than this present text, as the reviews there are very positive). IT can never become confused with the bizarre and Protestant Introducing Body Theology (Feminist Theology Series), which serves a separate agenda. As seen by the references mentioned here, this present work is strictly orthodox and ever very close and committed to the Vatican, as is its author, a Catholic seminary professor of theology and spirituality.