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Situates the female mystical tradition within the context of the epistemological shift which occurred at the dawn of the modern world.
One day in 1599, in the Spanish village of Saria, seven-year-old Maria Angela Astorch fell ill and died after gorging herself on unripened almonds. Maria's sister Isabel, a nun, came to view the body with her mother superior, an ecstatic mystic and visionary named Maria Angela Serafina. Overcome by the sight of the dead girl's innocent face, Serafina began to pray fervently for the return of the child's soul to her body. Entering a trance, she had a vision in which the Virgin Mary gave her a sign. At once little Maria Angela started to show signs of life. A moment later she scrambled to the ground and was soon restored to perfect health. During the Counter-Reformation, the Church was confron...
An anthology of women's writings drawn from the 12th century to the 14th century, this collection includes letters, hymns, practical advice, rules for nuns, accounts of visions and revelations, prayers, dialogues and autobiographical writings. Each woman mystic is introduced separately, and the diverse material shows both the intelligence, originality and profound devotion of the women authors, and how their position as women affected their work.
This text revives the works of five powerful mystics of the Middle Ages and provides a valuable inspirational resource for all spiritual seekers.
This book, focusing on the lives and writings of five women mystics, shows that, contrary to the modern idea that the supposed inferiority of women is an inheritance from Christianity, women have played a fundamental role in the Church. If the Church was able to pass beyond the collapse of medieval scholasticism and the errors of the Renaissance and Protestant Reformation, it was especially due to a succession of exceptional feminine personalities.
In seventeenth-century Lima, pious Catholic women gained profound theological understanding and enacted expressions of spiritual devotion by engaging with a wide range of sacred texts and objects, as well as with one another, their families, and ecclesiastical authorities. In Embodying the Sacred, Nancy E. van Deusen considers how women created and navigated a spiritual existence within the colonial city's complex social milieu. Through close readings of diverse primary sources, van Deusen shows that these women recognized the divine—or were objectified as conduits of holiness—in innovative and powerful ways: dressing a religious statue, performing charitable acts, sharing interiorized spiritual visions, constructing autobiographical texts, or offering their hair or fingernails to disciples as living relics. In these manifestations of piety, each of these women transcended the limited outlets available to them for expressing and enacting their faith in colonial Lima, and each transformed early modern Catholicism in meaningful ways.
"These prayer-poems were written in an attempt to make the writings of Christian women, most, but not all of them, mystics, accessible to the contemporary believing community, and to women in particular." "The poems are placed in contemporary setting, using contemporary language, and sometimes addressing contemporary issues, in an effort to communicate the radical nature of the writing of the women mystics. Each poem is rooted in these mystical themes and is liberally sprinkled with words and phrases from the named woman mystic."--BOOK JACKET.
“Remember kind actions - more than anything else - cause the soul to shine with brilliance.” —Gertrude the Great Discover the strength, wisdom, and joyful faith of Christianity’s legendary women - the medieval mystics. Their honesty and deep love for God will encourage and empower you every day of the year. This book of daily readings will help you create quiet space for focusing on God’s love in the midst of a busy life. As you spend time with these great women, you will discover an astonishing view of a God who is tender, nurturing, forgiving, and as close as breath. “In these pages, the images of the spiritual life are the erotic ones of the feminine experience. They are the stuff of very physically-present women who loved their Lord with a ferocity and passion that could be reported only in those experiences of the flesh.” —Phyllis Tickle
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 t...
Selected spiritual wiritings from 4 medieval women who have strongly impacted Christian spirituality and theology.