The Blessed Virgin Mary, theotokos, is the difference that keeps on giving. As some readers have doubtless noticed, I have stolen part of the title of this blog mini-series from Karl Rahner's treatise, Mary, The Mother of the Lord (London, 1963). While I would not so boldly state, as Rahner does, that Mary as the mother of Jesus "implies the whole substance of Christian belief" (54), I would be far less reticent to agree with him that Mary's maternity transcends the biological dimension, and unites all Catholics in a "partnership" with God, as she models the acceptance of grace for all (12). Rahner's Mariology is intensely Christological, as well as ecclesiological, and imbued with his theology of grace. In this sense, Mary is the human side of the Church, which, when it is at its best, flatters her by imitation.
The Ave Maria, at once an intensely biblical and theological excursion, derives its content from Luke and the 3rd ecumenical council of Ephesus (convened in 431 to confirm the validity of the ancient honorific, theotokos). The prayer is felt by some to be the essential Catholic prayer, uniting, as it does, Christology and the human cooperation in the on-going creation of the world. The Angelus, a prayer celebrating the Incarnation and Mary's role in its history, is also quite biblical and theological. It emphasizes a bit more the intercessory role of Mary than the Ave, but the theme of Christ's saving work always keeps his sole-mediatorship of salvation clear. The Magnificat, Luke's little masterpiece, might very well be the perfect Catholic prayer:
46 And Mary said, My soul doth magnify the Lord,
47 And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.
48 For he hath regarded the low estate of his handmaiden: for, behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.
49 For he that is mighty hath done to me great things; and holy is his name.
50 And his mercy is on them that fear him from generation to generation.
51 He hath shewed strength with his arm; he hath scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts.
52 He hath put down the mighty from their seats, and exalted them of low degree.
53 He hath filled the hungry with good things; and the rich he hath sent empty away.
54 He hath helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy;
55 As he spake to our fathers, to Abraham, and to his seed for ever. (Luke 1:46-55, [KJV])
I deploy the King James Version for its sheer poetry, despite some archaisms. Luke, a master of the Septuagint, has created a truly inspired hymn that not only Catholicism, but all biblical faiths, and though not strictly biblical, Islam as well, can embrace. It could have been predicted that the liberation theologians would embrace the Magnificat as something of a manifesto, given how it situates Mary in her 'low estate' and 'puts down the mighty' and satisifies 'the hungry.' Perhaps it is the message of the Magnificat, that Islam has heard and felt, that brings it to its understanding of Mary with which I began this 3-part series.
I am neither a Marian maximalist nor minimalist, though my leaning is toward the latter. Despite a few historical chips on some papal shoulders, divisiveness can never be a role for Mary in the Church. Some are called to versions of Marian piety ordered to the life of the living Church (cf. Marialis Cultus, 1974). Others are called more to praxis, and still others are called to Mary as a reflection of themselves as authentic Christians, Christocentric believers, who demure from the niceties of speculative theologies of grace.
Finally, in light of this recent consideration of Mariology, I might review the placental turn that seems to drive things Marian. I first used the metaphor of the placenta to suggest the relation within the hypostatic union. The 'placental turn' might clarify the relation between the single divine person of the hypostatic union and his mother. Mary is united biologically to the placenta of the word made flesh. Like the presence of the Logos to the human that witnesses to the death of Jesus, Mary, in her body, witnesses to the unmerited grace within her that exposes itself to her, sanctifies her. Her sanctification therefore is through the eternal Word, which sanctifies her eternally. Through the very givenness of the Logos that takes maternal flesh from Mary, Mary is 'gifted,' just as those who receive the IM are 'gifted' through its very givenness. In terms of the event, the IM releases the event of grace in the reduction of Mary to her givenness to God, and God's givenness to her. Mary becomes, moves into her subjectivity and her selfhood, as God loves her before she is, because God loves before he is.
Showing posts with label Gospel of Luke. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Gospel of Luke. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 30, 2015
Wednesday, December 24, 2014
Saturated Phenomena and the Nativity of the Christ
I am not as sanguine with Jean-Luc Marion's signature concept of the 'saturated' phenomenon as perhaps I should be. It seems to me, that to start, Marion suggests the analogy that simple objects are to saturated phenomena as occurrences are to events. And while I might very well be manufacturing that analogy as a grappling hook to tame the complexity in Marion's thought, I do think that getting a hook into this concept is worth some effort.
Though this blog post is likely to be little more than notes to myself, I do not hesitate to spill out some of my thoughts on this interesting matter. So, if Marion is describing some kind of inversion of intentionality and intuition when one moves from objects to saturated phenomena I come up with something of a 2-term dialectic:
Intention---------------->Intuition
focus-------------------->generality
particular--------------->universal
syntagm---------------->paradigm
mediate----------------->immediate
arithmetic-------------->geometric
The play is in the dotted line, of course, and the porosity of terms speaks to their own excess.
Because saturated phenomena are immense (and by this I mean immeasurable, unquantifiable), their very excess mocks intentionality, which is overwhelmed, deluged, and can do nothing but spill over in response to what is given to intuition. Objects do not overwhelm intent, but lend themselves to sequential evaluation, even summation.
Yet, the concept of saturation also contains a sense of limit, a sense of decreased possibility, a decrease in valence, a decrease in the number of points of interaction: this is certainly present in the idea of saturation in chemical properties. Beauty becomes gaudy, flavor become cloying: more is less. I find this an interesting paradox within the paradox of saturated phenomena.
The saturated phenomenon as event seems to approach the aporia of limit and excess. Merold Westphal, taking Marion's lead, has looked at the Synoptic Transfiguration pericopes as exemplifying a saturated phenomenon ("Transfiguration as Saturated Phenomenon," in the Journal of Philosophy and Scripture, 1:1, 2003), and his discussion is provocative and illuminates Marion's concept. In this same vein, I would consider the Lucan nativity narrative in terms of saturated phenomenon as event.
So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them. [Luke 2:4-7, NIV]
Verse 7, in the GNT, captures better the texts sense of limit on space:
διότι οὐκ ἦν αὐτοῖς τόπος ἐν τῷ καταλύματι
The phase can be rendered in English as 'because there was no place for them in the lodging', or more loosely as 'there was no space for them at the table.'
We can imagine a place too small to contain what must have been a large influx of people. Confusion, crowding, and the inability of of the town to contain the birth of a child, cause its parents to spill over into the setting of a manger and nearby fields where shepherds work the night. Mary and Joseph overwhelm Bethlehem's capacity, saturated, as it were, with Davidic travelers coming home for the holiday. Though they believe they migrate in response to the needs of a census, they could have hardly understood that they were called to bring forth a great progeny of a promise long held and hoped for.
This event harbored in Bethlehem's bursting excess is the precipitation, out from the saturated town, of the Nativity, the realization of the Incarnation and the Kingdom. From messianic expectation abuzz in the city of David emerges the Messiah in the flesh. Unlike Peter (experiencing the Transfiguration), who, as Westphal has noted, "wants to prolong this event"(29), the shepherds receive the event as event, find the child as the Angel of the Lord told them they would, and do not tarry but instead, hand down the gospel [Luke 2:17-18]. The shepherds thereby invert the movement of excess from manger to 'all who heard,' ostensibly those who found a place at the table in the town.
It seems to me, upon some reflection, that Marion's saturated phenomena meet Caputo's criteria for the event. Both thinkers are bound by the middle voice in which the response to a call makes a difference.
Though this blog post is likely to be little more than notes to myself, I do not hesitate to spill out some of my thoughts on this interesting matter. So, if Marion is describing some kind of inversion of intentionality and intuition when one moves from objects to saturated phenomena I come up with something of a 2-term dialectic:
Intention---------------->Intuition
focus-------------------->generality
particular--------------->universal
syntagm---------------->paradigm
mediate----------------->immediate
arithmetic-------------->geometric
The play is in the dotted line, of course, and the porosity of terms speaks to their own excess.
Because saturated phenomena are immense (and by this I mean immeasurable, unquantifiable), their very excess mocks intentionality, which is overwhelmed, deluged, and can do nothing but spill over in response to what is given to intuition. Objects do not overwhelm intent, but lend themselves to sequential evaluation, even summation.
Yet, the concept of saturation also contains a sense of limit, a sense of decreased possibility, a decrease in valence, a decrease in the number of points of interaction: this is certainly present in the idea of saturation in chemical properties. Beauty becomes gaudy, flavor become cloying: more is less. I find this an interesting paradox within the paradox of saturated phenomena.
The saturated phenomenon as event seems to approach the aporia of limit and excess. Merold Westphal, taking Marion's lead, has looked at the Synoptic Transfiguration pericopes as exemplifying a saturated phenomenon ("Transfiguration as Saturated Phenomenon," in the Journal of Philosophy and Scripture, 1:1, 2003), and his discussion is provocative and illuminates Marion's concept. In this same vein, I would consider the Lucan nativity narrative in terms of saturated phenomenon as event.
So Joseph also went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem the town of David, because he belonged to the house and line of David. He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child. While they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them. [Luke 2:4-7, NIV]
Verse 7, in the GNT, captures better the texts sense of limit on space:
διότι οὐκ ἦν αὐτοῖς τόπος ἐν τῷ καταλύματι
The phase can be rendered in English as 'because there was no place for them in the lodging', or more loosely as 'there was no space for them at the table.'
We can imagine a place too small to contain what must have been a large influx of people. Confusion, crowding, and the inability of of the town to contain the birth of a child, cause its parents to spill over into the setting of a manger and nearby fields where shepherds work the night. Mary and Joseph overwhelm Bethlehem's capacity, saturated, as it were, with Davidic travelers coming home for the holiday. Though they believe they migrate in response to the needs of a census, they could have hardly understood that they were called to bring forth a great progeny of a promise long held and hoped for.
This event harbored in Bethlehem's bursting excess is the precipitation, out from the saturated town, of the Nativity, the realization of the Incarnation and the Kingdom. From messianic expectation abuzz in the city of David emerges the Messiah in the flesh. Unlike Peter (experiencing the Transfiguration), who, as Westphal has noted, "wants to prolong this event"(29), the shepherds receive the event as event, find the child as the Angel of the Lord told them they would, and do not tarry but instead, hand down the gospel [Luke 2:17-18]. The shepherds thereby invert the movement of excess from manger to 'all who heard,' ostensibly those who found a place at the table in the town.
It seems to me, upon some reflection, that Marion's saturated phenomena meet Caputo's criteria for the event. Both thinkers are bound by the middle voice in which the response to a call makes a difference.
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