You are cordially invited to attend the public dissertation defenses
of our doctoral candidates in Theology
Wednesday, 21 October, 2009, 2:30 PM
Fisher Hall 615 (Theology Department Faculty Lounge)
Gabriel Mendy
Dissertation Title: "Augustine's Analogy Between the Spirit in the Church and the Soul in the Body and Its Implications for Communion Ecclesiology"
Committee: Dr. Radu Bordeianu (Director), Dr. George Worgul, Dr. Aimee Light
Friday, 23 October, 2009, 10:00 AM
Theology Department Library
Ellen Cavanaugh
Dissertation Title: "Anointing as the Iconic Interruption of the Loving God"
Committee: Dr. George Worgul (Director), Dr. Marie Baird, Dr. Maureen O'Brien
ABSTRACT:
The Sacrament of Anointing of the Sick has traditionally been conceived within pre-modern conceptual categories and the supporting structure or worldview of Aristotelian metaphysics. Postmodern sacramental theology suggests a reflexive reformulation, one that no longer sees the world as the transparent horizon of experiences within which the divine can be pointed out, but rather that the incompleteness and contingency of being human offers hidden glimpses of the divine. This reformulation expresses the sacrament of anointing as an experience of iconic interruption of the loving God within the context of the suffering, vulnerability, and dying of a member of the Christian community. Liessjen, writing on a postmodern understanding of the sacrament of anointing , has proposed an outline, a mere sketch of the communal and pneumatological dimensions of the sacrament that shift to the foreground in this new millennium of theological reflection. I explore the expanded horizons of the sacrament of anointing of the sick that come into view when the postmodern concepts of icon and interruption are utilized. This dissertation examines not only the above mentioned communal and pneumatological dimensions of the sacrament in more depth, but also the accompanying openness in mystery to ever new contexts, the theological limits that arise from these contexts, and the questions that arise when traditional sources dialog with postmodern cultural anthropologies implicit in these contexts.
