Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-dfsvx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-25T10:17:39.969Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

5 - Corporeality Reclaimed in The Major Life of Francis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 November 2019

Rachel Davies
Affiliation:
Australian Catholic University, Melbourne
Get access

Summary

In preceding chapters I have proposed that while premodern theologians including Bonaventure have tended to emphasize the body’s rebellion against the soul’s headship when speaking of sin’s effect on the human person, in our own period it may be more helpful to emphasize the soul’s abandonment of the body at the fall, together with the whole corporeal world it represents. Journeying to glory under the aesthetic terms initiated by the fall invites humanity to reclaim the corporeality it estranged when it tried to possess created goods divorced from the whole of uncreated Beauty. But this, as we saw in Chapters 3 and 4, can only occur as believers come to locate their bodily diminishment within the glorified corporeality of the resurrected Christ. Relating to diminishment in this way can enable humans to direct the movement of their bodies toward death in a way that leads to transfiguration. While bouts of perplexity and feelings of bodily estrangement may linger (an experience we can read into the ambiguous relationship Francis maintains with his own body throughout the Major Life, as we shall soon see), Bonaventure’s theological framework can teach believers to encounter the unintelligibility of their bodies and of the whole corporeal world with the same tender care Francis exhibits after receiving counsel from the brother just described: “Cheer up Brother Body, and forgive me,” Francis responds, “for I will now gladly do as you please, and gladly hurry to relieve your complaints!” As the body is reclaimed by the soul in this way, the fractured “parts” of fallen humanity may once again come, in hiddenness, to exercise the beauty of proportion, and to participate in the generative work of the One who leads all things to glory.

Type
Chapter
Information
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2019

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure coreplatform@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×