JPI 549/752
Marriage and Virginity as States of Life
This course considers the concept of a "state of life" as a specification of the human vocation to love (Familiaris consortio, 11). The tradition has often stated that marriage and virginity are complementary rather than fundamentally opposed to each other. At the center of this complementarity is each state's analogous realization of the interior "form" of the vocation of human nature itself as revealed in Christ. The course explores the foundation of the two states in creation ex nihilo and their eschatological destiny, whether and in what sense we might call marriage a "state of perfection," and the relation of the two states to the human person's most fundamental and interior level of freedom. Readings include texts drawn from the writings of John Paul II, H. de Lubac, H. U. von Balthasar, St. Thomas Aquinas, A. Scola, M. Ouellet, and E. Schillebeeckx.
