JPI 958
The Holy Family: New Perspectives for a Theology of the Family
The new emphasis on a Trinitarian Anthropology is shedding fresh light on the Holy Family as a source of theological truth on the family. In this course it will be argued that as Jesus is the ontological fullness of human personhood (through his union with human nature, human nature comes to its fullness [Ratzinger]), so the Holy Family reveals the fullness of family life. Through the presence of Jesus in the domestic church—in its members who participate in the Eucharist and the other sacraments—the family comes to its fullness as a communion of persons both imaging and participating in divine Trinitarian communion (John Paul II). The Tradition from the Fathers through Thomas Aquinas holds that Joseph and Mary had the form of a true marriage, proles, fides sacramentum. Since the mid-nineteenth century, papal and church documents have greatly expanded our understanding of Joseph as a true father through his marriage to Mary. The chaste union between Mary and Joseph in the presence of Christ also invites us to reconsider the relationship of conjugal love and chastity in marriage. The family is not simply an end point of evangelization but in its own nature a source of evangelization, from its participation in divine Trinitarian communion. Such an ontological/theological development of the Holy Family will help students to discern negative elements in contemporary attitudes toward the family: children from divorced vs. intact families, interventionist vs. cooperative reproductive technologies (e.g. Na Pro technology), bodily presence vs. virtual reality. Readings include texts on St. Joseph from the Fathers to John Paul II's Redemptoris custos, other texts from John Paul II and Benedict XVI on the family, Ouellet's Divine Likeness, as well as excerpts from contemporary secular authors.
