Inaug.-Diss.--Bonn. / At head of title: Kunstgeschichte. Lebenslauf. "Literaturverzeichnis": p. 97-99.

This thesis frames the transition into motherhood as a rite of passage; proposes a new model for the rite of passage into motherhood based on the four seasons; and highlights the importance of contextual and specific ritual actions or sequences to navigate the transition. Qualitative data from semi-structured interviews with ten western women, from a middle class, Christian background, who had all become mothers through childbirth, are examined under three main headings. Firstly, the women’s experiences of their transition are explored using rites of passage theory as a lens. Although significant differences emerge, particularly from a gender perspective, important themes within the women’s experiences are highlighted, including the nature of relationships; the importance of support; journaling; and the telling of birthing stories. The influences of contemporary cultural aspects such as the medicalization of childbirth and myths about motherhood are also taken into account. Secondly, the field of ritual studies is explored in order to provide a framework in which to situate the women’s ritualizing. Existing rituals associated with motherhood are analysed and gaps are identified in existing Christian liturgical resources for this area, specifically for ritual actions or sequences marking motherhood as a rite of passage, and for the expression of birthing stories. A working definition of ritualizing is also established and the research findings are divided according to time frame, exploring the women’s ritualizing before birth, around birth and after birth. Thirdly, spirituality in relation to childbirth and the transition into motherhood is explored and its place within healthcare and theological literature examined. Nicola Slee’s theory on women’s faith development is used to draw out some of the patterns that emerge from the interviewees’ experiences, and the sacramental nature of birthing is considered. The thesis concludes with a critique of implications and associated suggestions for those within a church or healthcare context with responsibility for the pastoral and spiritual care of women during their transition into motherhood.

This paper considers the pastoral challenge of a diminished experience of liturgy and worship during the Covid-19 pandemic. It explores the ubiquity of the digital realm and a pervasive culture of consumerism as factors in addition to the pandemic contributing to the challenge. We then reflect on the challenge through the theological perspective of Scripture, sacramental theology, Vatican II teaching and liturgical theology before proposing a pastoral plan.

This thesis "Comparison of selected catechist tools in connection with the sacrament of Confirmation" compares selected catechist books regarding the criteria related to theological, anthropological and catechist themes. The first part presents theological themes - it includes the form and quality of informing about the Holy Spirit and its demonstration in the Old and New Testament, as well as liturgical demonstration of the Church in connection with the Holy Spirit and the dimension of symbols. Further it covers the relation of the Holy Trinity to the sacraments and the close relation of the initiation sacraments with its effect on the receiver. It also deals with the position of catechism in relation to evangelisation and the fact how its structure reflects the catechumen's faith. The second part describes anthropological themes - it focuses on the natural behaviour of the humans, their relation to rituals, on the process of maturing and the importance of a community in the life of a human being from the point of view of faith and religious experience. In the third part we compare the contents and the tasks of the catechisms in the selected catechist tools. Upon an analysis and description of the individual catechist tools, the thesis concludes with an evaluation of the development of the approach towards...

Title Analytical Survey of Czech Manuals for Penitents Issued after 1990 Abstract The thesis is based on a description and analysis of the manuals for penitents that were issued in the Czech Republic after 1990. These manuals (confessional mirrors) are designed as aids in the preparation for the Sacrament of Penance. Since 1990 the religious literature may be freely published in our country and the focus of the thesis is put on the manuals published since then. To assess the materials competently, the thesis at first deals with the theology of the Sacrament of Penance as such. The central part of the thesis presents different aids for penitents, comes with their basic description and with the evaluation of their handiness (for which group of penitents or for which occasion is the manual fit). This analysis will be followed by the description and evaluation of the manuals for confessors that provide a practical aid for the improvement of the priestly service. The different ways of practical fitness of these tools will be assessed. The main aim of the thesis consists in providing an insight into different manuals for penitents and to facilitate the orientation among them to help with the choice of a fitting tool in concrete cases. Another goal of the thesis is to facilitate the orientation among the manuals...

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Transubstantiation and the cult of Corpus Christi became crucial Counter-Reformation symbols which were assigned an even more significant role during the process of Catholic renewal from the mid-sixteenth to the mid-eighteenth century. Practices outside Mass, such as pilgrimages, processions, and prayers in front of the consecrated host flourished, in particular, in early modern Bavaria. The former Duchy of Bavaria has generally been regarded as the archetypal ‘confessional' state, as the Bavarian dukes from the House of Wittelsbach took the lead in propagating the cult of the Eucharist. They acted as patrons of Baroque Catholicism which was presented to the public as an obvious visual marker of Catholic identity. This study therefore investigates how the Eucharist was popularised in the Catholic duchy between 1550 and 1750, focusing on three major themes: pilgrimages, confraternities, and the Corpus Christi procession. This study does not, however, approach the renewal of Catholicism in terms of a top-down process implemented by the Wittelsbach dukes as a method of stately power and control. Rather than arguing in favour of a state-sponsored piety imposed from above, this work explores the formation of Catholic confessional identity as a two-way-process of binding together elite and popular piety, and emphasizes the active role of the populace in constituting this identity. This is why this investigation draws primarily on research from local archives, using a rich body of both textual and visual evidence. Focusing especially on the visual aspects of Catholic piety, this project works towards an interdisciplinary approach in order to understand the ways in which Eucharistic devotion outside Mass was presented to and received by local communities within particular visual environments.

Thesis advisor: Boyd T. Coolman / Hugh of St. Victor impresses even the cursory reader of his great De Sacramentis Christianae Fidei with his tendency to "think in threes." Why does he do this? Is it significant? At the same time, common scholarly judgment holds that Latin theology, in focusing on the person and work of Christ, fails to give an adequate account of the Holy Spirit's role in Christian life. This accusation appears true of Hugh, whose relatively sparse references to the Spirit in, for example, the De Sacramentis are easily catalogued. After a brief introductory chapter, the second chapter of this dissertation exacerbates the problem of Hugh's relative silence about the Holy Spirit by exploring the Trinitarian resonance of his threefold thought: When one demonstrates that the terms of which many of these traids are composed either reproduce the Trinitarian relations or can be "appropriated" to Trinitarian persons, Hugh is recognized not simply as an impressively "triadic" thinker, but a resolutely "Trinitarian" one. How can so Trinitarian a thinker have such an underdeveloped pneumatology? Chapter two proceeds to discuss Hugh's use of the doctrine of appropriations, acquainting the reader with the way Hugh associates various concepts with the different members of the Trinity. The question of Hugh's threefold thought now provides an answer to the accusation of a truncated pneumatology: While Hugh's explicit mentions of the Spirit may be relatively sparse, his doctrine of the Spirit is surprisingly robust, once the pneumatic moments in the triads which structure his thought are identified and considered. The implicit nature of his pneumatology is not surprising, given his tendency to reserve the names of "Father, Son, and Spirit" to discussions of the immanent Trinity. To prepare the reader to uncover Hugh's "implicit" doctrine of the Holy Spirit in the life of the Christian, chapter three does the work of identifying pneumatological themes related to the human person. The second part of the inquiry, structured around Hugh's own description of his spiritual program, properly considers the role of the Holy Spirit in Christian life: One first reads and meditates, then prays, and then receives the grace to live the moral life, all in preparation for a final state of contemplation in which one enjoys the foretaste of eternal sweetness. Utilizing the above method for uncovering Hugh's implicit pneumatology, the Holy Spirit is found to be both "giver and gift" (dator et donum), advancing the believer through the first four steps while being the very gift finally received and enjoyed. Chapter four, on reading, concludes that the Spirit makes the Word's knowledge and wisdom present to the earthly reader. Chapter five examines the interplay between the Word and the Spirit in the act of prayer, in which the Spirit--who first makes the Word "incarnate" in sacramental-Scriptural and sacramental-liturgical signs--intensifies the believer's love for God through the prayerful use of these signs. Finally, chapter six demonstrates that the moral life is given by the Spirit who, in fifteen steps not explicitly attributed to the Spirit yet shown to be the work of the Spirit, makes Christ the Word incarnate present not just "in history" but in the very heart of the acting believer. The dissertation concludes with a reflection on whether the sweetness the soul now enjoys is understood as the "immanental gift" of the Spirit itself or is simply a gift appropriated to the Spirit, suggesting the former. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2015. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Theology.

O recorte temático desta tese são a Vita Apostolica e o Mistério Sacramental como sentido existencial e missão cristã para os homens do Ocidente Europeu na Idade Média Central (séculos XI-XIII) O documento a ser investigado é a versão alemã de Heidelberg do roman arturiano A Demanda do Santo Graal, cujo manuscrito germânico original foi compilado ao final do século XIII. O corpus corresponde ao códice 147 da Bibliotheca Palatina Germaniae de Heidelberg, não se tratando de mera versão dos originais bretões para o alemão medieval (Mittelhochdeutsch). A presente fonte constitui um corpus inaugural, um texto propriamente alemão, ainda que filiado ao Ciclo da Vulgata (Ciclo do Pseudo-Gautier Map), que correspondeu ao primeiro ciclo de prosificação das narrativas do Graal. Pretende-se perscrutar um elemento central do imaginário que caracterizou a experiência dos homens do Ocidente Europeu no apogeu da Idade Média Central. Tratase do sacramento, e a compreensão do sentido sacramental da existência humana no plano da imanência constitui relevante senha de compreensão e predicação de significado às experiências concretas destes homens. Isso se pode atingir por intermédio da apreensão do elemento axial de seu imaginário. / The thematic cutting of this dissertation are the Vita Apostolica and the sacramental mystery as life meaning and Christian mission for the people of the European Western World during the Central Middle Ages (11th to 13th centuries). The document to be analysed is the German version of the Arthurian romance The Quest of the Holy Grail, whose original German manuscript was compiled by the end of 13th century. The corpus corresponds to the codex 147 pertaining to the Bibliotheca Palatina Germaniae in Heidelberg, and this is no sheer translation of the original Bretonnic version to Middle German (Mittelhochdeutsch). The present source constitutes an original corpus, a properly German text, although linked up to the Vulgate Cycle (Pseudo-Gautier Map Cycle), which corresponds to the first prosification cycle entailing the Grail narratives. This study aims at scruting a central element of the imaginary concerning the historical experience of people of Western European World at the peak the Central Middle Ages. It is the sacrament, and the comprehension of the sacramental meaning of human life in the sphere of immanence builds up a relevant key to understanding and endowing concrete experiences with meaning. This can be achieved by means of aprehending the shaft element concernig their imaginary.

O recorte temático desta tese são a Vita Apostolica e o Mistério Sacramental como sentido existencial e missão cristã para os homens do Ocidente Europeu na Idade Média Central (séculos XI-XIII) O documento a ser investigado é a versão alemã de Heidelberg do roman arturiano A Demanda do Santo Graal, cujo manuscrito germânico original foi compilado ao final do século XIII. O corpus corresponde ao códice 147 da Bibliotheca Palatina Germaniae de Heidelberg, não se tratando de mera versão dos originais bretões para o alemão medieval (Mittelhochdeutsch). A presente fonte constitui um corpus inaugural, um texto propriamente alemão, ainda que filiado ao Ciclo da Vulgata (Ciclo do Pseudo-Gautier Map), que correspondeu ao primeiro ciclo de prosificação das narrativas do Graal. Pretende-se perscrutar um elemento central do imaginário que caracterizou a experiência dos homens do Ocidente Europeu no apogeu da Idade Média Central. Tratase do sacramento, e a compreensão do sentido sacramental da existência humana no plano da imanência constitui relevante senha de compreensão e predicação de significado às experiências concretas destes homens. Isso se pode atingir por intermédio da apreensão do elemento axial de seu imaginário. / The thematic cutting of this dissertation are the Vita Apostolica and the sacramental mystery as life meaning and Christian mission for the people of the European Western World during the Central Middle Ages (11th to 13th centuries). The document to be analysed is the German version of the Arthurian romance The Quest of the Holy Grail, whose original German manuscript was compiled by the end of 13th century. The corpus corresponds to the codex 147 pertaining to the Bibliotheca Palatina Germaniae in Heidelberg, and this is no sheer translation of the original Bretonnic version to Middle German (Mittelhochdeutsch). The present source constitutes an original corpus, a properly German text, although linked up to the Vulgate Cycle (Pseudo-Gautier Map Cycle), which corresponds to the first prosification cycle entailing the Grail narratives. This study aims at scruting a central element of the imaginary concerning the historical experience of people of Western European World at the peak the Central Middle Ages. It is the sacrament, and the comprehension of the sacramental meaning of human life in the sphere of immanence builds up a relevant key to understanding and endowing concrete experiences with meaning. This can be achieved by means of aprehending the shaft element concernig their imaginary.