Religion booknotes
Cunningham, Lawrence S.
Bernard of Clairvaux (10901153) is a giant of the medieval era. Monk and mystic, monastic theologian and papal counselor, hagiographer and polemicist, a renowned preacher in the cloister...
...How can we—how do we—receive that Word...
...The candidate should also demonstrate a commitment to the mission and goals of the College of Arts and Sciences and of Bellarmine University...
...The College of Arts and Sciences, the Donna and Allan Lansing School of Nursing, the W. Fielding Rubel School of Business, and the Annsley Frazier Thornton School of Education constitute the four academic division of Bellarmine University...
...In the words of the New Zealand poet James K. Baxter, "When his Tears ran down like blood/I was sleeping in my clothes...
...Candidates should have administrative skills as well as leadership capabilities in initiating programs in Theology...
...Jesus hangs upon the cross, a thorn-garland about his drooping head, his face half covered by long hair...
...John had one profound insight at the heart of his religious experience...
...Readers will wish to add poems and poets to Rosenthal's list...
...Rosenthal now gives us The Poets' Jesus, The Poets' Jesus: Representations at the End of the Millennium Peggy Rosenthal Oxford University Press, $29.95,198 pp...
...The Dean is the senior administrator for the College of Arts and Sciences...
...Discounts and monthly billing available for repeat advertisers...
...John's own description of the spiritual journey— from his prescriptions for Christian asceticism to his final experiences of the Christian life—is well treated...
...In the opening chapter of Bernard of Clairvaux, Evans outlines Bernard's life, devoting subsequent chapters to his written work...
...Kavanaugh's gift for translating John's scholastically informed language into our own allows him to get doser to John's intentions than is usual...
...Unamuno does two things in this long poetic meditation...
...Yes, he was contemplative, but no recluse: Federico Ruiz estimated that he walked more than seventeen thousand miles during his lifetime...
...A more sustained reflection on Bernard's sermons on the Song of Songs, one of the most important mystical texts of the medieval world, would have been welcome...
...The Dean will be responsible for the liberal arts general education core curriculum, which is required for all undergraduate students and Commonweal 27 March 23,2001 CLASSIFIED provides a set of common educational experiences designed to meet faculty expectations for student learning...
...Full command does not signify total sympathy...
...And unlike his contemporary, Teresa of Avila, John had little patience for the epiphenomena of mystical prayer...
...The College of Arts and Sciences is comprised of twelve academic department with fiftyeight full-time faculty members...
...As ¦ a proponent of orthodoxy, Bernard was a restless theological street fighter...
...The Dean will explore the feasibility of new academic undergraduate and graduate programs in the College of Arts and Sciences...
...Catholic Chaplains FULL-TIME POSITIONS AVAILABLE 1. Diocese of Fresno—Pleasant Valley State Prison, Full-time Position, State...
...12 word minimum...
...It has been all too easy to think that John is only interested in the "soul" or that he favors the suppression of all "appetites...
...John of the Cross's answer is that we need to live fully the theological virtues of faith, hope, and love...
...Bellarmine University is an Equal Opportunity Employer...
...A feature of the series is to mix commentary with actual texts...
...In this Evans echoes the late Etienne Gilson, who once said that the early Cistercians gave up everything for God except the art of writing well...
...He felt the visions and locutions were distractions, and he argued that a Christian might take more pleasure in them than in seeking union through the love of God...
...The Dean is responsible for the Brown Scholars Program, the Honors Program, and other special programs in the College of Arts and Sciences in which students throughout the University participate...
...Most striking is the dramatic chiaroscuro: the ghostly white of a dead body juxtaposed against the inky black background made all the more stark because the body obscures most of the cross...
...He spent his whole life in prayer...
...Her widely cast net results in a book that both sprawls and, of necessity, omits...
...Donovan Correctional Facility, CA, Full-time Position, State Adult facility...
...Both Abelard and Gilbert of Poitiers followed his model to their disadvantage...
...Evans does not hesitate to enumerate Bernard's shortcomings...
...Kavanaugh follows the procedure...
...The candidate should have an aptitude for and interest in administration and be able to assist the Provost in projecting the academic image of the institution to constituencies outside the Bellarmine community...
...Fax: (502) 452-8451...
...John had an absolute disdain for bad spiritual directors whom he ranked with Satan...
...1-800-695-9599...
...Also praiseworthy is Kavanaugh's emphasis on John as a close reader of Scripture, and as a person of the church with a wide apostolic mission to direct others in the life of contemplative prayer...
...Please send resume and three references to: Catholic Chaplain Search Committee, California Catholic Conference, 1119 K Street, Second Floor, Sacramento, CA 95814...
...Why not the moving lines of Edith Sitwell on the London raids of 1940 ("Still falls the rain/ at the feet of the starved man hung upon the cross...
...3. Diocese of San Diego—R.J...
...Scholars like Kieran Kavanaugh give us the courage to try...
...Many of his writings were done ad hoc...
...The painting, known today as the Madrid Crucifixion, resides in the Prado...
...What is undeniable is that, although John was a writer mainly by accident, his work constitutes one of the great treasuries of Christian spiritual writing...
...Kavanaugh's present work is an excellent addition to the uneven Crossroad Spiritual Legacy series, and beckons the uninitiated to enter the world of John...
...The final chapter treats poets, among them Richard Wilbur, Denise Levertov, Annie Dillard, for whom Jesus remains present...
...Dewitt Nelson & N.A...
...In his prefatory essay, translator Jaime Vidal persuasively argues that the poem can be read in a perfectly orthodox way, pace the vehement reaction against Unamuno and his poem by the bien peasants of Opus Dei in Spain...
...Penitentiary, Atwater, CA, Full-time Position, Federal (new high-level security facility, open February 2001...
...Only the dead Christ and darkness are present...
...The Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences serves on the Dean's Council, reports directly to the Provost, and presides over meetings of the faculty of the College...
...Monk and mystic, monastic theologian and papal counselor, hagiographer and polemicist, a renowned preacher in the cloister and beyond it, Bernard was the single most important impetus for the spread of the Cistercians...
...405, N.Y., N.Y...
...Bernard of Clairvaux Gillian R. Evans Oxford University Press, $18.95,220 pp...
...From it, he built a theology of the life of prayer...
...5. Diocese of Monterey—(August 200U El Paso de Robles School, Paso Robles, Monterey, CA, Full-time Position, CYA...
...As KaComtnonweal 24 March 23,2001 vanaugh astutely observes, that journey ends not in darkness but in the energizing flame of the Holy Spirit...
...As an independent Catholic institution since 1968, Bellarmine respects the educational tradition of its origins in three ways: through a commitment to academic excellence in its liberal arts and three professional programs in business, education, and nursing...
...The position coordinates the pastoral efforts of the California (Arch) diocesan Hispanic Ministry Directors and assists the Region XI Commission of Spanish Speaking executive committee in leadership activities...
...He seeks symbols from outside the poem to shed light on the painting's significance, and he scrutinizes it in detail in order to explicate the meaning of its sole figure...
...These are the parts of a man who sees and savors the world in which we live, but who also has an instinct for the hidden realm of God: "Your flowing mane covers and veils your ears /like a symbol designed by God your Father/Our Commonweal 26 March 23,2001 faith finds not its base on what is told us/but on whether we have heard...
...For additional information call 212-662-4200 or write COMMONWEAL, 475 Riverside Dr., Rm...
...All correspondence should be sent to: Dr...
...for his intelligent and luminous translation of the complete John, which supersedes the translations of E. Allison Peers, and is available from the Institute of Carmelite Studies for the giveaway price of less than twenty dollars...
...This is the weakest chapter since, given the myriad of possibilities, it merely skims giants like Dante, Milton, and Donne...
...4. Diocese of Stockton—Deuel Vocational Institute, Stockton, CA, Full-time Position, Youth Authority...
...In the second chapter we land Commonweal 25 March 23,2001 on surer, more engaging ground as Rosenthai analyzes poets who locate Jesus in the romantic garb of the hero, presenting a sublime figure in vivid natural settings...
...The Dean will teach at least one course per semester...
...Qualified applicants include priests, men and women religious, deacons or lay persons with appropriate background and skills...
...Kavanaugh briefly outlines John's life and place in his culture...
...RATES: $1.15 per word...
...She shows Jesus not only transformed in the crucible of modernism, but lingering there as an absence, as well as slowly returning to our consciousness...
...Unamuno meditates on the hair, forehead, eyes, nose, and mouth of Jesus in this dual fashion...
...It is stunning...
...Fax: (502) 452-8162...
...Please send letter of interest and resume to: California Catholic Conference, 1119 K Street, Second Floor, Sacramento, CA 95814 e-mail: bcaselli@cacatholic.org EOE Theology Faculty Position THE BELLARMINE UNIVERSITY Department of Theology has a tenure-track position available beginning August 15, 2001...
...Where Miguel de Unamuno (1864-1936) is known among English-speaking readers, it is because of his great work The Tragic Sense of Life (1913), which has an honored place in the existentialist canon running roughly from Kierkegaard through Dostoevsky to Heidegger and Sartre...
...religious houses and monasteries like the Benedictine abbey of Silos (now familiar for its chant recordings...
...and competence in areas of Scripture and/or Theological Ethics...
...Discounts 5 percent, 3 times...
...Founded in 1950 under the sponsorship of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Louisville and with the assistance of the Conventual Franciscan Fathers, its mission is to provide an educational environment of academic excellence in the Catholic liberal arts tradition...
...a study of how Jesus appears in modern poetry...
...Because her subject is modern poetry, Rosenthal's opening chapter rapidly surveys, by way of orientation, the figure of Jesus in poetry up to the eighteenth century...
...by encouraging a vigorous intellectual climate, which affirms the compatibility of faith and reason in discussions of ethical, moral, philosophical, and religious issues...
...E-mail: warmstrong@bellarmine.edu...
...Email: abecker@bellarmine.edu Commonweal 28 March 23,2001...
...His prose commentaries to the poems attract disproportionate attention at the expense of the very art that, while difficult and full, outstrips the commentary...
...The insight was this: God once spoke his Word and having spoken that Word need speak no more...
...Lawrence S. Cunningham teaches theology at the University of Notre Dame...
...Disappointingly, the book lacks a bibliography of primary poetic sources to guide those seeking more poems...
...10115...
...Considered as a whole, it is a work of theological genius...
...Applications should include a letter of interest, a statement of philosophy of academic leadership, current curriculum vitae, and the names, addresses, and telephone numbers of at least five references...
...parts are overlush, but there are moments of great beauty and passion made all the more moving by half-hidden parallels to the language— of silence, abandonment, and solitude— of John of the Cross...
...There is no other figure in the painting...
...By contrast, the poets of chapter three, reflecting the nineteenth-century deconstruction of the gospel stories, present a Jesus who is unrisen (Clough), or a weakling (Baudelaire), or pejoratively compared to the pagan Pan (Ruben Dario...
...Philosophy and Theology play a central role in the core curriculum as these disciplines provide a spiritual and intellectual foundation upon which to integrate the whole general educational experience...
...He was the champion of the Dark Night of the Soul...
...A few years ago, Peggy Rosenthal coedited Divine Inspiration, a wonderful anthology of world poetry about Jesus...
...Evans frequently cites lines of Bernard in Latin to illustrate his almost aphoristic style but, alas, does not always provide the translation...
...Advance payment required...
...In fact, he was an able administrator, drew and painted, designed and constructed an aqueduct, knew the arts of husbandry and farming...
...Dean COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES Bellarmine University invites applications for Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences to begin August 1,2001...
...John's single-mindedness does not mean that he is simple to read...
...For all of his distance from the church, Unamuno was stirred by religious questions and was a frequent retreatant at The Christ of Velazquez Miguel de Unamuno Translated by Jaime R. Vidal Franciscan Press, $19.95,112 pp...
...Unamuno wrestled with the agonizing tensions between belief and reason his whole life...
...Between 1913 and 1920, Unamuno labored at a long poem (some twenty-five hundred lines divided into eighty sections and four books) inspired by the famous crucifixion painted in 1632 by Diego Velazquez for a convent in Madrid...
...Like many Spanish writers, he was haunted by his inherited Catholic background, but his sharp criticisms, his skepticism in the face of the then regnant scholastic articulations of faith, and his near contempt for the institutional church earned him the title of heretic...
...What Evans has provided, however, is a well-written and masterful introduction to this great monastic contemplative and doctor of the church...
...English speakers owe an inestimable debt to Kieran Kavanaugh Saint John of the Cross By Kieran Kavanaugh Crossroad, $16.95,216 pp...
...Rosenthai contrasts these with poets for whom, and poems in which (for example, W. H. Auden's "Horae Canonicae"), we are absent to Jesus rather than he to us...
...Manuscripts Wanted BECOME A PUBLISHED AUTHOR Quality subsidy publisher accepting manuscripts...
...Many of the poets Rosenthal discusses write not out of devotion, but inspired by the rich possibilities of the elusive figure of Jesus...
...Poems from The Spiritual Canticle, The Dark Night, The Living Flame of Love, along with the original sketch that John made for The Ascent, and his famous drawing of the crucifixion can be found here...
...Vidal's translation is enhanced by unobtrusive scriptural citations at the texf s side and illuminating footnotes, which flag Spanish word play as well as patristic and medieval sources for some of the more recondite references in the work Apart from its intrinsic merit, Unamuno's poem hints how one might be inspired to reflection and prayer by what the Greek fathers called (in reference to icons) gazing—that long meditative attention to a masterpiece which, by definition, has a surplus of meaning...
...He was a reclusive contemplative...
...Two other chapters explore the image of Jesus in African and Arabic poetry, and still two more take up the theme of Chrisf s absence as expressed in the writings of Rilke and Borges as well as Samuel Beckett, Czeslaw Milosz, and the Welsh poet and priest, R. S. Thomas...
...Bernard minded most that his words should strike chords and make people enthusiastic for God...
...Phone: (502) 452-8359...
...and in the nurturing of a campus culture and community that reflects basic Judeo-Christian values, concern for each individual as a whole person, service to others, and caring for others...
...Bernard's strength, rather, is found in the power he was able to bring to bear on language...
...Bellarmine is a comprehensive university with a total student enrollment of 2,200 students...
...The successful candidate will have a Ph.D...
...The candidate should also be willing to cooperate with initiatives of the College of the Arts and Sciences in the ongoing Catholic Tradition...
...2. Diocese of San Jose—Agnews Development Center, San Jose, CA, Full-time Position, State...
...The successful candidate for the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences will hold a doctorate, demonstrate outstanding teaching and scholarly activity, and be tenurable in a discipline compatible with a liberal arts institution...
...Bellarmine offers a competitive compensation package including free tuition benefits for faculty and dependents...
...Throughout it is clear that Evans has a full command of the vast corpus of Bernard's writings and an equal command of his culture...
...10 percent, 6 times...
...The review process for applications will begin April 10,2001 and continue until the position is filled...
...Sacramento-based office with some travel required...
...The traditionally depicted mother, beloved disciple, and centurion are omitted...
...One could list any number of cliches about Saint John of the Cross...
...In fact, a little excursus on how to read this great figure of contemplative prayer and in what order to read him would have made Kavanaugh's excellent work a perfect one...
...By the latter she means his polemics against heresy and schism...
...Why not African American spirituals...
...He wrote The Dark Night but never added "of the soul...
...15 percent, 12 times...
...Send letter of application including resume, teaching philosophy, and the names of three academic references by March 15, 2001 to: Eugene L. Zoeller, Theology Department, College of Arts and Sciences, Bellarmine University, 2001 Newburg Road, Louisville, KY 40205...
...Swinburne, the paradigmatic poet of this tendency in his observations on the pale Galilean, is strangely absent...
...Associate Director ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR FOR HISPANIC AFFAIRS The California Catholic Conference is seeking an Associate Director to manage the church's public-policy advocacy efforts, with a special focus on Hispanic legislators, staff, and community leaders...
...It is not a work to read in one sitting...
...Qualifications include legislative advocacy experience, college degree in related field, practicing Catholic, familiar with Catholic church organizations, and must be bilingual in Spanish and English...
...Chaderjian, Stockton, CA, Full-time Position, Youth Authority...
...That Word resonates not only through creation, as the prologue of the Gospel of John says, but is in human history in the person of Jesus Christ 0ohn 1:14...
...Nor does Evans make too large a claim for Bernard as an original theological thinker...
...Gillian R. Evans's new sketch of Bernard for the Oxford "Great Medieval Thinkers" series is a fine addition to her estimable The Mind of Bernard of Clairvaux (Oxford, 1983), and to her edition of Bernard's writings for the "Classics of Western Spirituality" series (Paulist, 1987...
...What we might add would not contradict Rosenthal's penetrating understanding of the diverse modulations of modern poetry about Jesus, which is the real merit of her book...
...She explores Bernard's attitude toward the new dialectical theology, his method of exegesis, his thinking about ethics and politics, and his positive and negative theology...
...That honor belongs to his contemporary (and biographer), the Benedictine turned Cistercian, William of Saint-Thierry...
...John Oppelt, Provost, Bellarmine University, 2001 Newburg Road, Louisville, Kentucky 40205, ATTN: A. Becker...
...The Dean will provide vision and leadership for the College, and will strengthen the role of the arts and sciences at the University...
...Her scope remains international and her new book includes, in addition to the familiar canon, virtually unknown voices from Africa and the Arabic-speaking world...
...The brevity required by the series does not permit Evans the luxury of considering all aspects of Bernard's thought...
Vol. 128 • March 2001 • No. 6
