The Blessed Virgin Mary is uniquely associated with Catholicism, and the century preceding the Second Vatican Council was arguably the most fertile era for Catholic Marian studies. In 1964, Pope John Paul VI published the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, or Lumen Gentium (LG), the eighth chapter of which presents the most comprehensive magisterial teaching on the Blessed Virgin Mary. As part of its Marian Initiative, the Institute for Church Life at the University of Notre Dame invited scholars to a conference held at Notre Dame in October 2013 to reflect the rich Marian legacy on the eve of the Second Vatican Council. The essays unanimously stress that the Blessed Virgin Mary is not merely a peripheral figure in Christian faith and in the panorama of theology. More than fifty years after Lumen Gentium, students of theology as well as Marian devotees take their bearings from this document in order to promote the person of Mary and the study of Mariology, as well as grow in authentic Marian piety. This book will have great appeal to students and scholars of Catholic theology and history, particularly those interested in Mariology. Contributors: Ann W. Astell, Peter Casarella, John C. Cavadini, Lawrence S. Cunningham, Brian Daley, S.J., Peter J. Fritz, Kevin Grove, CSC, Msgr. Michael Heintz, Matthew Levering, Danielle M. Peters, James H. Phalan, CSC, Johann G. Roten, S.M., Christopher Ruddy, Troy Stefano, and Thomas A. Thompson, S.M.

Drawing together renowned scholars of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, Who Do You Say That I Am? focuses on the identity and ministry of Jesus. This distinctive collection provides an ecumenical forum in which adherents of some of the world's major religions comment on the tradition of Christian engagement with fundamental questions of Christology. The essays in this volume were delivered at an international conference at the Tantur Institute for Ecumencial Studies in Israel during May 2000. Contributors to this volume write on varied topics, including the Christological creeds and confessions of the early church, the confessions of the Councils, the many and various titles given to Jesus in the New Testament, the relationship between the biblical confessions and the creedal confessions of the Councils, a theology of the poor, Christology and inter-religious dialogue, and a comparative theology of mutual illumination among Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. While covering diverse themes, the essays in this volume are united by the conviction that the faith of the Church is by its very nature open to development and understanding

Jesus Becoming Jesus presents a theological interpretation of the Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke. Unlike many conventional biblical commentaries, Weinandy concentrates on the theological content contained within the Synoptic Gospels. He does this in the light of the Church's doctrinal and theological tradition, particularly in keeping with the Second Vatican Council's Dogmatic Constitution, Dei Verbum. Weinandy accomplishes this through a close reading of the individual Gospels themselves as well as observing their theological relationship to one another. His interpretation of the Gospels also brings to the fore the theological significance of God's revelation that is contained within the Old Testament which, likewise, shows how theological themes contained within Matthew, Mark, and Luke are found and developed within the Gospel of John, the Pauline Corpus and other New Testament writings. This original theological interpretation focuses primarily on the events narrated with the Synoptic Gospels-the conception and birth of John the Baptist and Jesus, Jesus's baptism and temptations, his miracles, Peter's profession of faith and Jesus' transfiguration, Jesus' triumphal entrance into Jerusalem with the subsequent passion and resurrection narratives. Within the theological examination of these salvific events, Jesus teaching is likewise discussed, particularly concerning the Beatitudes and his relationship to the Father and the Holy Spirit. The overarching theme of this book, as the title suggests, is that Jesus, being named Jesus, throughout his public ministry and particularly in his passion, death, and resurrection, is enacting his name and so becoming who he is-YHWH-Saves. Jesus Becoming Jesus offers a singular, vibrant, and luminous reading of the Synoptic Gospels; one that reveals the theological depth and doctrinal sophistication contained within Matthew, Mark and Luke.

Drawing together renowned scholars of Christianity, Judaism, and Islam, Who Do You Say That I Am? focuses on the identity and ministry of Jesus. This distinctive collection provides an ecumenical forum in which adherents of some of the world's major religions comment on the tradition of Christian engagement with fundamental questions of Christology. The essays in this volume were delivered at an international conference at the Tantur Institute for Ecumencial Studies in Israel during May 2000. Contributors to this volume write on varied topics, including the Christological creeds and confessions of the early church, the confessions of the Councils, the many and various titles given to Jesus in the New Testament, the relationship between the biblical confessions and the creedal confessions of the Councils, a theology of the poor, Christology and inter-religious dialogue, and a comparative theology of mutual illumination among Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. While covering diverse themes, the essays in this volume are united by the conviction that the faith of the Church is by its very nature open to development and understanding

A group of North American scholars gathered at the University of Notre Dame in 1993 for a symposium on Pope Gregory the Great (550-604). The essays collected in this volume are arranged in the order in which they were delivered, and several additional contributions are included as well. In these essays Gregory emerges as a figure both interpreting and interpreted: interpreting the past, receiving, synthesizing, and developing the teachings of earlier writers, and, by this very process, presenting a persuasive theological and pastoral agenda which itself inspires ongoing projects of interpretation and development in later periods up to and including our own.

Benedict XVI's writing as priest-professor, bishop, head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and now pope has shaped Catholic theological thought in the twentieth century. In "Explorations in the Theology of Benedict XVI," a multidisciplinary group of scholars treat the full scope of Benedict's theological oeuvre, including the Augustinian context of his thought; his ecclesiology; his theologically grounded approach to biblical exegesis and Christology; his unfolding of a theology of history and culture; his liturgical and sacramental theology; his theological analysis of political and economic developments; his use of the natural law in ethics and conscience; his commitment to a form of interreligious dialogue from a place of particularity; and his function as a public, catechetical theologian. This volume originated at a conference at the University of Notre Dame on the occasion of the pontiff and theologian's eighty-fifth birthday. It provides an introduction to Benedict's ecclesially grounded theology, articulated in his essays, monographs, and sermons, and also serves as a primer in the major concerns of Catholic theological discourse in the twentieth century. "Explorations in the Theology of Benedict XVI" will be of interest to students in theology; those concerned with the development of a pastoral approach to theology that is simultaneously sophisticated in its thought; theological historians seeking to understand the place of Benedict vis-a-vis twentieth-century intellectual life; and general readers of Benedict's work. "This collection of essays on the theology of Benedict XVI offers a new apologetics founded 'not so much on the desire to outdo one's opponent in dialectical victory but to allow the Love in which the original Word was spoken . . . to make its own case, its own apologia, in the hearts of those who hear.' It is, in short, an excellent presentation of what Benedict XVI means when he says that 'love and reason are the twin pillars of all reality.' The essays sympathetically uncover the pontiff's theological foundation stones." --Tracey Rowland, John Paul II Institute, Melbourne, Australia "If you're looking for a synoptic view of Benedict XVI's theological achievement, this is by a long way the best thing on offer in English. Each of the essays provides a detailed engagement with a central theme in Benedict's theology, treated not merely in isolation but also in terms of its relations to the whole. The result is a profound depiction of the range, scope, and integrated nature of Benedict's theology. This is a volume that honors the thinker it treats by taking him seriously not only as pope, but also as a theologian." --Paul J. Griffiths, Duke Divinity School "This is quite simply the best exploration of Pope Benedict's theology available in English. Some of these essays dig deep into the younger Ratzinger's Augustinian soil and reveal to us the roots of Benedict's papal teaching. Others trace the lines of growth from those roots out to his striking papal encyclicals, and to the apologetics of love that grounds his vision of the Church's task. The fruitfulness of the collection is perhaps most evident in the way that the authors do not simply repeat, but think with and in the light of Benedict's theology. Above all, this collection displays Benedict's theology as a personal, living faith and a reasoned faith, as a theology of divine and human love that invites humanity into faith's re-imagining of human existence." --Lewis Ayres, Durham University "Shunning simplistic varieties of both caricature and adulation, these essays provide an appreciative but rigorous engagement with the breadth and depth of Benedict's theology. The result is not merely a collection of summaries of different texts and themes but rather a convincing portrait of the vitality, integrity, and fecundity of Benedict's theological vision and its prophetic witness to the evangelical message of God's unfathomable love." --Khaled Anatolios, Boston College School of Theology and Ministry

Benedict XVI’s writing as priest-professor, bishop, head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and now pope has shaped Catholic theological thought in the twentieth century. In Explorations in the Theology of Benedict XVI, a multidisciplinary group of scholars treat the full scope of Benedict’s theological oeuvre, including the Augustinian context of his thought; his ecclesiology; his theologically grounded approach to biblical exegesis and Christology; his unfolding of a theology of history and culture; his liturgical and sacramental theology; his theological analysis of political and economic developments; his use of the natural law in ethics and conscience; his commitment to a form of interreligious dialogue from a place of particularity; and his function as a public, catechetical theologian.