ABOUT THE BOOK: Unexpected diagnosis. Life-threatening sickness. Death of a loved one. Unbearable financial burden. Everything is against you, and all hope is lost. If this is where you are, you are not alone. Aley Abraham has lived these same experiences and shared these very thoughts, especially when the thing she feared most came to get her-cancer. In an easy-to-read, narrative style, Blessings of My Breast Cancer will leave you with a sense of the Divine. You will learn to apply ten practical steps to not only overcome obstacles but to recognize opportunities in the midst of your struggle. You will find the blessings of your own cancer **** ABOUT THE AUTHORS: (Aley) In 1982, Aley Abraham became the first in her family to come to the U.S. Already an established tenth-grade teacher with two Indian bachelor degrees, she went back to school in the U.S. and earned a degree in medical technology. Today she works as a microbiologist at Children's Medical Center in Dallas, Texas. Aley is an active volunteer with The American Cancer Society and speaks frequently at her local church. She has been married for 39 years, has two daughters, two sons-in-law, and one granddaughter. (Susan) As an active wife, mother and career professional, Susan Abraham Thomas enjoys the opportunity to write. She has written for school newspapers and journals, company newsletters and online blogs; created original greeting cards; and supplies daily devotionals. Susan holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Engineering from Texas A&M University and is a certified PMP.

Enfleshing Theology honors and engages the life work of M. Shawn Copeland, whose theology is groundbreaking and prophetic, traversing the fields of Catholic Theology, Black Theology, Womanist Thought, and Semiotics. The book opens with a brief introduction, and then moves to an interview with Copeland, which connects her theology to her life stories. The conversation with Copeland also provides a backdrop to the seventeen essays that follow, extending Copeland's theological worldview. The contributions are divided according to the following sections: embodiment, discipleship, and politics. The essays in the section entitled "Engaging Embodiment" critically reflect on the importance of embodiment in Christian theology and contemporary culture. Following Copeland's lead, authors in this section theorize and theologize the body, particularly (but not limited to) Black women's bodies, as a locus theologicus that reveals, mediates, and shapes the splendor and suffering reality of human existence. The next section, entitled "Engaging Discipleship," focuses on the concrete challenges of following Jesus in today's world. The essays included in this section reflect on Copeland's focus on Jesus' particularity in terms of his solidarity with and for others. Discipleship is about modeling and mentoring, so scholars in this section also comment on Copeland's contribution to teaching and pedagogy. The last section, entitled "Engaging the Political," interrogates the political implications of the theological. It is noteworthy that there are two trajectories of the political here, one is Copeland's development of political theology through the lens of Canadian Jesuit theologian, Bernard Lonergan. The other trajectory focuses on the work of theology in contemporary art and politics. These three sections are fluid and overlap with one another. Several of the articles on embodiment speak to questions of solidarity and a few of the essays on discipleship clearly present as political. The ways in which each of the contributions in this volume overlap with each other attests to the complex nature of doing constructive theology today, and even more how Copeland's work is at the forefront of that multi-layered, polyvalent, intersectional theological work.

ABOUT THE BOOK: Unexpected diagnosis. Life-threatening sickness. Death of a loved one. Unbearable financial burden. Everything is against you, and all hope is lost. If this is where you are, you are not alone. Aley Abraham has lived these same experiences and shared these very thoughts, especially when the thing she feared most came to get her-cancer. In an easy-to-read, narrative style, Blessings of My Breast Cancer will leave you with a sense of the Divine. You will learn to apply ten practical steps to not only overcome obstacles but to recognize opportunities in the midst of your struggle. You will find the blessings of your own cancer **** ABOUT THE AUTHORS: (Aley) In 1982, Aley Abraham became the first in her family to come to the U.S. Already an established tenth-grade teacher with two Indian bachelor degrees, she went back to school in the U.S. and earned a degree in medical technology. Today she works as a microbiologist at Children's Medical Center in Dallas, Texas. Aley is an active volunteer with The American Cancer Society and speaks frequently at her local church. She has been married for 39 years, has two daughters, two sons-in-law, and one granddaughter. (Susan) As an active wife, mother and career professional, Susan Abraham Thomas enjoys the opportunity to write. She has written for school newspapers and journals, company newsletters and online blogs; created original greeting cards; and supplies daily devotionals. Susan holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Computer Engineering from Texas A&M University and is a certified PMP.

What does it mean to be a Catholic woman with feminist commitments today, and what insights can be garnered from that context? In this first attempt in a generation at a collective framework for Catholic feminist theology, a group of theologians formulate a new contextual approach to and criteria for systematic theology and apply those insights as they tackle three key topics: Theological Anthropology, Christology, and Ecclesiology.Key to their endeavor is specific focus on contemporary discipleship, a special cricitcal methodology and relationship to the Catholic Christian tradition, and a specific sensitivity to academic and ecclesial hegemonies. The result in each case is an honest exploration of the tradition, a contextualization of the locus in the lives of women today, and an attempt at a constructive vision with which to move forward.Contributors: Susan Abraham, Rosemary Carbine, Teresa Delgado, Elizabeth Groppe, Jeanine Hill-Fletcher, Elena Procario-Foley, Michele Saracino, and Laura Taylor.