Theological and Philosophical Perspectives from Joseph Ratzinger and Peter Kreeft on Mary, the Mother of God, Providing the Grammar of Person in Humanity
Date: Wednesday 13th November 2024
Time: 3:00pm to 4:30pm (in the UK)
Venue: Online via Zoom
In our November research seminar, Dr Mary Frances McKenna will consider how Mary provides the grammar for the theological notion of person in humanity — specifically, how Mary as the Mother in her relationship with God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit illustrates the full actualisation of person in the human being.
The aim of the presentation is to explore what it means for a human being to be person — to actualise their personhood. Dr McKenna will first detail the Scriptural basis of this grammar along with relevant references to the Church Fathers. Then Joseph Ratzinger’s theological and Peter Kreeft’s philosophical perspectives will be explored, offering opportunities to shape and give form to the proposed grammar of person that Mary provides humanity.
To underscore the thesis, an attempt will be made to synthesise into a coherent whole the salient aspects of Ratzinger’s theological and Kreeft’s philosophical contributions. The grammar of mother will be shown to be sanctity which is the actualisation of personhood, and that sanctity is the act of self-giving, the act of self-donation, which is relation without reserve with God the Father, through the Son and in the Holy Spirit.
Our guest speaker
Dr Mary Frances McKenna is a Fellow of The Centre for Marian Studies, UK. She holds a PhD in Humanities in Theology (2012) from All Hallows College, Dublin City University, Ireland, and a MA (1996) and a BA (1994) in History from University College Dublin, Ireland. Her research interests mainly focus on Mary in Christian faith and theology, and the thought of Joseph Ratzinger. She is the author of Innovation within Tradition: Joseph Ratzinger and Reading the Women of Scripture (Fortress Press, 2015). In addition, she has published on the role of Christianity in the world, on the reasonableness of faith and Christian anthropology. She has two articles included in Joseph Ratzinger in Dialogue with Philosophical Traditions: From Plato to Vattimo, edited by Tracey Rowland, Alejandro Sada and Rudy Albino de Assunção (Bloomsbury 2024); and two articles in the forthcoming Oxford University Press Handbook on Ratzinger edited by Tracey Rowland and Francesca Murphy.
Register
If you have not already registered but would like to join the audience, please send an email to Catherine O'Brien at info@marianstudies.ac.uk
You will receive the Zoom link the day before the event.
*Image reproduced with the kind permission of Glenstal Abbey