Description:

Franciscan Heritage Series, Volume 6

Mary Beth Ingham, CSJ

The special focus of this study is the appreciation of beauty in the writings of two great theorists of the tradition, Bonaventure of Bagnoregio and John Duns Scotus. Here we see the confluence of a rich earlier tradition of Christian reflection on beauty and its role in our journey toward God. From Augustine to the Victorines, a rich Platonic stream within the Western Catholic tradition spoke of God as Beauty. One of the chief contributions of this presentation is its linkage of the categories of the Good and the Beautiful, of the moral and the aesthetic, within a framework of Francicsan reflection on the world, the human person and the divine-human encounter.

A worthy contribution to the ongoing project of retrieval of the Franciscan Intellectual Tradition, this study will introduce many who are committed to a recovery of attention to beauty in our human journey to new dialogue-partners from the Christian tradition.

This is the sixth in a series intended to encompass topics which will connect the Franciscan Intellectual Tradition with today's language of our Christian Catholic Franciscan way of Gospel life. It will include some of the many different carriers of our Franciscan Tradition - not just Francis and cleric theologians, but also Clare, the women penitents and the laity. Embedded in this vision and communicated in the Intellectual Tradition are implications for the world of politics, economics, social relations, family life and daily human existence.