Words Made Flesh

During the early nineteenth century, schools for the deaf appeared in the United States for the first time. These schools were committed to the use of the sign language to educate deaf students. Manual education made the growth of the deaf community possible, for it gathered deaf people together in sizable numbers for the first time in American history. It also fueled the emergence of Deaf culture, as the schools became agents of cultural transformations. Just as the Deaf community began to be recognized as a minority culture, in the 1850s, a powerful movement arose to undo it, namely oral education. Advocates of oral education, deeply influenced by the writings of public school pioneer Horace Mann, argued that deaf students should stop signing and should start speaking in the hope that the Deaf community would be abandoned, and its language and culture would vanish. In this revisionist history, Words Made Flesh explores the educational battles of the nineteenth century from both hearing and deaf points of view. It places the growth of the Deaf community at the heart of the story of deaf education and explains how the unexpected emergence of Deafness provoked the pedagogical battles that dominated the field of deaf education in the nineteenth century, and still reverberate today.

The author shows that "the ability to listen, to name one's feelings, to face conflict, to accept oneself, and speak clearly and honestly, are as closely related to witnessing the gospel as they are to expressing good mental health."

Forming souls and building culture together form the sacramental mission of Catholic education. These profoundly related goals are laid out by the Church for education, following the general sacramental principle that permeates the whole of Catholic life. This approach seeks conformity to the Logos, the divine mind, that shapes the way disciples think, imagine, and pray. Guided by this approach, the student will be able to contemplate the truth of reality in a holistic and integrated fashion. As sacramental, it also leads to a concrete embodiment in the life of the Christian community and the daily actions of the disciple. A sacramental approach to education draws together the inner and outer life: mind and body, soul and culture, prayer and work, salvation and mission, the individual and community. For the future of society and renewal within the Church, we need nothing less than a reintegration of the person and our communities through the renewal of education, forming students deeply rooted in our heritage and prepared to hand it on in creative ways.

Most theologians believe that in the human life of Jesus of Nazareth, we encounter God. Yet how the divine and human come together in the life of Jesus still remains a question needing exploring. The Council of Chalcedon sought to answer the question by speaking of one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, the same perfect in divinity and also perfect in humanity, the same truly God and truly a human being. But ever since Chalcedon, the theological conversation on Christology has implicitly put Christs divinity and humanity in competition. While ancient (and not-so-ancient) Christologies from above focus on Christs divinity at the expense of his humanity, modern Christologies from below subsume his divinity into his humanity. What is needed, says Ian A. McFarland, is a Chalcedonianism without reserve, which not only affirms the humanity and divinity of Christ but also treats them as equal in theological significance. To do so, he draws on the ancient christological language that points to Christs nature, on the one hand, and his hypostasis, or personhood, on the other. And with this, McFarland begins one of the most creative and groundbreaking theological explorations into the mystery of the incarnation undertaken in recent memory.

What happens when persons living in the womb are declared to be legal non-persons? What is transgenderism? And why are so many countries changing the meaning of words such as Female, Husband and Mother? The Flesh Made Word makes visible the invisible thread which connects a redefinition of legal marriage to transgenderism to abortion. In doing so it shows that when the physically impossible is made legally possible the effect is that the physically possible is made legally impossible. By examining the relationships between body, mind, language and law, we can come to see that behind the curtain of language our body has been ushered off the legal stage. For legal purposes we no longer have a sex. From here on in we have only a gender.

This updated classic contains 364 daily devotionals revolving around "And the Word became flesh" (John 1:14) and its meaning for a transformed life. From his wide experience with world religions and contact with believers across the globe, E. Stanley Jones explains the difference between Christianity (in which God reaches toward humanity through Jesus Christ) and other faiths (in which humanity reaches toward God in various ways). Includes: Daily scripture reading, commentary, a prayer and affirmation for each day. Discussion guide for 52 weeks with several questions for reflection and conversation Scripture index Topical index E. Stanley Jones (1884-1973) was perhaps the most widely known and admired Christian evangelist of his time. He spent a lifetime in missionary work in India, Japan, and other countries, and touched many more lives through his writings. Praise for the original volume: "...goes to the heart of the matter, for it deals with that which makes the Christian religion unique and enduring among all religions: God becoming man, a religion rooted and grounded in human history." --Kirkus "Characteristically always spiritually motivated and down to the very hear of life itself." --Christian Herald

One of the most influential and fastest-growing movements in the Church today is centered on St. John Paul II’s Theology of the Body, of whose teachings Christopher West is the preeminent translator for a popular audience. In Word Made Flesh: A Companion to the Sunday Readings (Cycle B), West offers reflections on an entire cycle of Sunday Mass readings through the lens of TOB, providing a fresh way to process and act on the Good News by orienting our desires for union with God with our understanding of ourselves and our relationships with others. Wearing John Paul II’s “spousal lenses,” Christopher West, president of the Theology of the Body Institute, takes us on a tour of the Sunday readings throughout the liturgical year and opens their hidden meaning, allowing God’s word to take flesh in our own lives. Word Made Flesh can be used as a weekly devotional, as preparation for Sunday Mass, or to aid priests or deacons in preparing their homilies. West provides an overview of the TOB’s main teachings and an explanation of how they brilliantly illuminate the whole story of salvation from Genesis to Revelation. He offers distinctive reflections each week that naturally and deeply connect with the human experience of living with body and soul in the world while also contemplating the nature of the glorified body in the eternal kingdom to come.

In the fourth century a new narrative genre captured the imagination of the faithful--the accounts of the lives of Christian saints. Kleinberg argues that these stories were more than edifying entertainment. By retelling the story of virtue and salvation, by expanding the religious imagination of the West, they were reshaping Christianity itself.