Becoming You While Being Me: Exploring the Limits of Christian Love and Identity
Iain Matthew
Pontificio Istituto di Spiritualità “Teresianum”, Rome, Italy (Italy)
Abstract
Does love - can love - transform one person into the other without loss of personal identity? Taking a cue from a phrase in Aquinas’s Commentary on the Sentences, we seek in the writings of St John of the Cross an understanding of how love works in relation to the identity of lover and beloved. The article considers a specific verse in his Noche poem, and four texts from the commentary on the Spiritual Canticle. The Carmelite poet’s intution about love’s efficacy then finds confirmation in texts from Ratzinger / Benedict XVI, with his hallmark attention to personal relationship.
Keywords:
love, transformation, identity, night, John of the Cross, Ratzinger, AquinasReferences
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Authors
Iain MatthewPontificio Istituto di Spiritualità “Teresianum”, Rome, Italy Italy
Iain Matthew is a Discalced Carmelite friar, teaching courses on Christology, on St John of the Cross, and on the interface between mysticism and ethics, at the Teresianum Institute in Rome (Piazza San Pancrazio 5/A, 00152 Roma). He has written books on St John and published articles in Teresianum and other journals and reviews
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