Analysis Of The Letter ' Letter From The Holy Spirit '

The Pope is the head of the Church: he represents the ultimate religious authority. However, as a Bishop of Rome, the Pope is also in command of certain secular affairs, including some military aspects. Certainly, the Pope is a link between the earthly and the divine realms. Problems arise when the imperfect world the Pope physically lives in interferes with his heavenly objectives. Taking Pope Gregory I as an example, I am going to look at his letters to analyze how he reconciled his political and spiritual goals, whether he valued one category over the other, and how he justified it.

“She wishes she had asked him to explain more of what he meant. But she was impatient…to be done with sewing. With doing everything for three children, alone…” (1125, 3), and “Respect, a chance to build. Her children at last from underneath the detrimental wheel. A chance to be on top” (1124, 2) both reveal the motives behind getting married to this man, despite the religious conflict. She is torn between the pros and cons of this new life. It’s although she is trying to convince herself, but the negative thoughts just keep surfacing.

I, {****}, a member of [*PARISH NAME AND LOCATION*], ask you, Bishop Grahmann, to confirm me as a member of the Roman Catholic Church. I would like to receive the sacrament because I want to become an active member and participant in the Catholic Church. After I have received it, I will be recognized as a full member of the Catholic Community, enabling me to be involved in the parish with more depth. As a confirmed individual, I will be better able to participate in many events within my church community. Receiving Confirmation will also allow me to be closer to God.

Chapter 6 - “Oh, I do hope he is not ill. He surely would have written. I look at that last letter of his, but somehow it does not satisfy me. It does not read like him, and yet it is his writing. “ PG. 74

In the documents Lessons for Women, Psalms of the Sisters and History of Rome all explain the different gender systems and their roles. Lessons for women, was a about a lady named Ban Zhao who was a Chinese women that wrote lessons for women. In the document Psalms of the Sisters was written by women about religious experience of women. The document 5.3 History of Rome, states Roman women demanded repeal of a tax on luxury items for women long after the Punic Wars were over. In each document they tell a different role for women because women rights were not taken seriously in some civilizations.

In the book The Letters of Abelard and Heloise, Abelard and Heloise’s relationship changes dramatically as seen in their love letters. At first, their relationship was very sexual based while they were together. I feel that the shift in their relationship happened when they became physically separated. As soon as the separation occurred, their relationship became a primarily chaste relationship. My goal in this paper is to demonstrate why I feel that Abelard and Heloise’s relationship changed from a sexual based relationship to a chaste based relationship because of the material realities and the change in the understanding of their relationship. To do this, I will first analyze the change in material realities and how that effected the relationship. Next, I will talk about what I think the initial understanding of the relationship is for both Abelard and Heloise. Then, I will tell how Abelard changed Heloise’s understanding of the relationship. Then, I will explain their Heloise’s new understanding of the relationship. Finally I will conclude by summarizing the how the relationship changed and why the change happened.

“[In 16th century European society] Marriage was the triumphal arch through which women, almost without exception, had to pass in order to reach the public eye. And after marriage followed, in theory, the total self-abnegation of the woman.”

Throughout the letters of Heloise and Abelard, there are several examples of how gender roles shaped medieval France. In the third letter of the collection, Abelard writes to Heloise lamenting about his misfortunes. He asks her to pray for him because; “your prayer may win for me from God if this woman’s prayer obtained so much from a man.” In this letter, Abelard sees women having a stronger spiritual connection than men, and he even goes on to give evidence to this point. He says that when you look at, “the Old and New Testaments, you will find that the greatest miracles of resurrection have been displayed only, or chiefly, to women and were preformed for them or with respect to them.” He gives several examples, including, the resurrection of Christ and how it was the three Mary’s who found the empty tomb; in the Old Testament, Elias and Elisha resurrected two men at the prayers of their mothers; and Lazarus’s

The communication principle that is outlined in this paper is about communicating lies and what the outcome of lying is. In the book of Psalm, it explains very clear about the bibles stance on lying. Psalm 59:12-13:12 reads, “For the sins of their mouths, for the words of their lips, let them be caught in their pride. For the curses and lies they utter, 13 consume them in your wrath; consume them till they are no more. Then it will be known to the ends of the earth that God rules over Jacob.”

Early modern European society relied heavily on relatively strict gender roles. Although work that men and women performed regarding early modern European economy was relatively the same, these two genders were affected by different factors. While men were usually only affected by factors such as age, class, and skill, women were affected by several more such as marriage, widowhood, and motherhood (Wiesner-Hanks, 2008). Marriage during these times were usually for business and status, as opposed to a true human connection. When a young person is vowed to another for marriage, they are also set up with a dowry, or credit to help support their married-life, and occupation. Marrying another individual could even be considered a strategic economic approach to accumulating status and privilege. While both men and women are set up with a dowry, it is almost always the bride that must move from her own household to that of the groom’s or groom’s parents. Gluckel herself was vowed by her parents at the age of twelve, and married off nearly two years later. Because of such an early commitment, Gluckel had a very short, practically nonexistent childhood. She doesn’t write much about her own personal experiences during childhood, but more about her immediate, and extended family members’ escapades. Come to think of it, it is possible that

Marie de France lived in a time when social graces were paramount to a good reputation, lordships and to securing good marriages. A woman was considered less valuable if she lost her virginity; a wife was subjected to her feudal lord, father, brother or son after her husband’s death. According to Angela Sandison’s article “The Role of Women in the Middle Ages”, this was because in the Middle Ages the Church and the aristocracy controlled public opinion and the legal system. These authorities of the times believed a woman’s place was in a submissive role to a man. In The Lay of the Nightingale, we will see how this social and religious hierarchy will impact the behaviors of the three people involved.

The Holy Spirit of God is the active force or power in one’s life, which most certainly includes spiritual formation (Pettit, 2008, p. 46). When Jesus was speaking with his disciples he made it clear – by using the analogy of a vine and branches – that apart from him they could do nothing (John 15:5). Only if one is connected to Christ will they have the ability to bear fruit and the way Jesus empowers those connected to him is through the Holy Spirt that that father will send in his name (John 14:26). The fact is that the triune God dwells in the Christian in and through the Holy Spirit. One sees this when they place multiple passages together to gain a full understanding of this concept. For example, Jesus made it clear that he and the father would come and make their home with the disciple (John 14:23). In 1 Corinthians 6:19 Paul reminds the Corinthians that their bodies are the very temple of God because the Holy Spirit dwells in them which is similar to what Jesus said would happen when he sent the Holy Spirit after his resurrection and ascension (John 14:17, 16:7).

Throughout the letters, Abelard and Heloise’s perspectives on gender roles were strictly based upon the traditional views on sexuality. For instance, in the egotistical mind of Abelard, women in the medieval society were viewed as a weaker sex who need help of the a stronger male since there were certainly things that “cannot be carried out by women”5. Moreover, Heloise, despite her being a woman, did not seem to be shocked at the idea that men are superior to women. Instead, she instinctively acknowledged the weaker nature of women indicated by her discussion of her abbey which she called “feminine”; she also described it as weak, frail, and needing a more careful attention6. Throughout the first four letters from Abelard and Heloise, they both held congruent views regarding masculinity and femininity, and this dichotomous way of looking at gender indeed did not deviate much from the conventional thinking of the medieval society.

There are many cultures around the world that do not expect clergy celibacy (Daly, 2009) including Christian denominations who allow ministers/priests to marry. These Churches demonstrate how marriage is compatible with the priestly life. These churches present a great example of how familial responsibilities are compatible with religious commitments. A study of married Evangelical ministers and Roman Catholic priests revealed that there were no significant differences in dimensions of religiosity or commitments to the parish between the celibate and married clergymen (Swenson, 1998). Both are

A few of the branches of the Catholic Church in Eastern Europe allow their priests to be married. The Vatican allows the marriages to keep church members from converting to Orthodox Christianity, the dominant religion in that part of the world. A recent article in The New York Times profiles Reverend Yuriy Volovetskiy, the priest at a Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. Volovetskiy is married and has six children. He says that being married helps him better relate to his parishioners. He says having children has helped him become a part of society. It is easier for him to explain things to his parish if he has actually lived through them. Volovetskiy also says that celibacy is unnatural, and that no one can escape from having a sexual life (Levy).