In her remarkable first book, God Dwells With Us: Temple Symbolism in the Fourth Gospel, Mary L. Coloe, P.B.V.M., explored the profound insight of John’s Gospel expressed in Jesus’ invitation to his disciples: Make your home in me, as I make mine in you (John 15:4). For the gospel’s author and audience, the dwelling of God among humans was, above all, the Jerusalem Temple. The gospel traces how’after the trauma of the destruction of the Temple’the Johannine community came to expand and deepen its knowledge of God’s dwelling among humans, finding it now in the person of Jesus and in the community of believers.
Dwelling in the Household of God moves us from seeing God's dwelling place as the Temple to seeing God's dwelling place within the community of believers. The starting point now is an image in John 14:2: my Father’s house, which is given its Old Testament meaning of my father’s household. Our awareness thus moves, like that of the first Christians, from understanding My father’s house as the Temple (John 2:16) to My Father’s Household as a community of believers drawn into Jesus’ own divine filiation. Coloe invites us to re-read the gospel from the post-Easter perspective of those who have become brothers and sisters of Jesus and living Temples of God’s presence. What emerges is nothing less than a profound mysticism of the mutual indwelling of God and believers.
Product Preview
| Format: | Paperback book |
|---|---|
| Product code: | LP5988 |
| Dimensions: | 6" x 9" |
| Length: | 240 pages |
| Publisher: |
Liturgical Press
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| ISBN: | 9780814659885 |
| 1-2 copies | $23.71 each |
|---|---|
| 3-9 copies | $22.63 each |
| 10-49 copies | $21.56 each |
| 50-99 copies | $21.02 each |
| 100+ copies | $20.21 each |
Praise
The volume will be of great value to graduate students and scholars wishing to learn more of the richly symbolic world disclosed in John's Gospel.
Mary Coloe's study constitutes a valuable contribution to the literature on the Fourth Gospel, both its historical context and its relevance for contemporary Christian life. Happily, its price makes it available not only to college and university libraries but also to the wider readership it deserves.
Mary Coloe has provided a synthetically exegetical and robustly theological reading of John that benefits both the academy and the church.
. . . an engaging, immensely readable and inspiring presentation of the gospel's ecclesiology and spirituality and its implications for being Church today.
[T]he book is stimulating and deserves to be read.
[T]his book is a richly theological and meditative text.
[T]his volume ensures that C.'s elaboration of the Christology and ecclesiology conveyed in John's Temple and household symbolism will have an enduring impact on the study of the Fourth Gospel.
Dwelling in the Household of God is well-written and solidly researched. Drawing equally from classical and contemporary Johannine scholarship the book not only successfully demonstrates the proposed Johannine ecclesiological theory, it would also serve well as a commentary on the selected pericopes. The contributions it makes to ecclesiology and Johannine studies are both unique and provocative. Coloe has done an immeasurable service through her `second reading' and serves as an inspiration for others to do the same.
Author
Mary Coloe, PBVM, DTh, holds a joint teaching position at the Australian Catholic University and St Paul’s Seminary, Brisbane. Her publications include numerous articles and God Dwells With Us: Temple Symbolism in the Fourth Gospel (Liturgical Press, 2001).
