The Mystery of Death: Awakening to Eternal Life

by Ladislaus Boros, Cynthia Bourgeault (Introduction)

Overview

What precisely happens at the time of death is a question that theologians have struggled over for centuries but have never answered satisfactorily. The response to this question that Ladislaus Boros gives in his monumental synthesis, The Mystery of Death, is that in death we meet Christ fully for the first time and in doing so attain to full consciousness and freedom. It is therefore only in the moment of death than humans are able to elect for or against their eternal salvation. In other words, death is a kind of judgment day, but it is we ourselves who pass judgment on ourselves.

In her introduction and commentary, Cynthia Bourgeault argues passionately that Ladislaus Boros represents a necessary link to understanding the radical theology of Teilhard de Chardin. She presents Boros as a “powerful potential bridgebuilder. Standing firmly on the shoulders of his celebrated Jesuit mentor Karl Rahner, and highly skilled in the scholastic discourse that Teilhard himself eschewed, he is able to mediate an illuminating dialogue between Teilhard and the greater Christian theological tradition—not, as is so often the case in so much of contemporary Teilhardian scholarship, by secularizing Teilhard’s thought or draping it in current evolutionary jargon, but by piercing to the very marrow of Teilhard’s Christic mysticism and carrying it to an even more brilliant degree of spiritual luminosity.”

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781948626156
Publisher:	Monkfish Book Publishing Company
Publication date:	04/21/2020
Pages:	300
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Ladislaus Boros was widely acclaimed as one of the brightest rising stars in the postwar Jesuit theological firmament. He published over 15 books. His life gradually trended in a different direction. In 1973, he renounced his orders, married, and was laicized. He died in Switzerland in 1981, barely 54 years old.

Modern day mystic, Episcopal priest, writer, and internationally known retreat leader, Cynthia Bourgeault, is the author of several books: The Holy Trinity and the Law of Three, The Meaning of Mary Magdalene, and Love is Stronger than Death.

Table of Contents

Boros, Teilhard, and The Mystery of Death: An Introduction and Commentary Cynthia Bourgeault vii

Introduction xlvii

I The Methodological Postulates for an Analysis of Death 1

1 Death as a Metaphysical Process 1

2 A Temporal Process in a Non-Temporal Transition 4

3 Death a Fundamental Modality of Living, Concrete Existence 8

4 The Workings of the Death-Process Revealed by the Transcendental Method 10

5 Starting-Point for the Philosophical Analysis of Death 13

6 Summary of our Methodological Considerations 22

II The Philosophical Basis for the Hypothesis of a Final Decision 25

1 The Presence of Death in the Will 27

2 Death as the Fulfilment of Knowing 31

3 Integral Perception and Remembrance in Death 35

4 Love as a Projection of our Existence into Death 41

5 Meeting-Point of the Historical Dialectic of Existence 47

6 The Previous Sampling of Death Found in Poetic Experience 60

7 Accomplishment and Perfection of the Kenotic Actualization of Existence 66

8 Revised Definition of the Whole Concept of the Process of Death 70

9 Summary of the Philosophical Demonstration 78

III Theological Discussion 83

1 The Ending of our State of Pilgrimage 84

2 The Place of our fully Personal Encounter with Christ 97

3 The Universality of the Redemption 102

4 Problems of Original Sin 108

5 The State of Purification 124

6 Christological Basis for the Hypothesis of a Final Decision 136

7 Summary of the Theological Discussion 159

Notes 165

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"This book is awesome, a long overdue study of the work of Ladislaus Boros. Kudos to Cynthia Bourgeault for engaging the essential theological topic of death. Boros's profound insight and original thought will bring the reader to new horizons of meaning." —Ilia Delio, OSF, Villanova University