Reclaiming the Body in Christian Spirituality
Thomas Ryan, CSP ed.
Paulist Press 2005, 177 pages

Reviewed in Ecumenical Trends, Vol. 34, No. 11, December 2005 p. 175

The important work of recovering and evolving a wholesome, faithful incarnational life continues in Reclaiming the Body in Christian Spirituality, a collection of essays edited by Paulist Father Tom Ryan. The volume offers six substantial reflections from authors whose backgrounds in theology, spiritual animation, yoga, social activism, naturalism, medicine, community development and ecumenism bring a full perspective to the crux of Christian life and experience: the centrality and sacrality of the body in the faith and praxis of believers. The problematic that this book tries to address is stated at the outset in this fundamental contradiction: Christianity has the highest valuation of the body of all the world�s religions, yet the body has little place in our spiritual practice.

Benedictine monk James Wiseman gives a helpful historical context for this dilemma in the opening essay on the history of Christian body-consciousness - its role in prayer, meditation, and marriage. Condensing the tradition into several broad strokes he helps us understand the dualistic fault-lines on which our theology and practice were founded, namely the ambivalence of the early Christians who were pulled between the creation affirming Judaism of the Jesus community and the ambivalence and at times hostility toward carnality of the Greek culture in which they tried to find an original voice. Wiseman notes this deeply engrained confusion while trying to point to spiritual masters who offer another vision. Yet the disembodiedness of our ethos and praxis has persisted to this day as seen in the historical accent placed on �mental prayer,� the preoccupation with the life of the soul, and the higher valuation of celibacy over marriage that have characterized the Catholic Christian tradition.

To address and redress these distortions and imbalances, Tom Ryan offers two exceptional essays, clearly the spine and flesh of the book. �Toward a Positive Spirituality of the Body� and �The Body Language of Faith� are rich with the fundaments of a vibrant incarnational theology, which he skillfully translates into a wholesome and pragmatic way of living incarnately. Clearly a �practicing� theologian, Ryan�s poetic gift weaves a seamless garment of insight and meaning to more clearly reveal the sacred contours of the human body in its beauty, wonder, and complexity. Moreso, he catalogues all the ways Christianity has and has not taken the body seriously as the existential form of human being, and as the singular symbol of divinity manifesting in our midst. These two chapters are so laden with insight and instruction, so well researched and comprehensive, so loyal to the sacramental sensibility and liturgical expression of Christianity, that they deserve to be the seminal texts for a new catechesis of the body for people of faith.

The three remaining authors bring insights from several experiential frameworks: the practice and teaching of yoga; social justice making and community development; and the healing arts of medicine and engagement with the natural world. These latter two especially give gravity to this collection in their well rendered insistence that the body is far more than our skin-encapsulated selves, but more really and expansively, it is the social body, the political body, the animal body, the planetary body, the cosmic body � all dimensions of the one Mystical Body which we are anointed to praise, to heal, to celebrate, and to serve.

Reviewer: Kathleen Deignan, Ph.D, is professor of Religious Studies at Iona College, New Rochelle, NY, where she also directs the Iona Spirituality Institute