Mariology, History, Theology 

John Saward presents a rich work of theology, spirituality, and ethics to consider one period of Christ's life--the nine months he passed within the body of the Virgin Mary. This "work of reclamation," as Professor Saward terms it, brings together "what early Christian writers, Christian philosophy, liturgy, poetry, and iconography" have said about this now forgotten period--the nine months of Jesus' embryonic and fetal life in Mary. Central to the story is the Annunciation, "the chief feast of the Incarnation." Christ's birth is the manifestation to the world of what occurred at the Annunciation. Through Mary's Yes, the preexisting Son of God assumed a human flesh and a human soul. The Eastern writers, especially Maximus the Confessor, insist upon the inseparability of body and soul, the wholeness of Christ's human person from the very beginning. Christian spirituality does not limit communication to the verbal. At the Visitation, Mary, the new Ark of the Covenant, bears within her th - from Amzon