In this article, we utilize Merleau-Ponty’s notions of gesture, flesh and reversibility as philosophical tools to explicate the corporal reality of ritual, incarnation, sacramental presence and the church as the mystical body of Christ. The phenomenological investigation of bodily gesture provides a foundation to elucidate the meaning of symbolic presence from which we compare Merleau-Ponty’s notion of the flesh with that of the patristic fathers, leading finally to its ecclesiological interpret…
Read moreIn this article, we utilize Merleau-Ponty’s notions of gesture, flesh and reversibility as philosophical tools to explicate the corporal reality of ritual, incarnation, sacramental presence and the church as the mystical body of Christ. The phenomenological investigation of bodily gesture provides a foundation to elucidate the meaning of symbolic presence from which we compare Merleau-Ponty’s notion of the flesh with that of the patristic fathers, leading finally to its ecclesiological interpretation
