Cristología espiritual en los escritos de Joseph Ratzinger. Hacia una visión de conjunto de su cristología a partir de tres elementos fundamentalesoración, corazón y comunión

Abstract

This doctoral thesis deals with Ratzinger's spiritual Christology, which he proposed in the 1980s in Behold the Pierced One and elaborated in more detail in his trilogy Jesus of Nazareth (2007-2012). The object of this research was to study three foundational elements of the spiritual appropriation of Christology: prayer, heart, communion. For this purpose, three periods in which Ratzinger reflects on the mystery of Jesus Christ are analyzed. The first (1950-1981) corresponds to the implicit spiritual Christology, that is, to the writings prior to Behold the Pierced One (1981-1984), as well as his doctoral thesis on St. Augustine, his habilitation thesis on St. Bonaventure and the Introduction to Christianity. He deals explicitly with spiritual Christology in his writings of the second (1981-1984) and third (1984-2012) periods. The prayer of Jesus, which is the expression of the mystery of intra-Trinitarian communion, illuminates Christology. Ratzinger bases his spiritual Christology in Behold the Pierced One on the reading of Constantinople III as the continuity and interpretation of Chalcedon, deepening the personal and existential dimensions of the Chalcedonian dogma. The Pierced Heart of the Lord is the source of communion and Christian worship. The communion of being God and being man is the nexus of the mysteries of Christianity; pneumatology, the mystery of the Eucharist and Eucharistic ecclesiology are found in Christology, that is, in the being and work of Jesus Christ; his life, passion, death and resurrection.