Somatic Memory: Trauma and the (Eucharistic) Body
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Somatic Memory: Trauma and the (Eucharistic) Body Submitted by Karen Maria O’Donnell to the University of Exeter as a thesis for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Theology & Religion In March 2016 This thesis is available for Library use on the understanding that it is copyright material and that no quotation from the thesis may be published without proper acknowledgement. I certify that all material in this thesis which is not my own work has been identified and that no material has previously been submitted and approved for the award of a degree by this or any other University. Signature: ………………………………………………………….. 1 Acknowledgements My thanks, first and foremost, must go to my two supervisors—Siobhán Garrigan and Morwenna Ludlow. You have inspired and supported me as you have walked this thesis with me. I am forever grateful that you trusted me to go my own way and offered me signposts where I needed them. I also thank the Department of Theology and Religion at the University of Exeter for being such a welcoming, inspirational, and collegial place to take my first steps in my academic life. I’ve relished every opportunity you have thrown my way. I am also grateful to the Arts and Humanities Research Council for a generous scholarship without which I would not have been able to pursue this research. A special thanks also goes to Sam Hayes for helping me out of more than one tricky Latin tangle. My final thanks go to my family. To my sister Lisa and my niece Lydia for brightening the tough days. To my Dad and Wendy for encouraging me and painstakingly reading every single line of this thesis as my proof-readers. Lastly, but most importantly, I thank my Mum for encouraging me every step of the way, celebrating every success with me, and making me believe that I could do this. Thanks Mum. 2 Abstract The Body of Christ is a traumatised body because it is constituted of traumatised bodies. This thesis explores the nature of that trauma and examines the implications of identifying the trauma of this body. Trauma specialist Bessel Van Der Kolk posits that trauma is written into the somatic, or bodily, memory rather than the semantic memory. This somatic memory is essential to understanding trauma as this memory is repeated in the traumatised body. No theologian has yet explored what the somatic memory of the Christian body might be. This somatic memory not only tells us what the trauma of the Body of Christ is and signposts routes for healing, but also, once we identify the somatic memory, allows us to explore its implications for theology. Beginning with the celebration of the Eucharist as the central place in Christianity where bodies and memory come together, this thesis examines what memory is being remembered and repeated at the altar. The identification of this somatic memory is then used as a hermeneutical lens through which to explore the foundational narratives of the Eucharist and the bodies involved in its celebration. This research reveals that the somatic memory at the heart of Christianity is the memory of the Annunciation-Incarnation event. This event ruptures the foundational eucharistic narratives of priesthood, sacrifice, and presence and demonstrates that Mary must have a central place in Christian theology. It reveals that Christian liturgy holds within it an unclaimed memory and experience of trauma, and an unacknowledged instinct for trauma recovery. The results of this research are significant because they offer a fresh perspective on Christian theology, in particular the Eucharist, and present a call 3 to love the body in all its guises. Furthermore, this traumatic, somatic memory opens up new pathways for considering what it means to ‘be Christian’. 4 List of Contents Chapter 1 Trauma: Bodies, Memory, and Theology 7 Chapter 2 The Eucharist as Non-Identical Repetition: What is 41 being (re)membered at the altar? Chapter 3 Christ is One: The Unity of the Body in the Theology 88 of Cyril of Alexandria Chapter 4 Out of Rupture Come Forth New Narratives: 120 Priesthood Through the Hermeneutical Lens of Trauma Chapter 5 Out of Rupture Come Forth New Narratives: Sacrifice 159 Through the Hermeneutical Lens of Trauma Chapter 6 Out of Rupture Come Forth New Narratives: The 179 Materiality of the Eucharist Chapter 7 Rupture, Repetition, and Recovery: Trauma and 227 Sacrament Chapter 8 Beyond Chauvet: Reading Chauvet Through the 251 Hermeneutical Lens of Trauma Chapter 9 Body: A Love Story 288 Bibliography 308 5 List of Illustrations Figure Title Source Page No. No. 1 Ravenna Sub Matris Tutela by Christa Belting-Ihm. 151 Mosaic Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 1976, plate XVIb. Original in the Archbishop’s Chapel, Ravenna. 2 Gengenbach Cod. bibl. fol. 28, at Wuerttenbergische 152 Annunciation Landesbibliotek, Stuttgart. 3 Sacerdoce de Le Livre de la Vierge, ed. Bertrand 154 la Vierge Guégan, Paris: Arts et Métiers Graphiques,1961, p. 35. Original in the Louvre. 4 The Virgin www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/ 156 Adoring the 438434. Original in The Metropolitan Host Museum of Art, New York. 6 Chapter One Trauma: Bodies, Memory, and Theology Christianity’s earliest and most persistent doctrines focus on embodiment. From the Incarnation (the Word made flesh) and Christology (Christ was fully human) to the Eucharist (this is my body, this is my blood), the resurrection of the body, and the church (the body of Christ who is its head), Christianity has been a religion of the body. We relate to God as corporeal bodies, and in our relations with other human bodies, we experience God. It is the recognition of these experiences of God in our bodies (our own and those of others), and the critical reflection on these experiences, that leads us into embodiment theology.1 Hope Deferred Birthed in the wake of the embodied experiences of the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ, Christianity has always been a religion of the body. Whilst attitudes towards the body over the last two millennia have not always been positive, bodily experiences of baptism, communion, and community have remained at the core of the Christian faith. When one takes such embodied experience seriously—and, particularly, in the case of this thesis, the bodily experience of trauma—one not only engages in theology that is deeply meaningful and practical, but one also engages in a practice that opens up new and insightful perspectives into both theology and human experience. My own interest in trauma theology and its potential for a positive contribution to constructive doctrine came through a recommendation made by a colleague. She referred to the work being done by Serene Jones on miscarriage and trauma.2 I had experienced multiple reproductive losses and, although it was a few years since I had lost my last baby, I felt the pain of this loss sharply. I curiously sought out a copy of the book my colleague had 1 Deborah Creamer, "Toward a Theology That Includes the Human Experience of Disability," Journal of Rel2 Serene Jones, "Hope Deferred: Theological Reflections on Reproductive Loss (Infertility, Miscarriage, igion, Disability and Health 7, no. 3 (2008), 57-67, at 63. Italics Creamer’s own. Stillbirth)," Modern Theology 17, no. 2 (2001), 227-45. 7 mentioned—Hope Deferred3—and devoured it in the space of a couple of hours. It was the only piece of pastoral theology about miscarriage and infertility I had read that didn’t make me angry (and I had been given many such books to read whilst I was trying to get and stay pregnant). The writers of this book, all women, knew how I felt, they took my experience seriously, and they used the experiences I shared with them to look to theology. This was not to offer me glib assurances of all things working together for the good, or to suggest that I needed to have more faith, but, rather to say these experiences, that are common to so many women, mean we need to read scripture and doctrine through the lens of this trauma. Immersing myself in Jones’ account of reproductive loss—the miscarriage of her friend, her own miscarriage and the feeling of leaving pieces of herself in various bathrooms, the sheer volumes of blood that seem to accompany this loss of life—allowed me to weep. But it was her reflection on the womb as a grave site and the experience of death within the Trinity that both comforted me and kindled my theological exploration of trauma. Her work demonstrated the enormous potential trauma had to offer to theology. A piece of research I was working on at the time that was supposed to be about the Eucharist became a reflection on Mary’s trauma of the Annunciation-Incarnation event and the trauma experienced in our reception of the Eucharist. Jones’ work is not liturgical in nature, but her reflections stimulated my own theological interest in liturgy. That piece of writing now forms the basis for Chapter Seven of this thesis—Rupture, Repetition, and Recovery: Trauma and Sacrament. In working out the theology that finds its fuller exploration in that chapter, I began with the nascent field of trauma theology. 3 "Rupture," in Hope Deferred: Heart Healing Reflections on Reproductive Loss, ed. Nadine Pence Frantz and Mary T. Stimming (Eugene, Oregon: Resources Publications, 2005), 47-66. 8 Drawing on the psychoanalytical study of trauma, trauma theology is concerned with bodies and memories, and with bodily memories. It is easy to see how the experience of miscarriage is intimately connected to both bodies and memories, but I will present, in this thesis, a vision of Christianity that is profoundly entwined with bodies and memories.