Abstract

How central is narrative to human experience? to Christology? What is the significance of Mark's turn to narrative in the development of the Christian Scriptures and of the return to narrative in liberation theology as exemplified in the Mexican American experience? How does the move toward more conceptual language in the Creed and in Aquinas' Summa theologiae relate to the foundational priority of narrative? In exploring such questions this book maintains the primacy and centrality of narrative in communicating the significance of Jesus. Mark and Guadalupe, both communicating through the power of narrative, frame the Creed, which is a symbolic evocation of John's narrative, and the Summa, which even in its systematization assumes the foundational narratives. Thus, the Fathers of the Church and Thomas Aquinas, no less than the Gospel authors and Juan Diego's heirs, are seen to be on a "narrative-quest."