Introduction
Introduction
The book begins with an example of sacrifice enacted in the Roman Catholic Mass, celebrated and lived out by young nuns from India of the order of Missionaries of Charity founded by Mother Teresa, caring for elderly Arabs in Cairo. Their sacrificial self-giving is compared to “costly signaling” of the rigorous demands issued by religious communes studied by Sosis and Bressler. The introduction argues that inasmuch as sacrifice seeks to establish a relation with transcendence, beyond natural and human reality, it cannot guarantee its own success—any more than human devotion can cause a miracle to occur. Sacrifice, then, signifies religious intention to restrain and conform natural impulses to a given order of spiritual ideals, illustrated by whirling dervishes.
Keywords: Roman Catholic Mass, costly signaling, Mother Teresa, miracle, transcendence
NYU Press Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs, and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us.
