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centrality in the healing process that L’Arche attempts to support in both persons with disabilities and their assistants.
As pointed out above, this study does not presume that the psychological level of analysis is sufficient for a full understanding of spiritual transformation. This level of analysis points beyond itself to a third level of Christian theological interpretation based on a constructive appropriation of Christology inspired by the work of Sebastian Moore and the retrieval of Trinitarian theology by Catherine LaCugna. In the sixth chapter, Moore's existential Christology is offered as a resource for understanding how the three awakenings of L’Arche assistants can be understood as a mystical participation in the Paschal mystery of Christ's life, death, and resurrection.
In the seventh chapter, Catherine LaCugna's Trinitarian theology sets the agenda for an exploration of the experience of L’Arche assistants as disclosing a fully Trinitarian spirituality. LaCugna elaborates on the relational ontology implicit in Trinitarian thought and the necessity of re-conceiving the doctrine of the Trinity in light of the mystery of the economy of salvation. This re-imaging of the Trinity emphasizes the nature of God as a communion of Persons and the economy of salvation as the self-communication of God through the redeeming activity of Christ and the deifying work of the Holy Spirit. In this chapter, I trace the pattern of redemption and deification operative in the experience of growth in communion in the context of L’Arche. My central theological claim is that when viewed through contemporary existential Christology and Trinitarian theology, the process of spiritual transformation that takes place in communion with the core members of L’Arche discloses the nature of the person created in God's image and likeness and the processes of redemption and deification by which persons are brought into saving participation in God's triune life.
Spiritual transformation in L’Arche is understood to be growth in communion. Growth in communion is revealed to be a movement from fear to love leading to a profound change in consciousness, identity, and behavior. Theologically, it is a movement from a condition of ontic shame to the glory of the person fully alive. This movement takes place in the