Before the advent of printing, the preaching of the friars was the mass medium of the middle ages. This edition of marriage sermons reveals what a number of famous preachers actually taught about marriage. David D'Avray teases out the close connection between marriage symbolism and social, cultural, and legal realities in the thirteenth century; and assesses the impact of this preaching.

In contemporary Western society the church has been pushed to the margins, leading experts to describe the current era as a time 'after Christendom'. Many traditional churches and congregations are struggling, a condition worsened by the COVID-19 pandemic regulations. As the practice of churchgoing wanes, the performance of the sacrament is called into question. How can we bring the traditional, communal experience of sacrament into the modern world? In Sacraments after Christendom, Andrew Francis and Janet Sutton tackle this question head-on, exploring and discussing the enactment of the sacrament in the context of church decline and an increasingly isolated world. In doing so, they deconstruct traditional perceptions and broaden our understanding of ritual and community in order to rediscover the truth of the sacrament.

Existing books on Christian ritual and the sacraments tend to presuppose a good acquaintance with Roman Catholic thought and practice. Today, however, even at Catholic institutions students tend to lack even a basic knowledge of Christian ritual. Moreover, for many modern people the word "ritual" carries negative connotations of rigidity and boredom. In this accessibly-written book two noted authors offer an engaging introduction to this important topic. Their goal is first to demonstrate that celebration, ritual and symbol are already central to the readers' lives, even though most do not see their actions as symbolic or ritualistic. Once this point has been made, the book connects central Christian symbols to the symbols and rituals already present in the readers' lives. The Christian theology of symbol, ritual, and sacrament is thus placed in the context of everyday life. The authors go on to discuss such questions as how rituals establish and maintain power relationships, how "official" rituals are different from other "popular" Christian rituals and devotions, and how Christian rituals function in the process of human "salvation." Their lively yet solidly grounded work will appeal to intelligent lay readers and discussion groups, as well as being useful for courses in ritual and the sacraments at the undergraduate and seminary level.

A short, simple and thoroughly biblical explanation of the meaning and purpose of Holy Communion, designed to appeal to all ages. Explains its biblical origins, the different ways in which Christians have understood it over the centuries, and its crucial place in the Christian life today.

How Baptism and the Eucharist Shaped Early Christian Understandings of Jesus Long before the Gospel writers put pen to papyrus, the earliest Christians participated in the powerful rituals of baptism and the Lord's Supper, which fundamentally shaped their understanding of God, Christ, and the world in which they lived. In this volume, a respected biblical scholar and teacher explores how cultural anthropology and ritual studies elucidate ancient texts. Charles Bobertz offers a liturgical reading of the Gospel of Mark, arguing that the Gospel is a narrative interpretation of early Christian ritual. This fresh, responsible, and creative proposal will benefit scholars, professors, and students. Its ecclesial and pastoral ramifications will also be of interest to church leaders and pastors.

The call to repentance is central to the message of early Christianity. While this is undeniable, the precise meaning of the concept of repentance for early Christians has rarely been investigated to any great extent, beyond studies of the rise of penitential discipline. In this study, the rich variety of meanings and applications of the concept of repentance are examined, with a particular focus on the writings of several ascetic theologians of the fifth to seventh centuries: SS Mark the Monk, Barsanuphius and John of Gaza, and John Climacus. These theologians provide some of the most sustained and detailed elaborations of the concept of repentance in late antiquity. They predominantly see repentance as a positive, comprehensive idea that serves to frame the whole of Christian life, not simply one or more of its parts. While the modern dominant understanding of repentance as a moment of sorrowful regret over past misdeeds, or as equivalent to penitential discipline, is present to a degree, such definitions by no means exhaust the concept for them. The path of repentance is depicted as stretching from an initial about-face completed in baptism, through the living out of the baptismal gift by keeping the Gospel commandments, culminating in the idea of intercessory repentance for others, after the likeness of Christ's innocent suffering for the world. While this overarching role for repentance in Christian life is clearest in ascetic works, these are not explored in isolation, and attention is also paid to the concept of repentance in Scripture, the early church, apocalyptic texts, and canonical material. This not only permits the elaboration of the views of the ascetics in their larger context, but further allows for an overall re-assessment of the often misunderstood, if not overlooked, place of repentance in early Christian theology.

This series on the seven Sacraments provides readers with a deeper appreciation of God's gifts and call in the Sacraments through a renewed encounter with God's Word. In this volume, a leading Catholic scholar offers a biblical theology of the priesthood rooted in the Old and New Testaments. Half a millennium after the Protestant Reformation and in the midst of an ongoing clerical crisis in the Catholic Church, this book presents a comprehensive biblical vision and defense of the sacramental priesthood and an informed theological response to the problem of priestly sin. It gives expression to the ministerial priesthood's biblically grounded, sacramental share in the sacrificial ministry of Jesus Christ. Series editors are Timothy C. Gray and John Sehorn. Gray is president of the Augustine Institute, which has one million subscribers to its online content channel, Formed.org. Gray and Sehorn teach at the Augustine Institute Graduate School of Theology, which prepares students for Christian mission through on-campus and distance education programs.

A short, attractive, full-colour guide to the Anglican wedding service aimed at couples planning to get married. It uses the words and the actions of the marriage service to enable couples to explore the big questions of life, relationships, commitment, God, family and more.

Writing in the middle of the twentieth century, G.W. Bromiley was acutely aware of the renewal of debates surrounding baptism taking place within the Anglican church and elsewhere. These debates, which are still the cause of denominational division, can be best understood by tracing them back to their origins in the sixteenth century. Analysing the Anglican Reformers' views on baptism's sacramental status, its liturgical format and its theological substance, Bromiley places the current diversity of positions in its proper context. The legitimacy of infant baptism, the authority of ministers and the efficacy of grace are all discussed. Whether a scholar of ecclesiological and doctrinal history, or of the current debate within and between churches, this study is essential reading on the question of baptism past and present.

From time to time, a rare monument will appear in some archives, filling the gap in previous research. Such a "discovery" was the identification of a hitherto unnoticed manuscript from Bratislava as a medieval missal associated with the cathedral in Lund. From the given period, it is the only complete manuscript that documents the liturgical and musical tradition of the Archdiocese of Lund. In the first part of the publication, the authors present the results of their research in the field of codicology, musical paleography, as well as musicological and liturgical analyses and comparisons. The second part consists of facsimiles with registers of songs, lessons, and prayers. This book aims to initiate further research into the medieval liturgy in Scandinavia and Europe as a whole.

The practice of the sacraments of baptism and the Eucharist allow Christians to read Scripture in the context of the church and in unity with the Trinity. Charles Meeks argues here, however, that over the centuries since the Reformation, Protestant expressions of the church have often allowed the sacraments to assume a minor role that has led to a weakening of Protestant ecclesiology and a disconnection of these ancient rituals from the gospel. To unpack this reality, Meeks relies on the work of fourth-century bishop Hilary of Poitiers and modern theologian Robert W. Jenson to examine the relationship between the sacraments and Scripture, the Trinity, and the church. With Hilary, he retrieves a hermeneutic that starts from the interdependence of the sacraments with all aspects of Christian life, especially the way one reads Scripture, formulates theology, and understands what the church is and is not. With Jenson, Meeks applies this hermeneutic to the modern church in an appeal to recover a premodern sense of God's relationship to time, and thus how the church relates to God through Word and Sacrament.