This latest work from leading liturgical theologian Gordon Lathrop explores the extent to which the central symbols and interactions of Christian liturgy yield, for their participants, a new proposal for their understanding and experience of the world. In the process, it considers various kinds of world-making, the diverse maps, and the differing senses of "cosmology" in which we all live. Finally, the book examines how certain liturgical reforms can contribute to a refreshed sense of ecological ethics-to a Christian sense of the holiness of the earth itself.

C. E. Hammond's Antient Liturgies provided a valuable resource at an early stage in comparative liturgical studies. Free of extensive critical apparatus, Antient Liturgies presents a collection of historic forms of worship from the Western, Eastern, and Oriental Churches. This extract from the book focuses on the Clementine Liturgy, an important early liturgy, apparently known even to Justin Martyr. Rendered in Greek and with an analytical introduction this early study continues to provide a broad overview of early Christian worship made available in an accessible and convenient format for students and scholars.

These worship resources are inclusive in reference to God and humanity, and reflect concern for justice and peace in the world. They are also theologically sound, scripturally based, and well written. They are contemporary yet dignified and graceful in tone, and full of rich imagery for use in the context of worship.

Would many believers consider a wake or funeral an act of worship? What does it mean to say that in anointing the sick or administering Viaticum to the dying humans are healed? Such questions plumb the biblical and traditional depths of the paschal mystery. Just as Jesus' ministry at the social-religious margins revealed the center of his faith in God' s reign, so also the church's ministry to sickness and death reveals much about the baptismal and Eucharistic worship so central to its entire life.

"In Divine Worship and Human Healing" Bruce Morrill turns to the rites serving the sick, dying, deceased, and grieving to show why sacramental liturgy is so fundamental to the life of faith. Readers will appreciate both his compelling narratives from actual pastoral experience and his engagement with biblical, theological, historical, and social-scientific resources. Morrill invites readers to discover how the liturgical ministry of healing discloses God's merciful love amid communities of faith.

Jesuit Father Bruce Morrill discusses new book on Liturgical Theology from Jesuit Conference USA on Vimeo.

"Bruce T. Morrill, SJ, holds the Edward A. Maloy Chair of Catholic Studies in the divinity school at Vanderbilt University where he is also Professor of Theological Studies. In addition to numerous journal articles, book chapters, and reviews, he has published several books, most recently" Encountering Christ in the Eucharist: The Paschal Mystery in People, Word, and Sacrament "(Paulist Press, 2012). His most recent book with liturgical Press is" Divine Worship and Human Healing: Liturgical Theology at the Margins of Life and Death "Pueblo/Liturgical Press, 2009).""

This second title by outstanding authors in the field, will provide a major new study of Eucharistic spirituality and liturgical formation. With many new rites recently introduced or in development, the time is opportune for a fresh look at Eucharistic theology and practice. It provides invaluable guidance to clergy, ordinands, Eucharistic ministers, study groups and individuals who wish to understand the Eucharist more fully.

This is a serious, scholarly of liturgy analysis combining historical, philosophical, musicological and liturgical. The volume, like the series, will be aimed at moving the debate about liturgy out of the narrow confines of either 'pastoral liturgy', 'reform of the reform' or nostalgia and bemoaning of the ruination of liturgical tradition to an entirely higher plane, of serious, scholarly, measured analysis combining historical, philosophical, musicological and liturgical. This book advances a provocative and controversial set of proposals for the development of future liturgical reform in its attempt to re-engage with a traditional sense of the Roman Rite. The author is uniquely placed to make the case he does. A mediaevalist and musicologist of unparalleled experience and breadth, Dobszay combines - almost uniquely - a profound knowledge of the history of the development of the Roman Rite - especially the Antiphonary - with a personal interest and passionate concern for the lived experience of the rite itself. The result is a lively and vigorous text based around the idea of the actual liturgical sense of the Roman Rite - meaning a respect for its integrity as an historical tradition that found multiform expression across Europe and also across at least 1600 years, combined with a sympathy for the fact that the rite is still a living entity with a long future ahead of it. "T&T Clark Studies in Fundamental Liturgy" offer cutting edge scholarship from all disciplines related to liturgical study. The books in the series seek to reintegrate biblical, patristic, historical, dogmatic and philosophical questions with liturgical study in ways faithful and sympathetic to classical liturgical enquiry. Volumes in the series include monographs, translations of recent texts and edited collections around very specific themes.

In a brief introductory chapter, the author addresses the question of why we need to confess our sins, and offers three reflections in response: Sin as Pride, Sin as Violation of Boundaries, Sin and the Possibility of Forgiveness. The book includes seventy prayers of confession and words of assurance, with accompanying liturgies and music suggestions (Scripture and hymn indexes included!). The prayers are offered in three sections, confession and pardon related to: The Human Condition, The Holy Scriptures, The Liturgical Year. The Just in Time! Series offers brief, practical resources of immediate help for pastors at an affordable price.

Based on the Revised Common Lectionary and broadly ecumenical, this addition tothe Just In Time " "series provides: Sitting with the Text: Scripture commentary for each of the three lectionary years; Worship and Preaching Themes; Creating the Environment: ideas for decorating and preparing the worship space; Shaping the Worship Service: prayers, liturgies, dramas, music suggestions; Scripture Index; and more.

Beginning with Ash Wednesday, "Lenten Services" aids the reader in planning and implementing transformative worship services throughout the Lenten journey."

In this collection of weekly reflections on the Sunday Lectionary for Year B, Verna Holyhead draws us into the inspired texts of both the Old and New Testaments. Through a rich tapestry of literary forms, historical contributions, and life experiences, Holyhead gives us surprising perspectives and carefully constructed contexts, which are sure to enrich our appreciation for the Word of God. In addition to following St. Benedict's admonition to glean a harvest by attending mindfully to the pages and passages of the inspired books of the Old and New Testaments, Holyhead generously layers her commentary with insights distilled from the Rule itself. As a sourcebook for pastoral ministry or a reference for personal or communal reflection, this volume will assist believers who desire to engage more deeply with the Word. Verna Holyhead, SGS, is an Australian Sister of the Good Samaritan of the Order of St. Benedict. She leads retreats, lectures, and writes, all with an emphasis on biblical scholarship, liturgical insight, and pastoral challenge.

This rich resource of ready to use liturgies and reflections for the richest seasons of the Christian year sold out within a year. Its timeless qualities found a ready and eager readership among all looking for fresh inspiration for these annual celebrations. This new edition includes extra seasonal reflections from Rowan Williams and Martyn Percy, and a new liturgy for Maundy Thursday from Jim Cotter. In addition it offers: probing reflections by outstanding thinkers to inspire preaching and personal devotion, complete liturgies for a Christmas Eve vigil, Maundy Thursday foot washing and watch, a Good Friday devotional service, an Easter Eve vigil, a dawn celebration of the Resurrection, a set of meditations on the Stations of the Cross and the Seven Words from the Cross, and seven Good Friday addresses by WH Vanstone. Jim Cotter writes strikingly beautiful liturgies and was publisher of the successful Cairns Publications. Martyn Percy is the Principal of Ripon College Cuddesdon.Sylvia Sands is a writer who lives in the heart of Belfast.W H Vanstone wrote the spiritual classic Love's Endeavour Love's Expense. He died in 1999. Rowan Williams is the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Nicholas Taylor provides an Anglican theological approach to the controversial questions surrounding the demand for allowing lay ministers to preside at the Eucharist. This is a pressing issue thoroughly reviewed and addressed.The demand for allowing lay ministers to preside at the Eucharist has become a pressing issue in many churches, not only in Anglicanism. Within the Anglican Communion, this issue seems to be potentially divisive as most provinces refuse to accept lay presidency, but some - as the Archdiocese of Sydney - are discussing schemes to introduce it.In "Lay Presidency at the Eucharist" an Anglican theological approach to controversial questions is articulated. Taylor investigates in particular what allegiance to Scripture entails, and how its authority is to be applied in the Church today. The evidence of the New Testament and early Church on the Eucharist and ministry, and how critical scholarship relates to the authority of Scripture in the life of the Church, are explored, whilst the Reformation and subsequent developments in Anglican theology and Eucharistic practice are considered. Pressure to authorize lay presidency is largely a response to a shortage of clergy to meet demand for Eucharistic worship, and alternative provision for this need is discussed, before going on to consider specific schemes. The theological issues, to do with the Church, the Eucharist, and the ministry, are reviewed, and outstanding questions identified."Affirming Catholicism" is a progressive movement in the Anglican Church, drawing inspiration and hope from the Catholic tradition, confident that it will bear the gifts of the past into the future. The books in this series aim to make the Catholic element within Anglicanism once more a positive force for the Gospel, and a model for effective mission today.

Intercessions for Daily Prayer offers patterns of intercessory prayer for every day of the church year, including weekdays. It is ideal for anyone, lay or ordained, who carries out the discipline of Daily Prayer and who seeks inspiration and structure to improve their prayers for the Church and the world. Arranged season by season, it provides sets of intercessions, with appropriate responses, for each day of the week during: Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Passiontide, Easter, Ascension-Pentecost, Ordinary Time (two sets) and All Saints.

"2009 Catholic Press Association Award Winner "

A decade after the untimely death of renowned Scripture scholar Father Raymond E. Brown, SS, he continues to inspire and inform scholars and preachers, students and pastoral ministers, lay and ordained. It was only days after Father Brown's death that his final book was published by Liturgical Press. That book, "Christ in the Gospels of the Ordinary Sundays, " completed his six-volume series on preaching the Scriptures, a series that had begun in the mid-1970s with the publication of his popular "An Adult Christ at Christmas." Those six volumes are collected here in one convenient commemorative edition to mark the tenth anniversary of Brown's death. Brown's work is left largely untouched, and readers will find that his wisdom is lasting. Yet Brown, being a scholar's scholar, would recognize the need for some enhancement in a work being republished some thirty years after the first volume appeared. Appropriately, then, this edition contains introductory essays by Brown's colleagues and friends John R. Donahue, SJ, and Ronald D. Witherup, SS, as well as useful indexes and a bibliography of resources for preaching the word of God in the context of the lectionary.

As Witherup notes in his preface, Brown had the rare capacity to simplify complex biblical studies in a manner that did not 'dumb down ' the material but allowed it to be understood by a wide audience. . . . He did this in a fashion that was both inspiring and educational. That very broad audience 'those who grew up with Brown, so to speak, as well as a whole new generation of readers and preachers of the word 'will find this book to be a source of inspiration and knowledge that they will turn to again and again.

"Raymond E.Brown, S.S., (1928 -1998) was the Auburn Distinguished Professor of Biblical Studies at Union Theological Seminary in New York City. He was author of some forty books on the Bible and past president of three of the most important biblical societies in the world. By appointment of two popes (Pal VI in 1972, John Paul II in 1996) Brown was a member of the Roman Pontifical Biblical Commission. "Time" magazine called him probably the premier Catholic Scripture scholar of the U.S."

This is a quality prayer book in the tradition of Catholic primers and devotional manuals. For each day of the year there is a scripture reading and an inspiring example from the lives of the many men and women in history who have made holiness visible lead into prayers of thanksgiving and intercession. Each month has a particular focus and is introduced by the leading Catholic laywoman, the Duchess of Norfolk. The foreword is provided by Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor.

This is a probing study on the history and meaning of the liturgy that also questions how Christian worship will change in the future.The publication by Benedict XV1 of the motu proprio has put the question of the history and meaning of the liturgy back into centre stage, not just for Catholics but for many Christians as well. Dr Hemming seeks to provide an intelligent background to the Pope's decision, addressing himself to a number of questions about the nature and character of Catholic worship that opens a wide-ranging historical discussion which will inform and persuade a wide audience.The chapter on liturgy and revelation is the turning point in the book and shows how an understanding of time that is presumed in all modern philosophical thought is challenged by the understanding of divine self-revelation. This is something the young Fr Joseph Ratzinger focussed on early on in his career. This forces us to ask what our relation to liturgical events are and how we experience them. Dr Hemming therefore advocates a 'high' theology of the liturgy with the profoundest understanding of the numinous and the mysterium of faith. How will Christian worship change now, asks Dr Hemming in his concluding chapter? He offers a sketch of what may happen in the coming decades and long after the Papacy of Benedict XV1.

From the rich tradition of the Anglo-Saxon Church of the sixth, seventh, and eighth centuries, Benedicta Ward has selected prayers and passages for meditation from both Latin and Anglo-Saxon sources. The mixture of Latin and Celtic Christian cultures, distilled and appropriated by the Germanic Anglo-Saxons, produced a distinctive English spiritual tradition which embraced kings and princesses, abbesses and monks, cowherds and poets, soldiers and beggars, and birds and animals. It is possible through these passages to walk with these men and women as friends and see how their lives became filled with the life of Christ, in pain and desolation as well as in wonder, love, and praise. '

"Benedicta Ward is Reader in Spirituality at Harris Mansfield College Oxford, and a member of the Community of the Sisters of the Love of God. Among her many books are "The Venerable Bede, "and"High King of Heaven, Aspects of Early English Spirituality.

Intercessory prayer is a key part of the liturgy of the Eucharist. Intercessory prayers need to reflect a response to the preached Word and topical concern for the world and need to be prepared afresh for each service. Intercessory prayer is also known as 'the prayer of the people' and is often said by a member of the congregation, not a priest. For anyone with this ministry in their local church, here is a complete companion handbook that includes: a simple theology of intercessory prayer; an explanation of its purpose within the liturgy and its relation to the readings of the day; the difference between public and personal prayer; a guide to writing intercessory prayers that connect with the whole service; technical advice: use of language, addressing God, vocal expression; common errors to avoid: excessive length or detail, breaches of confidence; prayerful preparation; using other resources; developing a personal style; and, ready to use intercessory prayers.

Bieler and Schottroff bring together the best of contemporary scholarship on ritual theory and practice, Eucharistic origins, the Eucharist and eschatology, the Eucharist and world hunger, the global economy, and the dynamics of torture in a dramatic new vision of the transformative power of the Eucharist for our world. It includes reflection questions that lead readers into the issues raised in each chapter.

Based on the Revised Common Lectionary and broadly ecumenical, this addition tothe Just In Time " "series provides creative liturgies, sermon helps, and prayers for Easter Vigil, Easter Sunday, and the 40 days of Easter."

Although originally intended for use by Catholics, "Preaching the Lectionary" has become truly ecumenical in intention and tone. It is based on the "New Revised Standard Version" and integrates the Revised Common Lectionary to enhance the versatility of the preacher's task of proclaiming the Word of God as effectively and as broadly as possible.

This third edition of "Preaching the Lectionary" will appeal to homilists and others who have a ministerial or preparatory role in the Sunday liturgy. Written with the needs of the active pastor, homilist, and liturgist in mind, it offers brief, technical discussions balanced with practical insights and reflections. This new edition of a classic approach to the Lectionary has been updated to reflect the thinking of a wide range of biblical scholars and theologians.

"Reginald H. Fuller, STD, DD, a former parish priest and seminary professor with a specialty in New Testament literature, has written numerous books. He lives in Richmond, Virginia."

"Daniel Westberg, D Phil, is a former parish priest who teaches moral theology and Christian ethics at Nashotah House Episcopal Seminary in Wisconsin. He is the author of "Right Practical Reason," a book on the ethics of Thomas Aquinas."

The definitive guide to the meaning of today s most popular praise and worship songs.
Few things influence Christians understanding of the faith more than the songs they sing in worship. The explosion of praise and worship music in the last fifteen years has profoundly affected our experience of God. So what are those songs telling us about who God is? In what ways have they made us more faithful disciples of Jesus Christ? In what ways have they failed to embody the full message of the gospel?
Working with the lists of the most frequently sung praise and worship songs from recent years, the authors of this book offer an objective but supportive assessment of the meaning and contribution of the Christian music that has been so important in the lives of contemporary believers.

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In these pages Archbishop Piero Marini reveals the Vision, courage, and faith of the pastors and scholars who struggled to implement the Second Vatican Council's teachings on the liturgy. While in some circles it is fashionable to propose a reform of the liturgical reform, any such revision needs to take into account the history of the consilium 'the organism established by the Holy See to carry out the initial liturgical changes. This story of the work of the consilium offers a fascinating glimpse into the struggles and tensions that accompanied the realization of the council's dream to promote the full, conscious and active participation" of the faithful in Roman Catholic worship.

"Piero Marini was ordained on June 27, 1965. He became the personal secretary for Archbishop Annibale Bugnini in 1975 and in 1987 was appointed the head of the Office for the Liturgical Celebrations of the Supreme Pontiff, a position he currently holds. In 1998, Marini was appointed Titular Bishop of Martirano, Italy, and was ordained bishop the following month. In 2003, Marini was appointed Titular Archbishop of Martirano. He also served as the Master of Pontifical Liturgical Celebrations from 1987-2007.""