Introduction to Sacramental Theology presents a complete overview of sacramental theology from the viewpoint of the body. This viewpoint is supported, in the first place, by Revelation, for which the sacraments are the place where we enter into contact with the body of the risen Jesus. It is a viewpoint, secondly, which is firmly rooted in our concrete human bodily experience, thus allowing for a strong connection between faith and life, creation and redemption. From this point of view, the treatise on the sacraments occupies a strategic role. For the sacraments appear, not as the last of a series of topics (after dealing with Creation, Christ, the Church), but as the original place in which to stand in order to contemplate the entire Christian mystery. This point of view of the body, which resonates with contemporary philosophy, sheds fruitful light on classical themes, such as the relationship of the sacraments with creation, the composition of the sacramental sign, the efficacy of the sacraments, the sacramental character, the role of the minister, or the relationship of the sacrament with the Church as a sacrament. As a result of this approach, the Eucharist takes on a central role, since this is the sacrament where the body of Jesus is made present. The rest of the sacraments are seen as prolongations of the eucharistic body, so as to fill all the time and space of the faithful. This foundation of the theology of the sacraments in eucharistic theology is supported by an analysis of the patristic and medieval tradition. In order to support its conclusions, Introduction to Sacramental Theology examines the doctrine of Scripture (especially St. John and St. Paul), the main patristic and medieval authors (St. Augustine, Hugh of St. Victor, St. Bonaventure, St. Thomas Aquinas...), the response of Trent to the protestant challenges, up to modern authors such as Scheeben, Rahner, Ratzinger, or Chauvet, including the teaching of Vatican II about the Church as a kind of sacrament.

Drawing on the Eastern Orthodox tradition of asceticism and integrating it with recent Western thought on liturgy, David W. Fagerberg examines the interaction between the two and presents a powerful argument that asceticism is necessary for understanding liturgy as the foundation of theology. Asceticism may have been perfected in the sands of the desert, but it is demanded of every theologian and, indeed, every Christian. It grants the capacity for pondering liturgy and sharing the life of Christ. Fagerberg brings to light asceticism's essential importance in liturgical theology. Fagerberg's earlier work, Theologia Prima, understood liturgy as the foundation of theology. To that framework, he now adds the relevance of asceticism. Asceticism was understood to overcome the passions by cooperating with grace. It detailed how to train the life of grace and produce what the ancient church called a theologian. Fagerberg carries the wisdom of the earliest centuries forward. He develops a new framework called liturgical asceticism that combines discipline with sharing the life of Christ.

What is a deacon? More than fifty years since the restoration of the permanent diaconate by the Second Vatican Council, the office of deacon is still in need of greater specificity about its purpose and place within the mission and organizational structure of the Church. While the Church is more than a social reality, the Church nonetheless has a social reality. Our understanding of the diaconate therefore benefits from a theological discussion of the divine element of the Church and a sociological examination of the human element. Understanding the Diaconate adds the resources of sociology and anthropology to the theological sources of scripture, liturgy, patristic era texts, theologians, and magisterial teachings to conclude that the deacon can be understood as "social intermediary and symbol of communitas" who serves the participation of the laity in the life and mission of the Church. This research proposes the deacon as a servant of the bond of communion within the Church (facilitating the relationship between the bishop/priest and his people), and between the People of God and the individual in need. Thus authentic diaconal ministry includes a vast array of many concrete contexts of pastoral importance where one does more than simply serve at Mass. Understanding the Diaconate will undoubtedly be useful in the formation of permanent deacon candidates. But by shedding light on the unique ministry of deacons, the book also reveals how every member of the Church can be better supported and understood. Transitional deacons will come to understand the service-identity that lays the foundation for their future presbyteral character; the laity will appreciate their own vocational call in the world when they find a cleric accompanying them into the temporal sphere; the bishop will have the means to extend and enhance his care for his flock; and a world that is sick unto death will find the Church's healing arm reaching out to it in word, liturgy, and charity. In these ways, W. Shawn McKnight makes clear the uniqueness of the deacon.

English writer Gilbert Keith Chesterton was widely known not only for his newspaper columns, novels, poetry, plays, and detective stories, but also for his theological and Catholic apologetical works. This celebration of Chesterton's passion for his faith builds on his own words to reveal the Catholic paradox he was so fond of exploring and which he articulated with zeal, wit, and total lack of animosity. David W. Fagerberg draws on Chesterton's theological writings - avoiding secondary sources so that the reader can encounter his thought as directly as possible - to show how Chesterton championed a Catholicism of great robustness accessible by a thousand doors. Through these doors, Fagerberg shows that Chesterton believed the Church to be a living institution that confounds its critics. He organizes Chesterton's material around seven themes, fashioning a mosaic from the illustrations and arguments found in these apolegetical works. We see how Chesterton responded to accusations that the Church avoids the world with his defense of ordinary life and to the allegation of blind obedience with a defense of doctrinal complexity. We explore his interest in paganism and ritual and learn his response to the objections of liberal Protestantism. Chesterton is shown to be an apologist for a "catholic" Catholicism and he saw in every heresy an effort to narrow the Church. Chesterton said about the Church "that it is not only larger than me, but larger then anything in the world; that it is indeed larger than the world." Fagerberg suggests that the ultimate apology Chesterton made for Catholicism is that it is capacious enough to accommodate the paradoxical combinations which reveal reality - that the Church is a trysting-place for all the truths in the world.

This study of Chesterton's passion for his faith builds on his own words to reveal the Catholic paradox he was fond of exploring. The author draws on Chesterton's theological writings to show how he believed the Church to be a living institution that confounds its critics.

This book explores the relationship between being and time -between ontology and history- in the context of both Christian theology and philosophical inquiry. Each chapter tests the limits of this multifaceted thematic vis-a-vis a wide variety of sources: from patristics (Maximus the Confessor, Gregory of Nyssa) to philosophy (Kant, Kierkegaard, Heidegger) to modern theology (Berdyaev, Ratzinger, Fagerberg, Zizioulas, Yannaras, Loudovikos); from incarnation to eschatology; and from liturgy and ecclesiology to political theology. Among other topics, time and eternity, protology and eschatology, personhood and relation, and ontology and responsibility within history form core areas of inquiry. Between Being and Time facilitates an auspicious dialogue between philosophy and theology and, within the latter, between Catholic and Orthodox thought. It will be of considerable interest to scholars of Christian theology and philosophy of religion.