2021 Catholic Media Association Award second place award in academic studies In this close reading of Psalms 90-150, Nancy L. deClaisse-Walford discovers meanings in the Psalms that were "there all along" but hidden beneath layers of interpretation built up over the centuries. Approaching the canonical storyline of the Psalter with feminist-critical lenses, she reads against the dominant mind-set, refuses to accept the givens, and seeks to uncover a hidden/alternate/parallel set of societal norms. DeClaisse-Walford attends to how context affects the way hearers appropriate the Psalter's words: women, for the most part, hear differently than men; women of privilege differently than women living in poverty. Her interchanges with students and scholars in post-apartheid South Africa bring the biblical text alive in new ways for today's believers.

Many readers are convinced that the Psalms are hopelessly "masculine," especially given that seventy-three of the 150 psalms begin with headings linking them to King David. In this volume, Denise Dombkowski Hopkins sets stories about women in the Hebrew Bible alongside Psalms 42-89 as "intertexts" for interpretation. The stories of women such as Hannah, Rahab, Tamar, Bathsheba, Susanna, Judith, Shiphrah, Puah, and the Levite's concubine can generate a different set of associations for psalm metaphors than have traditionally been put forward. These different associations can give the reader different views of the dynamics of power, gender, politics, religion, family, and economics in ancient Israel and in our lives today that might help to name and transform the brokenness of our world. From the Wisdom Commentary series Feminist biblical interpretation has reached a level of maturity that now makes possible a commentary series on every book of the Bible. It is our hope that Wisdom Commentary, by making the best of current feminist biblical scholarship available in an accessible format to ministers, preachers, teachers, scholars, and students, will aid all readers in their advancement toward God's vision of dignity, equality, and justice for all. The aim of this commentary is to provide feminist interpretation of Scripture in serious, scholarly engagement with the whole text, not only those texts that explicitly mention women. A central concern is the world in front of the text, that is, how the text is heard and appropriated by women. At the same time, this commentary aims to be faithful to the ancient text, to explicate the world behind the text, where appropriate, and not impose contemporary questions onto the ancient texts. The commentary addresses not only issues of gender (which are primary in this project) but also those of power, authority, ethnicity, racism, and classism, which all intersect. Each volume incorporates diverse voices and differing interpretations from different parts of the world, showing the importance of social location in the process of interpretation and that there is no single definitive feminist interpretation of a text.

Hebrews seems like unpromising material for feminist interpretation, although it is the only New Testament writing for which female authorship has been seriously posited. Mary Ann Beavis and HyeRan Kim-Cragg highlight the similarities between Hebrews and the book of Wisdom/Sophia, which share cosmological, ethical, historical, and sapiential themes, revealing that Hebrews is in fact a submerged tradition of Sophia-Wisdom. They also tackle the sacrificial Christology of Hebrews, concluding that in its ancient context, far from symbolizing suffering and abjection, sacrifice was understood as celebratory and relational. Contributions from Filipina (Maricel and Marilou Ibita), Jewish (Justin Jaron Lewis), historical (Nancy Calvert-Koyzis), and First Nations (Marie Annharte Baker) perspectives bring additional scholarly, cultural, religious, and experiential wisdom to the commentary. From the Wisdom Commentary series Feminist biblical interpretation has reached a level of maturity that now makes possible a commentary series on every book of the Bible. It is our hope that Wisdom Commentary, by making the best of current feminist biblical scholarship available in an accessible format to ministers, preachers, teachers, scholars, and students, will aid all readers in their advancement toward God's vision of dignity, equality, and justice for all. The aim of this commentary is to provide feminist interpretation of Scripture in serious, scholarly engagement with the whole text, not only those texts that explicitly mention women. A central concern is the world in front of the text, that is, how the text is heard and appropriated by women. At the same time, this commentary aims to be faithful to the ancient text, to explicate the world behind the text, where appropriate, and not impose contemporary questions onto the ancient texts. The commentary addresses not only issues of gender (which are primary in this project) but also those of power, authority, ethnicity, racism, and classism, which all intersect. Each volume incorporates diverse voices and differing interpretations from different parts of the world, showing the importance of social location in the process of interpretation and that there is no single definitive feminist interpretation of a text.

The Acts of the Apostles, the earliest work of its kind to have survived from Christian antiquity, is not "history" in the modern sense, nor is it about what we call "the church." Written at least half a century after the time it describes, it is a portrait of the Movement of Jesus' followers as it developed between 30 and 70 CE. More important, it is a depiction of the Movement of what Jesus wanted: the inbreaking of the reign of God. In this commentary, Linda Maloney, Ivoni Richter Reimer, and a host of other contributing voices look at what the text does and does not say about the roles of the original members of the Movement in bringing it toward fruition, with a special focus on those marginalized by society, many of them women. The author of Acts wrote for followers of Jesus in the second century and beyond, contending against those who wanted to break from the community of Israel and offering hope against hope, like Israel's prophets before him.

Ephesians is a "mystery" text that seeks to make known the multifarious Wisdom of G*d. At its heart is the question of power. In this commentary, Elisabeth Schussler Fiorenza examines the political understandings of ekkl esia and household in Ephesians as well as the roles that such understandings have played in the formation of early Christian communities and that still shape such communities today. By paying close attention to the function of androcentric biblical language within Ephesians, Schussler Fiorenza engages in a critical feminist emancipatory approach to biblical interpretation that calls for conscientization and change, that is, for the sake of wo/men's salvation or wellbeing.

In this book New Testament scholar Gerhard Lohfink interprets a spectrum of biblical texts, some familiar, others not. He explores them in a spirit of curiosity, questions them insistently, and confronts them with the realities of our present day, from COVID-19 to the inner loneliness experienced by so many. In light of central biblical texts Lohfink asks: What would a life look like today if it were wholly in the world and at the same time wholly in God-sweeping joyously between heaven and earth-aware of the immeasurable breadth of the universe and still able to marvel at the tiniest flower-knowing the depths of the human heart and being comforted by a child's smile? This book takes up the colorful threads of many Old and New Testament texts and weaves from them a many-hued tapestry of biblical theology. It reveals things unknown, sheds new light on things known, and is full of surprises. It speaks not only to the curious or the "nones" who want to know more about the Christian message; it is addressed to everyone who senses a desire to understand the Bible better and more deeply.

Reading 1 Peter through the lens of feminist and diaspora studies keeps front and center the bodily, psychological, and social suffering experienced by those without stable support of family or homeland, whether they were economic migrants or descendants of those enslaved by Roman armies. In the new "household" of God, believers are encouraged to exhibit a moral superiority to the society that engulfs them. But adoption of "elite" values cannot erase the undertones of randomized verbal abuse, general scorn, and physical violence that women, immigrants, slaves, and freedmen faced as the "facts of life." First Peter offers the "honor" of identifying with the Crucified, "by his bruises you are healed" (2:24). A Christian liberation ethic would challenge 1 Peter's approach. Pliny the Younger, governor of Bithynia-Pontus in north-western Asia Minor, is a contemporary of 2 Peter's writer. The polemical, accusatory genre of 2 Peter, like Jude, originates in Roman judicial rhetoric. The pastor, in the persona of a prosecuting attorney, condemns immoral defendants, including influential women. Their "crimes" encode community tensions over women's leadership, Gentile-members' sexual ethics, their syncretistic deviations from Jewish doctrine on creation, and the certainty of divine judgment and punishment. Citations to Elizabeth Cady Stanton's A Woman's Bible enliven the commentary. The doctrinal disorder prompts the male pastor to sustain loyalists in their commitment to "Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ." Second Peter dramatizes an ecclesial crisis whose "solution" was the eventual imposition of a magisterium to silence dissent. Brief, combative, and assuming a familiarity with a literary culture that most twenty-first-century readers do not have, the Letter of Jude would be an obvious candidate for being the most neglected book of the New Testament. As a model for a pastoral strategy, it can be recommended only with great reservations: almost everyone will find in it something problematic, if not offensive. Yet, in addition to giving a window on a Greek-speaking Jewish-Christian milieu, Jude's energetic prose testifies to the author's visceral concern for those attempting to live by the gospel in difficult circumstances. Furthermore, to the extent that over familiarity with parts of the New Testament can blunt their challenge, this letter provides a salutary reminder that the entire canon originated in a world that is radically unfamiliar to us.

Does Martin Luther have anything to say to us today? Nearly five hundred years after the beginning of the Reformation, Hans-Martin Barth explores that question in this comprehensive and critical evaluation of Luthers theology. Rich in its extent and in its many facets, Barths didactically well-planned work begins with clarifications about obsolete and outdated images of Luther that could obstruct access to the Reformer. The second part covers the whole of Martin Luther's theology. Having divided Luther's theology into twelve subsections, Barth ends each one of these with an honest and frank assessment of what today can be salvaged and what's got to go. In the final section he gives his summation: an honestly critical appropriation of Luthers theology can still be existentially inspiring and globally relevant for the twenty-first century.

When Paul wrote First Thessalonians shortly after the recipients had accepted the Gospel, many significant issues had already arisen among them. Of great concern was the social complexity, and even persecution, they encountered because they had "turned to God from idols" (1:9). The countercultural stance of those earliest believers, and especially the impact that may have had for women, is addressed throughout this commentary. While Paul directs no remarks only to women in this letter, the ramifications of his preaching on their daily lives emerge vibrantly from the application of a feminist hermeneutics of suspicion to the text. While Second Thessalonians is a shorter letter, it has been disproportionately influential on Christian thought, especially apocalyptic doctrine and the "Protestant work ethic." From a feminist perspective, it is androcentric, rhetorically manipulative, and even violent. In this commentary, Mary Ann Beavis and HyeRan Kim-Cragg explore this text from many angles to expose both constructive and destructive implications in the text. Notably, they suggest a perspective on the "afflictions" endured by the Thessalonian church that neither glorifies suffering nor wishes for revenge but rather sees the divine presence in women's acts of compassion and care in circumstances of extreme duress and inhumanity. From the Wisdom Commentary series Feminist biblical interpretation has reached a level of maturity that now makes possible a commentary series on every book of the Bible. It is our hope that Wisdom Commentary, by making the best of current feminist biblical scholarship available in an accessible format to ministers, preachers, teachers, scholars, and students, will aid all readers in their advancement toward God's vision of dignity, equality, and justice for all. The aim of this commentary is to provide feminist interpretation of Scripture in serious, scholarly engagement with the whole text, not only those texts that explicitly mention women. A central concern is the world in front of the text, that is, how the text is heard and appropriated by women. At the same time, this commentary aims to be faithful to the ancient text, to explicate the world behind the text, where appropriate, and not impose contemporary questions onto the ancient texts. The commentary addresses not only issues of gender (which are primary in this project) but also those of power, authority, ethnicity, racism, and classism, which all intersect. Each volume incorporates diverse voices and differing interpretations from different parts of the world, showing the importance of social location in the process of interpretation and that there is no single definitive feminist interpretation of a text.

What Jesus taught through his preaching made an unforgettable impression upon his disciples. But it was the many succinctly formulated sayings of Jesus that stood out from the start because of their clear structure and vividness. In The Most Important Words of Jesus, renowned scholar Gerhard Lohfink focuses on the power, beauty, and seriousness of these seventy central sayings of the Lord.   When the Church confesses that Jesus is not only truly human but also truly God, that means he is the perfect image of God, God’s definitive word. It rests on the majestic claim that revealed itself, modestly, discreetly, and yet clearly, in every one of the seventy “sayings� or logia of Jesus. In this book, Lohfink helps us to understand what Jesus is talking about in these sharply defined words.

2020 Catholic Press Association second place award for English translation edition Is the Christian hope for resurrection still alive or has it become tired? How can we talk about the Resurrection today? Gerhard Lohfink takes up the question of death and resurrection in this new book. He argues against the dazzling array of today's ideas and expectations and seeks his answers in Scripture, the Christian tradition, and human reason. With his characteristically gentle but clear language, he reveals the power of Christian resurrection, showing it is not about events that lie in the distant future but rather occurrences incomprehensively close to us. They were long since begun and they will embrace us fully in our own death..

Worship is at the heart of the Christian faith. This applies equally to all denominations. For that reason it is all the more important that the ordering of worship and its place in the life of the church is regularly rewritten and reinterpreted. This volume-based on the third, completely revised German edition from 2013 by two of the foremost liturgical scholars in Germany-offers a contemporary, comprehensive introduction to the foundations for the study of liturgy today, one from which scholars and students in the English-speaking world can also profit. Beyond appealing to students of liturgy and theology, this book reaches out to everyone who wants to know more about the liturgical essence and dimensions of the church.

A personal, surprising, and heart-warming book wherein two spiritual masters of our time advance the central questions of life and faith."Brother David Steindl-Rast and Father Anselm Grun are figures of hope, people who by the power of their example can offer an orientation in a world that has become too complex to comprehend. The spirituality they radiate is an everyday thing that is nevertheless both profound and vivid. . . . "Our conversations, on which this book is based, could be read as a 'crash course' in Christian spirituality. This book will be an inspiration and an aid to spiritual life for many people of our time, whether they are believers or not."Johannes KaupFrom the Introduction

Who was Jesus? A prophet? There have been many of those. A miracle-worker? A radical revolutionary? A wise teacher? There have been many of these, too. In his latest book, renowned Scripture scholar Gerhard Lohfink asks, What is unique about Jesus of Nazareth, and what did he really want? Lohfink engages the perceptions of the first witnesses of his life and ministry and those who handed on their testimony. His approach is altogether historical and critical, but he agrees with Karl Barth's statement that "historical criticism has to be more critical." Lohfink takes seriously the fact that Jesus was a Jew and lived entirely in and out of Israel's faith experiences but at the same time brought those experiences to their goal and fulfilment. The result is a convincing and profound picture of Jesus.

Anselm Grun, OSB, famed Benedictine author and cellarer-supplies manager-of his monastery at Munsterschwarzach, offers brief reflections on aspects of the Rule of Benedict. He sketches the life of Benedict and reflects on how Benedict's instructions enable one to live constantly in the presence of God. Even the most mundane objects are signs of the presence of God. It is not merely that we focus our attention on God, but that we're aware that God always focuses attention on us, loving and encouraging us in all things. For example: he calls the cellarer to regard all utensils and goods of the monastery as sacred vessels of the altar. Grun also ponders how work is an aid to prayer and how the Benedictine vow of stability is essential to building community. Silence and the solitude that characterize the monastic are conditions for the possibility of genuine community. Each chapter concludes with a brief reflection on the state of contemporary society and how the aspect of the Rule of Benedict treated in the chapter applies to the needs of today.

Israel's story as a people of God is a tale of women, men, and their children. Moving past a patriarchal reading of the Bible, Fischer presents a new interpretation of neglected biblical narratives. From a gender-balanced perspective, she reveals the political dimension and narrative continuation of ancestral stories in the Book of Ruth. "Women Who Wrestled with God" demonstrates the significance of women in religious history in a way that will inspire as well as inform.

Chapters are: The 'Fathers' and the Beginnings of the People - An Introduction to Israel's Ancestor's, - - Sarah, Hagar, and Abraham: Scenes From a Marriage Under the Promise, - - Rebecca: A Strong Woman With a Colorless Husband, - - Rachel and Leah: The Founders of the House of Israel, - - Dark Sides of the Family Chronicle, - - Subversive Women at the Beginnings of the People in Egypt, - - Naomi and Ruth: The Unconventional Women Ancestors of the Royal House of David, - and - Women Who Wrestled with God. -

"Irmtraud Fischer is professor of Old Testament and women's studies (theology) at the University of Bonn, as well as chair of Old Testament studies at the University of Graz, Austria. President of the European Society for Women's Research in Theology, Fischer was given the 2003 Bad Herrenalber Akademie Preis.""

Wisdom Has Built Her House brings together for the first time the collected studies of Silvia Schroer on the biblical figure of Sophia, divine Wisdom. Schroer presents a differentiated image of Wisdom as female, creator, teacher, prophet, beloved, and more. In Wisdom Has Built Her House Schroer portrays Wisdom as a cosmic ordering principle, as universal architect, and as mediator of all scientific knowledge. Schroer also inquires about the contexts of these writings: about feminine wisdom and women's roles after the Babylonian exile, about the goddess traditions behind the idea of Sophia, and about their significance within a monotheistic symbol system. Schroer then follows the tradition of God imaged as Wisdom to the time of the Jesus- movement and the first Christian communities. Teachers, students, and those looking for a well-reasoned study of personified Wisdom - and reasons for reinvisioning our own images of God - will find this in Wisdom Has Built Her House. Chapters are Wisdom on the Path of Righteousness (Proverbs 8:20)," "Divine Wisdom and Postexilic Monotheism," "Wise Women and Counselors in Israel: Models for Personified Hokma," "'And When the Next War Began . . .' The Wise Woman of Abel of Beth-maacah (2 Samuel 20:14-22)," "Abigail: A Wise Woman Works for Peace," "The One Lord and Male Dominance in the Book of Jesus Sirach: The Image of Woman and the Image of Wisdom in a Misogynist Document," "Personified Sophia in the Book of Wisdom," "Jesus Sophia," and "The Spirit, Wisdom, and the Dove."

What is the significance of Jesus' genealogy in the Gospel of Matthew? Why do we put and ox and ass at our creches? Why did angels appear to the shepherds? In "No Trace of Christmas?" Christoph Dohmen explains why the answers to these and other questions regarding our understanding of Christmas are to be found not in the New but in the Old Testament.

For the most part Christians regard the Old (or First) Testament as pre-history, a preparation for, or a promise of the New Testament and its proclamation of Christ. This is especially true during Advent, when the Christian liturgy directs our attention to the promise and its fulfillment. Yet Advent's status as the beginning of the Church year - as a turning point - calls us to look back in order to move forward. We read intensively from Old Testament prophecy texts with a special view toward their future meaning. Hence, Advent is the time of the year when Christians are reminded that they have one sacred Scripture in "two" parts, one Bible composed of the Old and New Testaments.

Since it was with the aid of the Old Testament that the early Church interpreted the event at Bethlehem, many of the images and biblical texts associated with Christmas can only be understood by following their Old Testament roots. Like the Magi who followed the star, we can, with Dohmen's help, follow in the liturgy of Advent and Christmas the traces that lead us into the Old Testament. Following those traces, we can arrive at a Christmas that appears to us in a new light, that of the Old Testament.

Chapters are In Search of Traces," "It al Began Before Christmas," "Addressed and Claimed," "A Gift from Heaven," "When Shepherds Become Prophets, "You Shall Make No Crib for Yourself " "Joseph, What Are You Dreaming?" "A New Age Is Beginning," "In Order That Might Be Fulfilled . . .," "In Our Midst," "Yad Vashem," "You, Bethlehem . . .," and "Following the Trace."

"Christoph Dohmen is professor of Old Testament Exegesis at the University of Osnabruck.""

Women Officeholders in Early Christianity is a scholarly investigation of the evidence for women holding offices of authority in the first several centuries of Christianity. Ute Eisen focuses on inscriptions and documentary papyri (private letters, official documents, contracts, and other such pieces) that have scarcely been considered before. Eisen presents the first extensive documentation of selected Greek and Latin inscriptions, plus a few documentary papyri, that witness to the existence of Christian women officeholders. The intent is to show the multiplicity of titles borne by women and to illustrate the narrowness of previous research on this topic. A single chapter is devoted to each of the titles of office or functional designations found in the sources. The epigraphical, papyrological, and literary witnesses are accordingly grouped by function. Topics are Apostles," "Prophets," "Teachers of Theology," "Presbyters," "Enrolled Widows," "Deacons," "Bishops," and "Stewards." Central to Women Officeholders in Early Christianity are the epigraphical witnesses. To this point they have been only marginally incorporated into research on women officeholders in the Church. In order to ensure correct interpretation, the majority of the inscriptions discussed have extensive documentation. They are organized geographically and chronologically. Besides the documentation they are commented on in the context of the existing literary sources. The book concludes with a chapter entitled "Source-Oriented Perspectives for a History of Christian Women Officeholders." The book also includes a bibliography of reference works, primary sources, and secondary sources. Ute E. Eisen is a Wissenschaftliche Assistentin at the Institute of New Testament Studies and Ancient Judaism at the University of Kiel, Germany. She has a doctorate in theology from the University of Hamburg. Her special areas of study include narrative analysis of Luke-Acts, methodology in New Testament studies, history of early Christianity, and gender studies. "

No other female image has been so strongly influenced by the culture and history of past European centuries as Mary Magdalene. From ancient times to the present, Mary Magdalene has been a summary image of the feminine in each era. Despised as a sinner, revered as a saint, admired as a model disciple, Mary Magdalene became the symbol of al women whose fate she shared throughout history: honored, defamed, pushed to the margins, elevated to unreality, and degraded.

Ingrid Maisch examines Mary Magdalene's life from the perspectives of the biblical witnesses through Christian Gnosticism, the early Church interpreters, the Middle Ages to the present. She shows that while the biblical Mary Magdalene still had a leading role in the Jesus movement, in the Middle Ages she gradually became a saint held up to console sin-conscious Christians. In the Reformation and the baroque era, she was seen primarily as a penitent, then as an image of melancholy and resignation. Bourgeois modernity adopted the secularized figure of the Magdalene as a tool for social criticism, especially regarding the treatment of women. In recent decades critical exegesis of the biblical texts and feminist theology revealed another image of Mary Magdalene: the first witness of the Resurrection.

Mary Magdalene is one of the great women of the Bible, yet attitudes toward her in the Church and in art, history, and society have wavered between veneration of her as a saint and curiosity about her sinful" past. In "Mary Magdalene" Ingrid Maisch stresses that reflecting on Mary Magdalene means not only looking behind the history of the influence of the woman from Magdala but also inquiring about women in general, for the image of Mary Magdalene in every era is an indicator of the image borne by women at the time.

Chapters are "Mary Magdalene in the New Testament," "The Heiress of the Empire of Light: The Gnostic Mary Magdalene," "Mary Magdalene as Interpreted by the Medieval Mystics," "Mary Magdalene as Saint: The Middle Ages," "The Penitent Magdalene: A Symbol of the BaroqueEra," "Mary Magdalene Between Religion and Aesthetics," "A Peal More Precious than al Others: Magdalene in Brentano's Jesus-Novel," "The Fallen Woman, the Noble Courtesan," "The Woman at Jesus' Feet: Mary Magdalene in Modern Spiritual Poetry," "The 'sinful Magdalene from Bethany': The Confused Image Today," and "Freed from Sins, Demons, and Subjection." Includes eight pages of full color images of Mary Magdalene from earliest to most recent times."

Through the centuries, stories of popes and of the papacy from Catholic and non-Catholic perspectives, presented as biographies or as histories of an institution have boomed with the power of this often controversial office.

Whether as liberating truth which comes forth from the Church or as narrow perspective; whether as Rock of the Church" or "stumbling-block," primacy remains a reality at the heart of many ecclesiastical problems. Until now, a complete history of the primacy has been missing. "Papal Primacy" fills the void by providing a clear understanding of its history.

In this, the first complete history of the papal primacy, Schatz traces the development of the idea of a papacy as center of teaching and jurisdiction from its earliest Roman beginnings, through centuries of development, the great papal schism and the struggles over conciliarism and Galicanism, to the triumph of papal authority at Vatican I and beyond that to Vatican II and the growing realization that there are no "once and for al answers" to the Church's questions. Papal primacy has grown with the Church, and it remains a reality embedded in the Church as a living community open to change.

Chapters focus on the development of the primacy in the first five centuries, different functions of unity in the East and the West; the papacy as the head of the Church and Christendom in the Middle Ages, and the primacy as confessional mark of identity in modern times.

An appendix includes the following texts: Irenaeus of Lyons, "Adversus haereses; The Canons of Sardica 3, 4, 5 (343)"; Gregory VII, "Dictatus papae (1075)"; The Council of Constance, "Decree Haec sancta (April 6, 1415)"; The Council of Florence, "Formula of Primacy; The Four Galican Articles, Declaration of the Church of France (March 2,1682)"; "Papal Primacy of Jurisdiction and Papal Infallibility According to Vatican I (1870)"; and "Episcopal Collegiality and Papal Infallibility According to Vatican II" (Lumen gentium "22)."

Both resistance to and renewed interest in the sacraments mark current theological thought. This work acknowledges human limitations of the sacraments but stresses that God's relationship to human beings cannot be other than sacramental." Sacramental structures and events constitute salvation history, and thus permeate all theology. What makes this sacramental view comprehensible is faith; faith is an indispensable precondition for a sacramental theology.

Therefore, the author first demonstrates the preconditions of faith on which sacramental theology rests, and what place it holds within the whole of theology. Following this, he briefly presents the concept of sacraments and the history of that concept, the teachings of Church tradition on sacraments in general, and the basic features of a sacramental theology. Next, he explains from a theological perspective the traditional sacraments of the Catholic Church, including related topics such as indulgences and sacramentals.

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.