Distinctively, the understanding of what it means to be a child is essential for the practice of liturgy. Furthermore, an understanding of what it means to be childlike is essential for an understanding of adulthood. The true meaning of adulthood discovered through the metaphor of the child essentially points us toward the mystery of what… Continue reading Approaching Liturgy Like A Child
Month: June 2017
Review: The Religion
The Religion by Tim Willocks My rating: 3 of 5 stars At times ponderous and heavy going, I enjoyed this book by Tim Willocks that was set during the great siege of Malta, and the Knights of St John of Jerusalem's reign over that Mediterranean island. The storyline was gripping, if caught up with too… Continue reading Review: The Religion
Review: A Church with Open Doors: Catholic Ecclesiology for the Third Millennium
A Church with Open Doors: Catholic Ecclesiology for the Third Millennium by Richard R. Gaillardetz My rating: 4 of 5 stars This collection of essays written in homage to Thomas O'Meara OP is a wonderful set of reflections on the challenges facing the understanding of church - which is ecclesiology - at the dawn of… Continue reading Review: A Church with Open Doors: Catholic Ecclesiology for the Third Millennium
The Liturgical “We”
The eucharistic prayer offers a theologically rich indication of the ordained minister’s engagement of the priesthood of the faithful. While it is true that the priest recites the words of institution in the first person and recites the anaphora by himself, aside from the words of institution, the anaphora is in the first person plural.… Continue reading The Liturgical “We”
A Theology of the Liturgical Assembly
A theology of the liturgical assembly provides a theology for how the various orders in the church interrelate with one another. A theology of the assembly is not simply a theology of the laity since the liturgical assembly includes all those present at liturgy - bishop, presbyters, deacons, and lay faithful. In other words, the… Continue reading A Theology of the Liturgical Assembly
Teaching Is Not Governance
When we conceive of the teaching ministry of the church as governance we will naturally look to our teachers to "police" the faith, and we will imagine the appropriate response to such teaching less as understanding and more as obedience. Whereas early Christian thought presented revelation as a divine pedagogy aimed at the transformation of… Continue reading Teaching Is Not Governance
The True Mark of Apostolicity
Apostolicity is much more than a slavish conformity to the distant past, as if we could exempt ourselves from history. The term "apostolicity" is most often associated simply with the continuity between the ancient church and that of the present day, in much the way that "apostolic succession" is often understood as an almost literal… Continue reading The True Mark of Apostolicity
Review: Thomas Merton and the Celts
Thomas Merton and the Celts by Monica Weis My rating: 3 of 5 stars This is an engaging book that looks at the late interest of Thomas Merton in Celtic monasticism and the reasoning and rationale that lay behind that interest. The work of the author, a retired Professor of English, in examining both these… Continue reading Review: Thomas Merton and the Celts
Review: To All the World: Preaching and the New Evangelization
To All the World: Preaching and the New Evangelization by Michael Connors My rating: 3 of 5 stars This book of short essays - originating as presentation as a 2014 conference of the same name - has much to say about the central place of preaching, and preaching the Sunday homily, in the task of… Continue reading Review: To All the World: Preaching and the New Evangelization
The Absolute Novelty of Resurrection
It seems to me that the absolute novelty of the resurrection of Jesus from the dead should be front and center in all that concerns the New Evangelization, and should be much more explicitly the thread that is invoked throughout as the content of the faith that the New Evangelization seeks to deepen and celebrate.… Continue reading The Absolute Novelty of Resurrection
Review: The Mass: A Study of Roman Liturgy
The Mass: A Study of Roman Liturgy by Adrian Fortescue My rating: 3 of 5 stars It should be noted at the outset that this book is not, in the understanding of how we might consider it now, a study of "Roman liturgy", but a study of the Roman Mass as celebrated prior to the… Continue reading Review: The Mass: A Study of Roman Liturgy
Review: An Unfinished Council: Vatican II, Pope Francis, and the Renewal of Catholicism
An Unfinished Council: Vatican II, Pope Francis, and the Renewal of Catholicism by Richard R. Gaillardetz My rating: 4 of 5 stars Over fifty years after the conclusion of the Second Vatican Council, large amounts of the church reform called for by council participants remains incomplete and, in some cases, the church could appear to… Continue reading Review: An Unfinished Council: Vatican II, Pope Francis, and the Renewal of Catholicism
Still Waiting…
Fifty years after the [Second Vatican] council, we are still waiting for a comprehensive program of church reform dedicated to the appropriate and necessary transformation of ecclesiastical structures. The focus of such a program would be to develop alternative ways to discipline ecclesial power in keeping with the Gospel. Such institutional reform is not a… Continue reading Still Waiting…
Beyond “Cafeteria” Catholicism
But there is another way beyond the inadequacies of "cafeteria," "consumer," or "choice" Catholicism; it is to encourage a form of active Catholic engagement constituted by a substantive and deliberate "wrestling with the tradition." To belong to a religious tradition requires that I take that tradition seriously, even, and perhaps especially, when it troubles me,… Continue reading Beyond “Cafeteria” Catholicism
Wafting Melodies and Jolting Dissonances
Catholic teaching must not be reduced to a set of museum pieces with the church minister as its curator. Any effective presentation of Catholic teaching must speak to human experience. There must be a firm conviction that, as James Bacik put its, "human experience and Christian doctrines are connected not simply logically and externally but… Continue reading Wafting Melodies and Jolting Dissonances
