Theology (Exegetical Historical Practical etc.)
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On Being Human
$25.00Add to cartOffers an overview of the fundamental themes of Hispanic theology and relates it to Catholic tradition. First Diaz presents basic understandings of the theological anthropology developed by Elizondo (mestizaje), Goizueta (accompaniment), Espin (popular religion), Isasi-Diaz (struggle), Garcia-Rivera, (“creatureliness”) Pilar Aquino (patriarchy) and Sixto Garcia (relationality). He then shows how Rahners understandings of sin, grace, salvation, and the human person mesh with Hispanic theology.
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Knowing The Triune God A Print On Demand Title
$33.99Add to cartThis important book shows that a true and complete understanding of God’s triune nature is inseparable from participation in the practices of the Christian community. Written by a diverse group of respected Catholic and evangelical scholars, these engaging chapters explore such Christian practices as the use of the Bible, the sacraments, prayer, and hospitality, showing how participation in these communal activities gives rise to knowledge of God. A perceptive work intended for readers from every Christian tradition, Knowing the Triune God has important implications for contemporary church unity.
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Catholic Way : Faith For Living Today
$20.00Add to cartIn The Catholic Way, Bishop Donald Wuerl, bishop of Pittsburgh and chairman of the U.S. Bishops’ Committee on Education, has offered up an accessible, easy-to-use blueprint to the Catholic Church’s most recent catechism, a detailed summary of Catholic thought compiled by a commission of church cardinals and bishops in 1992.
What will you find when you open the Catechism of the Catholic Church?Basically, you will find what Jesus Christ came to teach and what the Church, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit over twenty centuries, has nurtured, applied, and articulated — the Catholic faith.
Wuerl’s guide makes for an excellent companion piece when consulting the catechism’s vast array of church positions and its sometimes intimidating language. The Catholic Way is a teaching guide that expands on portions of the catechism with valuable insights, discussions, and reflections.
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Earth Revealing Earth Healing
$29.95Add to cartThe damage human beings are doing to the atmosphere, the seas, the rivers, the land, and the life- forms of the planet is extreme and deadly. It constitutes a crisis that demands all of humanity’s wisdom, ingenuity, and commitment. The whole human community needs to be involved in the response to this crisis-young and old, women and men, farmers, politicians, gardeners, teachers, planners, scientists, engineers, artists, builders, cooks, and theologians. In Earth Revealing-Earth Healing, the authors attempt to make clear the way in which Christian theology opens out into a theology of Earth revealing and challenges us towards a practice of Earth healing.
Earth Revealing-Earth Healing offers a rethinking of theology as a significant part of the rethinking that the human community must do in its stance toward creation. Aware that some theological attitudes have contributed to exploitative attitudes and to disregard for the good of the planet, the contributors are also convinced that the biblical and theological tradition has resources that can be retrieved and developed as an ecological theology. Such a theology can contribute to the healing of our planet.
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Hildegard Of Bingen
$34.95Add to cartHildegard of Bingen: An Integrated Vision shows that Hildegard’s opus was filled with balance, unity, and a stress on the Gospel-a life and work that served as an inspiration and a challenge for the twelfth century and now for us at the beginning of the twenty-first century.
Hildegard of Bingen: An Integrated Vision considers Hildegard as a whole person and places her within her own century and context. It accents what makes her such a compelling figure for the modern reader while retaining the integrity of her peerless voice. It also serves as an introduction to Hildegard and a resource for simplistic interpretations of a complex and gifted woman whose legacy is a multitude of works.The first chapter explains Hildegard’s mystical polyphony by exploring the forces which shaped Hildegard’s development throughout her life, stressing her historical context, personal history, and the setting in which she lived and wrote. Chapter two explores her mystical polyphony in the explicitly visionary theological works: the Scivias, the Liber vitae meritorum, and the De operatione Dei. The third chapter considers Hildegard’s musical vision in depth. Chapter four explores her non-visionary works, including the “unknown language,” the lingua ignota; her lives of the saints and founders; and her commentaries and theories about the natural world, linked to her cosmology. Chapter five looks at Hildegard’s prophetic gifts and voice. It examines her relationships with others: in the communities in which she lived and governed, “in the world” by correspondence or encounter, in her encounters with authority, and in her claim to be an authority in her own right.
King-Lenzmeier concludes with such questions as What makes Hildegard unique as a mystic, and what does she share with others? and How is Hildegard’s mystical journey a paradigm for other mystical journeys? She draws forth the major elements that integrate Hildegard’s life and work and indicates in what way she is an example for other mystics who share her polyphonic character and spiritual path. The final chapter demonstrates Hildegard’s uniqueness among the mystics while presenting the universal appeal of her mysticism.
By considering all of Hildegard’s talents, works, and trials Hildegard of Bingen: An Integrated Vision shows the depth of the challenge she presents to us. She calls us to look beyond the everyday, but to value it at the same time; to challenge our preconceived notions of gender in the div
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People Of The Covenant
$16.95Add to cartThe fourth book in Sheed & Ward’s popular Come & See Series, People of the Covenant is a highly accessible and
fascinating introduction to the Old Testament that reveals the text as anything but old. Sister Bergant sets the stage with a brief introduction to the First Testament itself, the world and religion of ancient Israel, and the Covenant between God and the Israelites. Then, in a unique presentation, she invites readers to explore the text through the lens of the people who populate it. Here we learn about the relationship between God and his people from Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Joshua, Deborah, David, Solomon, Moses, Isaiah, Aaron, Zadok, Woman Wisdom, Job, Ruth, and many more. In the process we learn the history and
relevance of ancient Israel while learning about the ancestors, judges, kings, prophets, priests, wise ones, mysterious figures,
rebels, lovers, and healers who bring the First Testament to life and lay the foundation for the New, or Second Testament.
Discussion questions, a concluding summary, and ideas for further reading make this a perfect book for contemporary
Christians and all students of the Bible.
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God As Communion
$34.95Add to cartGod as Communion explores ancient and new meanings of the symbol of God as Trinity and brings the Christian traditions of West and East into dialogue. Through an exploration of the works of two contemporary theologians, John Zizioulas and Elizabeth Johnson, Patricia Fox retrieves this central Christian symbol and uncovers its transforming power for the Church and world today.
God as Communion shows how both Zizioulas and Johnson, from their very different theological traditions and starting points, provide a rich understanding of the symbol of the Triune God. Fox proposes we reclaim that doctrine of the Trinity as an eminently practical doctrine that challenges Christians and the Christian Churches to transforming changes in this new century.
Part one examines the trinitarian theology of John Zizioulas, which focuses on the formative and seminal period of the first centuries of Christianity. Part two examines Elizabeth Johnson’s exploration of the mystery of the triune God in feminist theological discourse. Part three brings the trinitarian theologies of John Zizioulas and Elizabeth Johnson into a mutually critical correlation. Fox concludes that the respective theologies of Zizioulas and Johnson together provide a rich resource for the retrieval of this ancient Christian symbol.
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Work Of Love
$25.50Add to cartThe development of kenotic ideas was one of the most important advances in theological thinking in the late twentieth century. Now a diverse group of acknowledged experts brought together by the Templeton Foundation presents a stimulating interdisciplinary evaluation of these controversial ideas.
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Flesh Of The Church Flesh Of Christ
$26.95Add to cartHow does the ecclesiology of communion go back to the very sources of the great ecclesial tradition? How should we explain that a Christian is never alone, even before God? How should we perceive that the Church is a communion before being a society, a mystery before being a structure? These questions reflect the inner being of the Church that is at the center of Flesh of the Church, Flesh of Christ.
The late renowned scholar J.-M.-R. Tillard defines what the flesh of the Church is for the New Testament and the period of the undivided Church. He enables readers to understand not the structure of God’s Church but the living reality of grace for which this structure exists. Tillard explains that the “flesh of the church” is communion of life for humanity reconciled with the Father and with itself “in Christ.” He also shows that through the power of the Spirit and the Word, the Church is the “flesh of Christ” in the osmosis of the sacrificial flesh of the Lord and the concrete life of the baptized, of which the Eucharist is the sacrament.
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Introducing Feminist Theology
$28.00Add to cartIntroducing Feminist Theology responds to the questions What is feminist theology? and Why is it important? by considering the perspectives of women from around the globe who have very diverse life experience and relationships to God, Church and creation. Clifford introduces the major forms of feminist theology: radical, reformist, and reconstructionist, and highlights some of their specific characteristics.
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Gift Of Being
$24.95Add to cartIn view of the critical environmental problems confronting the modern world, reflection on the nature and meaning of the world and on humanity’s place in it becomes increasingly important. While Christian theology has done this for centuries, the present situation calls for a serious rethinking of many issues in the light of contemporary physics, biology, and cultural history. The Gift of Being presents insights of the sciences in a way that is helpful for Christians today.
Creation theology helps believers come to a stronger sense of their own identity as they come to an awareness of the world. This enables them to gain a deeper insight into how they ought to relate to that world if they wish to find meaning in their lives. This state of being requires a willingness to distinguish between the medium and the message in approaching the Scriptures. It also requires a willingness to take the sciences seriously.
In The Gift of Being, Hayes focuses on traditional questions of creation, but also comments on where science is with creation, anthropology, and destiny. He begins by discussing the relation between faith and reason, and hence between theology and science, from a historical perspective, moving to the most current statements of modern Popes. He follows with a summary statement of the possible retrieval of the biblical religious insights that can be distinguished from the physical worldview that stands behind much of the biblical material. This allows for a discussion of the traditional concept of creation from nothing in the form of a conversation with contemporary physics. He then discusses the Christian idea of God as the primal mystery of creative love from whom all of creation flows. With these foundational ideas in place, Hayes looks at such questions as the origin of humanity and the failure of humanity throughout history. He then focuses on the tradition of cosmic Christology. Finally, the theological issues of the final outcome of God’s creation and its history is discussed against the background of the current scientific projections of a future for the cosmos.
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Monastic Hours : Directory For The Celebration Of The Work Of God And Direc (Rep
$12.95Add to cartThe liturgical prayer of the Church, and the monastic experience of it, constitutes a theological and spiritual value which is the legacy of all Christians. In The Monastic Hours, Anne M. Field, O.S.B., provides an accessible aid not only to the monastics of men’s and women’s Benedictine monasteries, but also to the oblates and friends of these communities to assist them in understanding the significance of the monastic Liturgy of the Hours.
In 1977 the Sacred Congregation for the Sacraments and Divine Worship approved a series of recommendations that ensured that the praying of the monastic Office would be in keeping with the norms of the Council and the Rule of St. Benedict, as well as with tradition and contemporary needs. These recommendations were published in 1981 as the Directory for the Celebration of the Work of God, along with a parallel document known as the Directive Norms for the Celebration of the Monastic Liturgy of the Hours. These documents are republished for wide distribution here in a second edition that includes updated text, a new foreword by Abbot Primate Marcel Rooney, O.S.B., and a new introduction by Ruben M. Leikam, O.S.B.
This publication of the documents presents the theological and celebrative element of the monastic Liturgy of the Hours. Together, these documents will encourage many to love and savor the prayer of the Liturgy of the Hours. In that way they may promote a living and fruitful celebration, thus fulfilling the two-fold purpose of all liturgical action: the sanctification of men and women and the glorification of God.
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Scripture In The Tradition
$39.95Add to cartFar from believing that modern exegetical insights and abilities make earlier interpretations of Scripture naive curiosity, de Lubac communicates to the modern reader his own Scripture in the Tradition links the process of exegesis to the foundation of Christian thought, demonstrating that scriptural interpretation is part of the ongoing reflective life of God and unveiling the process by which the human race approaches the mystery of the divine.
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Theology Of Priesthood
$34.95Add to cartBy engaging in conversation with those whose experience, perspectives, and theological traditions vary from their own, the contributors to The Theology of Priesthood explore in detail the fundamental questions being asked about the ordained priesthood today. Priests, deacons, and students of theology will find these articles an engaging means to understanding Church, ministry, and priesthood more deeply.
The Theology of Priesthood includes ten essays that explore facets of ordained ministry and the ministerial priesthood. Paul Philibert, O.P., begins with an overview of issues involved in the contemporary discussion on priesthood within the Roman Catholic tradition. Frank Quinn, O.P., addresses the significance of language as it pertains to priesthood and ministry and how language is manifested in rites of ordination. Thomas O’Meara, O.P., situates the discussion on priesthood within the context of an expansion of ministry in the Church since Vatican II and the implications of this expansion for ministry in the future.
Stephen DeLeers articulates a theology of priesthood grounded in Vatican II and post-Vatican II documents which focuses on the primacy of preaching. Thomas Rausch, S.J., then takes up the issue of diversity within ministerial priesthood as he reflects on priesthood within the context of apostolic religious life. Jack Risley, O.P., returns to the question of the relationship between ordained ministry and lay ministry.
The final three articles reflect on ordained ministry from distinctive perspectives. Benedict Ashley, O.P., takes the Letter to the Hebrews as his starting point. Paul Wesche looks at priesthood through the lens of an Eastern Orthodox priest. Donald Goergen, O.P., asks what insights African theology, specifically African Christology, might offer a contemporary Catholic theology of priesthood. Paul Philibert, O.P., provides a concluding reflection.
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Primary Sources Of Liturgical Theology
$49.95Add to cartThe voices of liturgical theology in the twentieth century are many and varied. Primary Sources of Liturgical Theology brings together in one volume the representative writings of scholars throughout the Euro-North American context whose insights have shaped our understanding of liturgy today.
The selections in Primary Sources of Liturgical Theology are arranged around nine seminal questions which students of liturgical theology need to engage. Each selection is introduced and contextualized by another liturgical theologian. Through this first-hand encounter with primary sources readers will develop a sense of the broad range of writings available to them.
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Holy Trinity Perfect Community
$20.00Add to cartIn a series of clear, short chapters, Leonardo Boff unpacks the mysteries of Trinitarian faith, showing why it makes a difference to believe that God is communion rather than solitude. Instead of God as solitary ruler standing above a static universe, Christian belief in the Trinity means that at the root of everything there is movement, an eternal process of life, outward movement, and love.
Boff shows how the Holy Trinity is, among other things, the image of the perfect community and the image of the church in its ideal form: not a hierarchy of power, but a community of diverse gifts and functions.
Ideal for study or personal reflection.
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Respuestas Catolicas A Pregunt – (Spanish)
$8.99Add to cartEste libro, escrito para hispanos catolicos y tambien para los fundamentalistas que tienen preguntas acerca de la fe catolica, ofrece respuestas claras y precisas a muchas preguntas que los cristianos se hacen. Por ejemplo: las devociones a Maria y a los Santos, la Misa y la Sagrada Comunion, y mas. En formato preguntas y respuestas.
This edition has been updated in light of the changing social landscape and is written fro Catholics as well as questioning Christian Fundamentalists. It offers clear, accurate, and easy-to-read answers to many questions that sincere Christians ask about the Catholic faith.
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Jesus In Solidarity With His People
$29.95Add to cartMany men and women have already made the prayerful discovery that the experience of solidarity with one another and the search for God are mysteriously linked. Reiser states that the word “solidarity” provides a contemporary key to understanding Mark’s message about Jesus’ life and mission.
The Bible repeatedly demonstrates that the story of God entails the story of God’s people, especially the poor and defenseless ones among them; and the history of God’s people becomes the story of Israel’s God. One cannot adequately understand the interior life of Jesus without taking into account the life of the people of God in its social, cultural, political, and religious dimensions. Jesus lived and died in solidarity with his people: He died for them because he had lived for them.
In Jesus in Solidarity with His People Reiser examines important questions that Mark raises, questions that bear heavily on adult Christian spirituality. He demonstrates that what is of importance in reading and understanding Mark’s Gospel is not our mindfulness of how much God loves the people but our knowledge of how deeply we love the people of God. It is our love for the world that is required to bring this gospel, this good news of Christ risen, this Easter story, to life.
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Soliloquies : Augustines Inner Dialogue (Reprinted)
$19.95Add to cartThis book is a work in the early life of Augustine, shortly after his conversion, which contains all the seeds contained in his future writings, especially the notion of the inner teacher. In this work, we see Augustine as a philosopher, a thinker, a budding theologian. We also see him as a person preparing for baptism, shedding the “old man” and putting on the new one, reaching for the God of truth for whom he had searched for many years. It is his prayer to our God of love and mercy.
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On Human Being
$14.95Add to cartWhen the author of the widely acclaimed Roots of Christian Mysticism thinks about human nature, its challenges, problems, joys and fulfillment, he does so with originality. At the same time, his thought is rooted in the experience of the early Christian centuries. The result is a book that sees humanity in fundamentally spiritual terms.
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Holy City : Jerusalem In The Theology Of The Old Testament
$17.95Add to cartFor millions of believers, Jerusalem is one of the world’s holiest cities. Pilgrims from three major religions-Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, each of which is heir to Old Testament theological tradition-flock to Jerusalem where many of their most sacred memories are centered. This study of ancient Israel’s sacred literature on the topic of Jerusalem is not a speculative exercise. It is a subject of immediate relevance to both the religious and political realities of present-day Jerusalem.
The Scriptures inspired by ancient Israel’s priests, prophets, and sages provide the foundation for the status of Jerusalem in today’s three monotheistic religions. In The Holy City, Father Hoppe explores how the various theological traditions in the Hebrew Bible, apocrypha, and selected pseudepigrapha present Jerusalem. In closing he discusses how early Judaism dealt with the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the Temple in A.D. 70.
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Exercises Of Saint Ignatius Loyola In The Western Tradition
$12.95Add to cartThe Exercises of St. Ignatius draws on rediscovered materials, as well as on extensive familiarity with the Western spriritual tradition, to explore Ignatian spirituality’s indebtednes to the tradition, as well as its departure from it.
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Wisdom Has Built Her House
$29.95Add to cartWisdom 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.
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Theology And The Arts
$21.95Add to cartUsing examples from music, pictorial art and rhetoric, this book explores different aspects of the ways that art enters into theology and theology into art, both in pastoral practice (liturgical music, sacred art and preaching) and in the realm of systematic reflection, where, the author contends, art must be recognized as a genuine theological text.
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5th Gospel
$36.95Add to cartThe Gospel of Thomas is the most celebrated of the Nag Hammadi texts. Now you can perform your own serious evaluation based on the best available translation of the most respected critical text, prepared by the Berlin Working Group for Coptic Gnostic Writings. Also included are two fine introductory essays.
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Augustinianism And Modern Theology
$41.95Add to cartThe companion volume to The Mystery of the Supernatural, Augustinianism and Modern Theology offers insight into the core of de Lubac’s enormous theological vision-a vision that in Louis Dupre’s words, “has transformed the course of Catholic thinking in our time.”
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Women Officeholders In Early Christianity
$49.95Add to cartWomen 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.
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Holy Saturday : The Argument For The Reinstitution Of The Female Diaconate
$24.95Add to cartCTS Book of the Year. A serious effort to faithfully investigate the history and canonical viability of the female diaconate. Based on thorough research, as well as sound historical and theological analysis and reflection, this book makes a significant contribution to the discussion and development of women’s roles in the modern church.
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Anamnesis As Dangerous Memory
$29.95Add to cartWhat happens when the Christian community gathers in faithful response to Christ’s command at the Last Supper, “Do this in remembrance of me”? Study of the biblical and early Christian notion of remembrance, the Greek word anamnesis, shows that the Church’s ritual action of remembering our salvation in Christ not only inspires but demands action in the world. The problem remains, however, whether and how we are able to practice such remembering in our society today. This book explores the political theology of Johann Baptist Metz to discover injustice and the challenge and hope it poses to those who join in solidarity with the oppressed, and the work of liturgical theologian Alexander Schmemann, to elaborate on how, in its unique keeping of time, the liturgy reveals the kingdom of God and empowers believers thus to witness to it. The meeting of these two compelling theologies results in a rich eschatology: life shaped by the vision of a future that fulfills the promises of the past.
Morrill also marshals the work of many scholars concerning the concept of anamnesis which has proven crucial to the progress of ecumenical dialogues on Church order and the Eucharist. The effort is to understand how the Church’s liturgical commemoration of God’s salvific deeds in history, especially in Jesus, allows for neither a timeless form of religious piety nor a ritualism detached from the commerce of life in the world. A concluding investigation of the relationship between anamnesis and eschatology leads to further considerations about the dialectical character of the praxis of faith. Anamnesis as Dangerous Memory, while written in the field of systematic theology, offers a fresh perspective and framing of the issues for readers of Christian ethics and moral theology. -
Bodies Of Worship
$29.95Add to cartThis book explores how ecclesial ritual, individual, and cultural bodies engaged in the Church’s worship contribute to the theory and practice of both liturgical theology and pastoral ministry. The authors bring solid historical and theoretical scholarship to bear on the practice and experience of the liturgy and spirituality of the Church.
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Mystery Of Reason
$30.95Add to cartThe Mystery of Reason investigates the enterprise of human thought searching for God. People have always found stepping-stones to God’s existence carved in the world and in the human condition. This book examines the classical proofs of God’s existence, and affirms their continued validity. It shows that human thought can connect with God and with other aspects of religious experience. Moreover, it depicts how Christian faith is reasonable, and is neither blind nor naked. Without reason, belief would degenerate into fundamentalism; but without faith, human thought can remain stranded on the reef of its own self-sufficiency. This book proposes that the human mind must be in partnership with the human heart in any quest for God.
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I Asked For Wonder
$18.95Add to cart“Heschel, like his hasidic forebears, had the gift of combining profoundity with simplicity. He found just the right word not only to express what he thought but to evoke what he felt, startling the mind and delighting the heart as well as adressing and challenging the whole person. There are passages in this collection which, once encountered, will be taken up again and again, until they are absorbed into one’s inner life. Reading Heschel is to peer into the heart of that rarest of human phenomena, the holy man.” With these words, Rabbi Samuel H. Dresner, an early student and longtime personal friend, introduces his collection of the aphorisms and spiritual wisdom of Abraham Joshua Heschel. Drawing upon virtually all of Herchel’s published work, Rabbi Dresner has an unerring eye for the heart of the matter: brief, gemlike statements that have both the universal appeal and the element of surprise of all great wisdom literature.
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Epistemological Principles And Roman Catholic Rites
$39.95Add to cartOrdination is a complex process that links ministry, local church, confession of faith, and communion. This process is communitarian, liturgical and juridical, and through these traits, sacramental. Father Puglisi explores the notion that Christian (both Catholic and Protestant) ordination cannot be reduced to a simple rite of installation or to the acceptance of a charge, but is an ecclesial process whereby a Christian receives a charisma for the edification of the Church.
Father Puglisi analyzes the liturgical and canonical institutions in three periods (the ancient and Medieval period, the period of the Reformation, and the contemporary period) to recover an understanding of the complex structure of ordination and the implicit connection between ordained ministry and the structuring of the Church. Volume I explores the meaning of the episcopal and presbyteral ministry according to the ordination rituals from the early Church (the apostolic tradition) until the eighth century, and the resulting structuring of the Church. Chapters study documents from that time period and their theological reflection.
Separate volumes will address each of the three periods. A fourth volume will offer an English translation of the liturgical rites examined in the first three volumes. It will also include an extensive bibliography of sources and secondary literature, a comparison of the structure of the two liturgical offices of ordination/installation of a bishop and of a presbyter, of the prayers of ordination or installation, of the examination of the elect and of the use of biblical readings in each of the liturgical rites.
