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Eternity Today: On the Liturgical Year. Volume 1: On God and Time, Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Candlemas
Martin Connell
According to Dom Gregory Dix, the basic shape of the Christian liturgy has remained the same "ever since thirteen men met for supper in an upper room at Jerusalem" some two thousand years ago. According to Martin Connell, the same cannot be said for the liturgical year. The Triduum, or three days of Easter, only emerged in the fourth century. So, too, did Christmas. Earlier, Epiphany was the birthday of the Savior. Although a pre-Easter fast of variable length was observed since earliest times, the precise Forty Day span only appeared, once again, in the fourth century. And that foundational fourth century also saw the beginnings of the observance of Advent, which actually took centuries to catch on. As Connell demonstrates in this fascinating book, the varieties of Christian observance emerged in local communities stretching from Gaul to India and were often born in the struggles that were define orthodoxy and heresy.
Eternity Today is a vade mecum for anyone who wishes to observe the liturgical year with intelligent devotion. Throughout, Connell aims to recover the theology and spirituality of the Christian year. As an aid to reflection, he incorporates numerous selections of contemporary poetry, thereby demonstrating how secular poets can often hit upon a point that finds its echo in Christian life and ritual.
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Eternity Today: On the Liturgical Year. Volume 2: Sunday, Lent, The Three Days, The Easter Season, Ordinary Time
Martin Connell
According to Dom Gregory Dix, the basic shape of the Christian liturgy has remained the same "ever since thirteen men met for supper in an upper room at Jerusalem" some two thousand years ago. According to Martin Connell, the same cannot be said for the liturgical year. The Triduum, or three days of Easter, only emerged in the fourth century. So, too, did Christmas. Earlier, Epiphany was the birthday of the Savior. Although a pre-Easter fast of variable length was observed since earliest times, the precise Forty Day span only appeared, once again, in the fourth century. And that foundational fourth century also saw the beginnings of the observance of Advent, which actually took centuries to catch on. As Connell demonstrates in this fascinating book, the varieties of Christian observance emerged in local communities stretching from Gaul to India and were often born in the struggles that were define orthodoxy and heresy. Eternity Today is a vade mecum for anyone who wishes to observe the liturgical year with intelligent devotion. Throughout, Connell aims to recover the theology and spirituality of the Christian year. As an aid to reflection, he incorporates numerous selections of contemporary poetry, thereby demonstrating how secular poets can often hit upon a point that finds its echo in Christian life and ritual.
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Lazarus at the Table: Catholics and Social Justice
Bernard F. Evans
This book is the fruit of more than two decades of instructing students in the social teachings of the Catholic Church. For most of these years Bernard Evans has taught graduate students. Lately he also teaches lay Catholics engaged in parish ministry and enrolled in diocesan ministry formation programs. This book is written specifically for the latter group.
Evans agrees with the bishops of the United States who insist that any Catholic education that does not include Catholic social teaching is not fully Catholic. And so he writes clearly, concisely, and convincingly about how Catholic social teaching addresses such contemporary issues as human dignity, abortion, assisted suicide and euthanasia, embryonic stem cell research, the death penalty, war, family, marriage, poverty, superfluous income, just wages, unions, and peace. Excerpts from the church's official teachings in papal documents abound throughout the book.
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Yahweh's Other Shoe
Kilian McDonnell OSB
Only eternal life is worthy of the name, writes Kilian McDonnell, O.S.B., in an elegy for a brother monk, and in his poetry one feels the working out of this life that begins with Adam and proceeds beyond our own span of time on earth. These poems breathe human air, but are always conscious of the larger picture of life in Christ.
I wrestle with God 'flesh to flesh, sweat to mystery,' and I limp away. This is how Father McDonnell describes his poetic project, and in these poems the reader attends a wrestling match of the highest order. He takes on the great themes of poetry: desire, mortality, love and age, brotherhood and God. Beginning with the figures of the Old and New Testament, he is aware of the human fallings, failings, and laughter in the stories as of what they say about God with us. Engaging with the events of our day, the great physical world around us, the intricate world of human relationships, and the spiritual journey of a monk, the poems continuously reveal what it means to be human. -
Lord of the Cosmos: Mithras, Paul and the Gospel of Mark
Michael Patella OSB
In Lord of the Cosmos, Patella demonstrates the ways in which the Roman Imperial religion imbues Paul's letter and subsequently Mark's Gospel. Mark resonated in the imperial capital and beyond because of its inherent participationist theology, a theology probably augmented by Paul and possibly introduced by him. In his own writings, Paul draws from Mithraic vocabulary and symbolism. Mithraism itself functions within the cosmic framework outlined in Plato's Timaeus. Pauline theology, with its Mithraic overtones, coheres with the Markan theme of Christ's cosmic victory over Satan; Paul and Mark share a similar view of Christ's salvific act. With the Bartimaeus pericope (10:46-52), the Markan Gospel demonstrates that believers, by their call to discipleship, participate in that victory. This whole process is signaled by the baptism with its divine communication and actions of descent and ascent, a strong Pauline concept. Patella shows that the Markan presentation of Jesus' death, the climax of the narrative, brings the act of divine communication full circle. At the baptism, God communicates to creation, and with Jesus' cry from the cross, creation replies in despair. Jesus' death is not the end of the story, however. The women at the tomb realize this fact and are awestruck at its significance, which is the reason that they do not tell anyone what they have witnessed. The notice to meet Jesus in Galilee is an affirmation of the resurrection. By moving from the area of the dead, that is the tomb, to the land of the living, Galilee, Mark echoes the cosmic theology in Paul, which moves from life to death, and back to eternal life.
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Psalmody and Prayer in the Writings of Evagrius Ponticus
Luke Dysinger OSB
Evagrius Ponticus was the most prolific writer of the Christian Desert Fathers. This book is a study of his life, works, and theology. It gives particular attention to his little-studied exegetical treatises, especially the Scholia on Psalms, as well as his better-known works, in order to present a more balanced picture of Evagrius the monk.
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Praying with the Desert Mothers
Mary Forman OSB
Introduces the reader to the lives, sayings, and stories of the fourth- and fifth-century women who were foundational members of the early Christian community in the Mediterranean region; invites readers to explore their own spiritual journeys
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Educating Leaders for Ministry : Issues and Responses
Victor J. Klimoski, Kevin O'Neil, and Katarina Schuth
In an increasingly secular society, the Christian community must witness a way of life that produces whole and holy people who testify to the truthfulness of the story of Jesus in their lives. Internally, church membership reflects nearly every race, language, culture, spirituality, and Christian theology in existence.
There are three particular challenges for those who prepare people for the church's ministries and those working in ministry itself: diversity, integration, and assessment. Educating Leaders for Ministry examines what each challenge means and identifies ways to respond. The material presented here draws on a six-year project, the Keystone Conferences. The project involved twenty Catholic seminaries and schools of theology reflecting on the mission of their institutions within the life of the church as it becomes manifest in the processes of teaching and learning. As these conversations continued over seven years, the issues of diversity, integration, and assessment emerged as persistent and defining aspects of every school in some way.
These three issues touch the daily life of the entire Christian community, not just theological schools and seminaries. While there are aspects of these issues in theological education that are particular to Roman Catholicism, Educating Leaders for Ministry is helpful for anyone engaged in theological education today.
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The Gospel According to Luke
Michael Patella OSB
Luke continues to challenge our lives. Focusing on Jesus and his earthly ministry among the early church, Michael, F. Patella, OSB, opens the Gospel of Luke to the 21st-century reader.
Patella presents literary, textual, and historical criticism in a readable manner to give readers a solid background for the Lukan Gospel. A brief introduction informs reader of Luke's literary technique, Luke as an evangelist, and other historical data.
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A Sense of the Sacred : Theological Foundations of Sacred Architecture and Art
R. Kevin Seasoltz OSB
There have been many histories of Christian art and architecture, and many that have paid attention to the various cultural, social, and economic contexts in which the architecture and art appeared. Most of these accounts have been written by art historians. Kevin Seasoltz writes as a theologian, whose aim is to relate theological and liturgical developments throughout the course of Christian history to developments in sacred architecture and art. Believing that sacred buildings and artifacts have often been more constitutive of theological developments that constitutive of them, Seasoltz wants to help people discover architecture and art as theological loci—places of revelation.
Following a chapter on culture as the context for theology, liturgy, and art, Seasoltz surveys developments from the early church up through the conventional artistic styles and periods. He pays particular attention to the conflicts that emerged between religion and art since the Enlightenment and to the significant advances made since the middle of the twentieth century to reconciling a wide range of competent architects, artists, and craft persons to the ministry of the Protestant, Anglican, and Catholic churches. Comprehensive, illuminating, ecumenical.
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Formed in the Image of Christ : The Sacramental-Moral Theology of Bernard Häring, C.Ss.R.
Kathleen A. Cahalan
The Christian life is an imitation of Christ's response to God—a religious response to God’s initiative. We are called to make all responses—religion and morality—acts of adoring worship and praise. This sacramental theology is the fundamental moral theology of Bernard Häring, CSsR, whose contributions as a twentieth-century theologian have prepared the way of renewal in Catholic theology today.
Part One of this book introduces Bernard Häring and his place in the history of Roman Catholic moral theology. Part Two examines the central concepts of Häring’s sacramental-moral theology: responsibility, Christ as Word of God and High Priest, the human person as word and worshiper, and the sacraments as dialogue and response. In Part III the author illustrates how Häring takes a minor category—the virtue of religion—and places it at the center of moral life.
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I Am with You Always: The Notebooks of Nicole Gausseron
Nicole Gausseron, William Skudlarek OSB, and Hilary Thimmesh OSB
From the mid-1980s to the late 1990s, Nicole Gausseron, a Catholic woman in France, recorded in her ìlittle notebookî the conversations she had with Jesus. Her chronicle of these talks does notinclude revelations or visions. Her story is simply a reporting of one womanís conversations with God. It shows, in simple yet breathtaking dialogues, that Jesus seeks a deeply personal relationship with those who believe in him. I Am with You Always, the final book in a three-book series, presents profoundly intimate encounters between Gausseron and Jesus that have never before been published.
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Walk with Me: The Notebooks of Nicole Gausseron
Nicole Gausseron, William Skudlarek OSB, and Hilary Thimmesh OSB
"I have taken everything unto myself, have absorbed everything. Do not be afraid. I am here," says Jesus. These comforting words appear in Walk with Me, the second of three books that document Nicole Gausseronís conversations with Christ. Reading like the transcript of a conversation between dear friends, Walk with Meis proof that Jesus lives now and seeks a personal relationship with those who believe in him.
Nicole Gausseron doesnít claim to be a saint or a visionary. An ordinary woman, she serves as the director of a shelter for homeless men, and is a wife, a mother, and a grandmother. In stunningly simple language, Gausseron shares her frailty, her fears, her joy, and her doubts with Christ, who responds with words of comfort and encouragement, not just for her but for all who love him.
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Preferring Christ: A Devotional Commentary on the Rule of St. Benedict
Norvene Vest and Luke Dysinger OSB
The Rule of St. Benedict continues to attract those who seek to live a deeper life, connected to Christ. But with such an ancient text, how can we authentically engage St. Benedict’s Rule in a manner that is true to its profound insights―and to our own spiritual journey? Norvene Vest suggests that the answer lies in the way we read the Rule. “It shouldn’t be studied like a book of regulations, or a school textbook. It should be read as lectio divina.”
This profound yet very practical volume speaks to our urgent spiritual need. People yearn for an interior life deeply rooted in God, humanly balanced, and substantially founded in the Christian heritage. Vest offers a valuable resource by rendering much more accessible the spiritual wealth of the key text of the ancient Benedictine charism. Here is the solid, balanced wisdom that has nourished and guided innumerable Christians for nearly fifteen centuries. -
Projects That Matter: Successful Planning and Evaluation for Religious Organizations
Kathleen A. Cahalan
Projects That Matter introduces project leaders and teams to the five basic elements of project design and describes in detail a six-step process for designing and implementing a project evaluation and disseminating evaluation findings. Written for the nonexpert, leaders in religious settings will find Cahalan's guidance clear and invaluable. Presenting evaluation as a form of collaborative inquiry, Cahalan show how leaders can use evaluation design to develop effective project plans and prepare case statements for donors or grant proposals for foundations. She introduces project planning and evaluation as mission-related practices and invites leaders to consider how their tradition's particular mission and beliefs influence the way they plan and evaluate. Cahalan concludes the book by making explicit her own theological presuppositions―that the virtues of discernment, stewardship, and prudence are essential for good project planning and evaluation.
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Believe That I Am Here: The Notebooks of Nicole Gausseron
Nicole Gausseron, William Skudlarek OSB, and Hilary Thimmesh OSB
In a small, simple chapel during the celebration of the Eucharist, Jesus revealed his presence to Nicole Gausseron and began speaking to her. In the first in a series of three books, Gausseron documents her conversations with Christ. Nicole Gausseron is not a visionary. She was born to a prosperous French family and was educated to be a professor. Translated from French, this volume is a record of Gausseron's first encounter with Christ and many others, kept daily in her "petit cahier"-her little notebook.
Devoid of the reverential tone often found in works of piety, Gausseron's journals read more like Gospel accounts of Jesus' ministry; episodic, terse, and objective. The value of the notebooks lies in their cogent reminder that Jesus lives and seeks a personal relationship with those who believe in him.
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Piety and Politics: The Dynamics of Royal Authority in Homeric Greece, Biblical Israel, and Old Babylonian Mesopotamia
Dale Launderville OSB
In Homeric Greece, Biblical Israel, and Old Mesopotamia, the king was said to be installed by divine appointment and was regarded as having a special and privileged relationship with God or the gods. This comparative and thematic study assesses the role of the king as a divine messenger and his use of, and reliance on, piety to legitimate his position and ensure the compliance of his subjects. Based on a variety of texts from each of the three regions, including poetry, philosophy, history and theological works, Launderville examines the rhetoric of royal legitimation. He also looks at what the community expected from the king as the centralising symbol of the community, the chief messenger from the divine world and the dispenser of justice, and he explores the means by which the king's power and privileged position could be kept in check.
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Swift, Lord, You Are Not
Kilian McDonnell OSB
Some poets begin very early to write great poetry. Arthur Rimbaud wrote one of his best poems at 15, Percy Shelley published his first book of poetry at 18. But Kilian McDonnell, O.S.B., did not start until he was 75, after decades of writing as a professional theologian. Now 82 he gives us Swift, Lord, You Are Not, poems of the struggle to find God—waiting for the silence of God to break. He does not write pious verse, or inspirational poetry, but of wrestling with the illusive God. His themes are mostly biblical and monastic. He closes with an essay Poet: Can You Start at Seventy-Five? in which he describes the literary decisions he makes within the monastic context—decisions he needs to make with some dispatch. At 75 he does not have decades to mature. He writes with a new language.
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The Other Hand of God : The Holy Spirit as the Universal Touch and Goal
Kilian McDonnell OSB
If the Spirit is not equal to the Father and the Son, can the Trinity survive? Is the role of the Spirit in salvation as important as that of the Son? Why was the divinity of the Spirit problematic in the early Church? If the Son, Jesus Christ, is "the way the truth and the life," what role does the Spirit have in God’s reaching out to touch the Church and the world? Is there any contact with, any experience of God, apart from the Spirit? In what sense is the Spirit the goal of the Christian life? The Other Hand of God addresses these theological queries.
Chapters are "To Do Pneumatology is to Do Trinity," "Struggling with Ambiguity," "The Way of Doxology," "To Do Pneumatology is to Do Eschatology," "Movement Toward Fixity: Holy Spirit in Patristic Eschatology," "To Do Pneumatology Is to Start at the Beginning," "No Unified Vision in the New Testament," "Losing the Battle to Stay with the Imprecision of the Scriptures," "The Mission of the Spirit: Junior Grade?" "God Beyond the Self of God," "The Return: The Highway Back to the Father," "The Spirit Is the Touch of God," "The Tradition of Subordinationism," "Basil: Not Subordination but Communion of Life with the Father and the Son," "Gregory Nazianzus: The Divine Pedagogy in Steps," "The Council of Constantinople: The Triumph of Discretion," "To Do Pneumatology is to Start with Experience," "Experience of the Spirit in the Early Church," "William of St. Thierry: ‘So I May Know by Experience,’" "Bernard of Clairvaux: ‘Today We Read in the Book of Experience,’" "The Role of Pneumatology in an Integral Theology," "The Continuing Quest for a Theology of the Holy Spirit," and "Toward a Theology in the Holy Spirit.
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Reading in Christian Communities : Essays on Interpretation in the Early Church
Charles A. Bobertz, David Brakke, and Rowan A. Greer
The essays in this book honor and extend the work of Rowan A. Greer, Walter H. Gray Professor Emeritus of Anglican Studies at Yale University Divinity School, by exploring the connections between textual interpretation and the formation of religious identity. A diverse and prestigious group of biblical scholars, church historians, and theologians studies the role that scripture plays in the creation and maintenance of faith communities and the ways that communal locations in turn shape the interpretation of scripture.
The first part of the book examines specific examples of ancient biblical interpretation as a means of creating, maintaining, and challenging Christian identity in the pluralistic ancient world. Authors study interpretation in the Martyrdom of Polycarp, the Physiologus, Gnostic literature, the fifth-century mosaic of the Church of Hosios David in Thessaloniki, and in the works of Irenaeus, Origen, Augustine, John Chrysostom, and Porphyry of Tyre. Reading scripture emerges as a strategy for locating the reader and his or her community with respect to other Christians, Jews, and pagans. Part 2 of the volume considers the general problem of interpretation within Christian communities, whether ancient or modern, as they face the task of maintaining a coherent identity.
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New Proclamation: Year B, 2002-2003, Advent through Holy Week
Frederick Houk Borsch, James M. Childs, Philip H. Pfatteicher, and Martin F. Connell
The New Proclamation series helps preachers write better sermons from Advent through Pentecost. It offers creative links to literature, spirituality, and the sociocultural scene in addition to historical and exegetical reflections on all the biblical texts. Its format assists those using the Revised Common Lectionary, the Roman Catholic lectionary, and the Episcopal lectionary (BCP).
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Adam on the Lam : The Uses of Impertinence
Kilian McDonnell OSB
Poetry collection; the Park Press' fifth Christmas book.
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The Art of Biblical Texts and Images : Selections from the Arca Artium Collections
Columba Stewart OSB and Mary F. Schaffer
Exhibition catalogue booklet for the exhibit "What we have heard, what we have seen": The Art of Biblical Texts and Images, January 9-March 2, 2000, in the Alice R. Rogers and Dayton Hudson Galleries, Saint John's University, Collegeville, Minnesota.
About the exhibit: This second major exhibit of holdings from the Arca Artium collections focuses on the Bible as book and as inspiration for artistic creativity. During the years that donor Frank Kacmarcik has formed the collections of Arca Artium, he has shown a particular interest in materials related to the Bible. Central both to Christian experience and to Benedictine monasticism, the Bible has also been the most important focus of artistic meditation in the western world. This exhibit follows its twin themes from the medieval period to the present day, featuring the work of both Christian and Jewish artists inspired by their meditation on the Word of God. The exhibit is designed to highlight the interplay between books and images, word and visual meditation. Many of the finest items in Arca Artium have been chosen, though by no means all of them: limitations of gallery space have compelled the curators to practice the asceticism of selection. -
Parish Faith Formation Assessment and Planning Tool: Catholic Education Ministries, Diocese of St. Cloud
Jeffrey J. Kaster
How are new member being welcomed into your parish? How are parishioners being challenged to grow in their relationship with God and in service to others? Parish Faith Formation Assessment and Planning Tool, winner of the 1997 Research Award from the National Conference of Catechetical Leadership, helps identify key areas in faith formation for assessment and planning. This book is solid and comprehensive, yet flexible enough to meet individual needs.
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The Death of Jesus: The Diabolical Force and the Ministering Angel: Luke 23, 44-49
Michael Patella OSB
Beginning with Peter's Pentecost oration, the passion, death, and resurrection of Christ become the object of preaching throughout the remainder of Acts. The Lucan corpus has two volumes, the Gospel and the Acts. Thus, the possibility for detecting the literary strains which went into the Christian kerygma is greater in the third gospel than in Matthew, Mark , or John. It has been demonstrated that the kerygma was transmitted orally before its achieving canonical, written form. The salvific strains contained in the kerygma, and how and why they were redacted into a final Lucan version of the death of Jesus constitute the major examination of this study. [from the Introduction]
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