Sacramental Life


Book Description

As David deSilva has experienced the ancient wisdom of the Book of Common Prayer, he's been formed spiritually in deep and lasting ways. In these pages, he offers you a brand new way to use the Book of Common Prayer, exploring how Christians can be spiritually formed by the sacraments of baptism, Eucharist, marriage and last rites.




Sacraments of Life


Book Description

This popular resource for Christian initiation examines the underlying meaning of the sacraments. Drawn from the personal experience of twentieth-century Brazilian theologian Leonardo Boff




Sacraments and Worship


Book Description

The church's development and use of sacraments has evolved in many ways from the days of the early church to the present. This sourcebook provides key theological texts that played a role in those movements. Johnson traces the history and theology of individual sacraments along with their liturgical context in the church's worship. He includes materials previously developed in James F. White's classic collection, Documents of Christian Worship: Descriptive and Interpretive Sources (Westminster John Knox Press, 1992), and supplements these to provide a wide range of indispensible materials. He also contributes helpful background notes to give the reader the full breadth and depth of the church's thought on these important topics. This book will be of great value to those studying the history of Christian worship and the development of the sacraments.




Swear to God


Book Description

The most solemn, majestic, and beautiful gifts that Jesus Christ gave to the world are His sacraments. He endowed them with unprecedented and unparalleled power—power to change lives, save souls, and share God’s very life. The sacraments are the ordinary means by which God directs the course of each human life and all of world history. The Church celebrates seven sacraments: baptism, Eucharist, confirmation, matrimony, holy orders, confession, and anointing of the sick. Each was established by Jesus for the sake of salvation. When Jesus spoke of the sacraments, He made clear that they were essential: Unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God (Jn 3:5) . . . unless you eat of the flesh of the Son of man and drink His blood, you have no life in you (Jn 6: 53). In Swear to God, Dr. Scott Hahn explores the richness of Christ’s sacraments—their doctrine, history, symbols, and rituals. Drawing upon the Bible and the Church’s tradition, he shows how God’s covenants—with Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, and David—became the driving forces in history. When Jesus came to fulfill all these covenants, He established a new covenant, with greater power than ever before. Christians are God’s children now. Joined to Christ by baptism, we can already share in the eternal life of the Trinity, a life we hope to know fully in heaven. But heaven is with us, even now, in the sacraments.




The Sacraments and Consumer Culture


Book Description

What does consumerism have to do with the sacraments? We live in cultures where our senses of meaning, identity, and purpose are often found in what we purchase. Apart from the question of hedonism, there is the question of how we orient ourselves in an environment in which we end up marketing our very selves. In this book, Timothy Brunk examines how this consumer culture has had a corrosive effect on the seven sacraments of the Catholic Church. He also assesses how sacramental worship can provide resources for responsible Christian discipleship in today's consumer culture.




My Catholic Worship!


Book Description

With Nihil Obstat & Imprimatur. You are called to love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your mind. This is not an option if we want to be a Christian! It’s a command of love from God and is an invitation to share in His divine life. We should hear those words and soak them up desiring to fulfill them in our daily life. How do we do this? How do we love God with everything we are? To say with all your “heart, mind and soul” means everything! It means all that we are. Our whole being. So loving God in the way we are called to requires a very radical commitment on our part. It requires that we are “all in” so to speak. So, again, how do we do this? The key is worship! To worship God is to love God in the way we are called to love. To worship God means that He is indeed the God of our life and nothing else gets in the way. It means we allow our heart, soul and mind to become immersed in God and filled with His presence. This is worship. And it’s our calling in life. Worship is prayer. It’s true prayer. But it’s not only a prayer we offer at church or at a specific prayer time. Rather, we are called to worship God 24/7 in all that we do and all that we are. We cannot set specific times of worship and times when we do not worship. It’s a calling to constantly be in God’s presence surrendering all to Him. This book is about Worship of the Triune God! There is nothing more important in life than what is presented here in these pages. Not because of this book itself, but because of the truths this book shares. There are two main sections of this book. The first section is about prayer as it is lived in the Sacraments of our Church. The Sacraments can seem, at times, to be dry, dull and repetitive. They can, at times, feel like empty rituals that we are “obliged” to do out of obedience. But when understood and entered into correctly, the Sacraments become the greatest source of our intimacy with our God. They become personal. They become My Catholic Worship! The second section of this book deals with all other forms of prayer. It highlights various methods as well as the meaning of prayer. So jump into this book with an open heart and know that God wants to draw you more closely to Himself in all forms of worship. He wants you to know and love Him with your whole heart, soul and strength. And the way to do just that is prayer! About this Series: The My Catholic Life! series is a three volume series written as a complete summary of our glorious Catholic faith! The goal of these books is to answer the difficult and deep questions of life in a clear and understandable way. We need to know who we are and what life is all about. And we need to know who God is and what He has spoke to us through the ages. Volume One, My Catholic Faith! is a summary of the Apostles and Nicene Creed. This volume looks at everything from the creation of the world to God’s eternal plan of salvation. Other topics include: Afterlife, saints, God, faith, and the Church. It is a summary of the teaching of the Catechism of the Catholic Church #1-1065. Volume Two, My Catholic Worship! is a summary of the life of grace found in prayer and the Sacraments. So often the Sacraments can be seen as dry and empty rituals. But they are, in reality, the greatest treasures we have! They are God’s true presence among us! It is a summary of the Catechism of the Catholic Church #1066-1684 and #2558-2865. Volume Three, My Catholic Morals! is a summary of the morality itself, knowing how we choose right from wrong, as well as a summary of all the moral teachings of our faith. It is a summary of the Catechism of the Catholic Church #1691-2557 Nihil Obstat & Imprimatur granted for three volume series.




Evangelical, Sacramental, and Pentecostal


Book Description

Christians tend to divide into three camps: evangelical, sacramental, and pentecostal. But must we choose between them? Drawing on the New Testament, Christian history, and years of experience in Christian ministry, Gordon T. Smith argues that the church not only can be all three, but in fact must be all three in order to truly be the church.




Catechism of the Catholic Church


Book Description

Over 3 million copies sold! Essential reading for Catholics of all walks of life. Here it is - the first new Catechism of the Catholic Church in more than 400 years, a complete summary of what Catholics around the world commonly believe. The Catechism draws on the Bible, the Mass, the Sacraments, Church tradition and teaching, and the lives of saints. It comes with a complete index, footnotes and cross-references for a fuller understanding of every subject. The word catechism means "instruction" - this book will serve as the standard for all future catechisms. Using the tradition of explaining what the Church believes (the Creed), what she celebrates (the Sacraments), what she lives (the Commandments), and what she prays (the Lord's Prayer), the Catechism of the Catholic Church offers challenges for believers and answers for all those interested in learning about the mystery of the Catholic faith. The Catechism of the Catholic Church is a positive, coherent and contemporary map for our spiritual journey toward transformation.




Sacraments


Book Description

This volume is a first-ever companion to the intellectually and pastorally stimulating work of Louis-Marie Chauvet, one of the most important systematic theologians of liturgy and sacraments in recent times. In this trans-Atlantic venture, pairs of leading thinkers continue the development of sacramental-liturgical theology along six lines of Chauvet's thought: fundamental theology, Scripture and sacrament, ecclesiology, liturgy and ethics, theology and the social sciences, and the theological anthropology of symbolism. Embracing his constant attention to faith is actual practice in history, these francophone and anglophone authors test numerous of Chauvet's insights in the face of new challenges for the church and world, the ongoing mediation of the humanity of God" revealed in the crucified and risen Christ. Louis-Marie Chauvet retired in 2008 from the faculty of theology at the Institute Catholique de Paris, while continuing his work as pastor of Saint-Leu-la-Foret in the Diocese of Pontoise, just outside Paris. He is author of Symbol and Sacrament: A Sacramental Reinterpretation of Christian Existence and The Sacraments: The Word of God at the Mercy of the Body, both published by Liturgical Press. Philippe Bordeyne is professor of theological ethics and dean of the faculty of theology at the Institut Catholique de Paris. Bruce T. Morrill, SJ, holds the Edward A. Maloy Chair of Catholic Studies in the divinity school at Vanderbilt University where he is also Professor of Theological Studies. In addition to numerous journal articles, book chapters, and reviews, he has published several books, most recently Encountering Christ in the Eucharist: The Paschal Mystery in People, Word, and Sacrament (Paulist Press, 2012). His most recent book with liturgical Press is Divine Worship and Human Healing: Liturgical Theology at the Margins of Life and Death Pueblo/Liturgical Press, 2009). "




Signs of New Life


Book Description

At life’s many crossroads, the sacraments of the Church—Baptism, Confirmation, Confession, Holy Eucharist, Matrimony, Holy Orders, and Anointing of the Sick—bring people into contact with the saving work of God. In this collection of homilies, Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI) explains these celebrations of the Church and shows how they always offer an opportunity to announce our faith in Christ and to deepen our understanding of it. Ratzinger endeavored as a theologian to develop an understanding of the sacraments that would help to make participation in them, and in the Paschal Mystery, more fruitful. Many of these homilies connect the sacraments with a profound interpretation of Scripture. The scriptural passages interpreted in each homily are listed at the beginning of the chapter, so that this volume can also be used for scriptural meditation. Since the Church herself is both a sacrament—that is, a sign of God’s saving action in the world—and the place where the sacraments take place, two of the chapters are about the Church, the body of believers where God dwells.