Books published by Liturgical Press

"Discusses the sacredness of eating, the planetary interdependence that the sharing of food entails, and the destructiveness of the industrial food system, presenting the food crisis as a spiritual crisis. The author invites communities to reclaim the foundational meal character of eucharistic celebration while offering pertinent strategies for this renewal"--

"A resource to anyone interested in spirituality beyond easy answers or (in)convenient labels and an exploration of what it truly means to be present-to yourself, to the one before you, and to the one we call God"--

Eucharistic liturgy has differed through the centuries and in different Churches. Because of these differences, it is essential that eucharistic liturgy be studied from ahistorical perspective. In The Celebration of the Eucharist, Enrico Mazza offers a thorough account of the theology of the Eucharist and presents a historical analysis of the origin and variety of eucharistic liturgies and their development in the Church. Beginning with the Last Supper, Father Mazza weaves his way through interpretations elaborated by the Fathers of the Church and medieval writers to provide the rich tapestry of concepts and categories adopted by Vatican Council II. Complete with an appendix including Jewish texts and early Eucharistic Prayers, abbreviations, bibliography, and notes, The Celebration of the Eucharist is a comprehensive source for those who have an interest in the theology of the Eucharist in the course of history. Chapters are Old Testament Sacrifices and Ritual Meal,"e; "e;The Origin of the Christian Eucharist,"e; "e;From the Jewish Liturgy to the Christian Eucharist,"e; "e;Primitive Anaphoras: From the Didache to the Mystical Eucharist,"e; "e;Primitive Anaphoras: Developments of the Eucharistic Liturgy,"e; "e;Thematic Developments in the Eucharistic Liturgy,"e; "e;The Early Patristic Period,"e; "e;Tertullian and Cyprian,"e; "e;The Fourth Century,"e; "e;The Early Middle Ages,"e; "e;The Scholastic High Middle Ages,"e; "e;The Eucharist and the Relics of the Saints,"e; "e;The Reformation and the Council of Trent,"e; "e;The Liturgical Reform of Vatican Council II,"e; "e;The Implementation of the Liturgical Reform,"e; "e;The Parts of the Eucharistic Prayer,"e; and "e;The Last Supper and the Church's Eucharist."e; Enrico Mazza is professor of liturgical history at the Universit Cattolica del Sacro Cuore in Milan. He is the author of Mystagogy: A Theology of Liturgy in the Patristic Ages, Eucharistic Prayers of the Roman Rite, and The Origins of the Eucharistic Prayer published by The Liturgical Press."e;

On Contemplating God, Prayer, Meditations

"Recounts the ways in which monks actively seek God in all the practices and places of the monastic life and describes the gradual growth and transformation from novice to young solemnly professed to elder monk"--

"Explores various ways of thinking about what Catholics do in the liturgy that should lead us to see intercommunion between Christian denominations as enhancing our participation in the mystery of the Church and the mystery we celebrate"--

Fr. James Martin, SJ, is one of the most recognized Catholic priests in the United States. His book My Life with the Saints introduced hundreds of thousands of readers to many saintly heroes. More recently, Building a Bridge called the Catholic Church to more respect and compassion for the LGBT Communityand made Martin not only a friend to LGBT people but a lightning rod for some ';traditionalist' Roman Catholics. His articulate and winsome personality has endeared him to millions inside and outside the Church. Now it is time to tell the story of his own life, to explore the experiences that made him the person he is today.And there's no better narrator for the story than Jon M. Sweeney, an award-winning and highly accomplished writer in his own right. In James Martin, SJ: In the Company of Jesus, Sweeney probes Martin's early life, his experiences as a corporate executive, his call to religious life, his ministry and spirituality, his feelings about both the adoration and the criticism he receives from so many, and much more. Readers will come away with a much better understanding of one of today's most interesting and influential Catholics.

Searching for answers in the midst of the sexual abuse crisis in the church, many blamed the clerical culture. But what exactly is this clerical culture? We may know it when we see it, but how can we whether clergy or laypeople go about dismantling it and putting in place a new, healthy culture? George Wilson has spent decades working with organizations to help them discover, and often recover, their foundational calling. He is also a Jesuit priest engaged in the lives of congregations. In Clericalism: The Death of Priesthood he brings together both capacities and gives his sense of the challenges facing the church.As members of the church, Wilson maintains, we are all responsible for creating a clerical culture. And we are also responsible for that cultures transformation. Clericalism aids this transformation by helping us examine some underlying attitudes that create and preserve destructive relationships between ordained and laity. After looking at the crisis and establishing where we are now, this book challenges us with concrete suggestions for changing behaviors. We are lay and ordained, but all baptized into the royal priesthood of 1 Peter 2:9, all called to spread the Gospel and do the work of Gods love in the world. Ultimately, this is a hopeful book, looking for the restoration of a genuine priesthood, free of clericalism, in which we become truly united in Christ..

This collection of essays explores the rich and diverse intersections between the world of liturgy and the worlds of creation and the cosmos. The intersections highlighted here include biblical, historical, visual, and musical materials as well as contemporary theological and pastoral challenges for worship today. The essays gathered in this volume were first presented at the 2018 Yale Institute of Sacred Music Liturgy Conference and are here made available to a wider audience. These essays are responses to the unprecedented attention to ecological and cosmological concerns, which call for sustained engagement by scholars and practitioners of liturgy.

"Explores the trend in Roman Catholic teaching toward a commitment to active non-violence and how to become a truly catholic global peace church in which peacemaking is church-wide and parish-deep, Catholics should recognize that they have always properly been a diaspora people with an identity that transcends tribe and nation-state"--

Volume 1 Anselm's Letters as Prior and Abbot of Bec (1070-1092)

The dangerous tendency to reduce theological positions to political ones has always fueled divisions in the Church, and it plagues debates surrounding Pope Francis's teaching today. This collection of essays was born of a landmark international symposium designed to promote theological understanding by contextualizing the thought of Pope Francis--from his understanding of history to his theology of mission--within important theological conversations rarely heard in the US Catholic Church. Its contributors demonstrate decisively that Pope Francis's magisterium is the fruit of a profound and distinctive, yet deeply Catholic, intellectual engagement with the theological and ecclesial traditions of the Church.Contributors include: Austen Ivereigh, Archbishop Christophe Pierre, Rodrigo Guerra López, Bishop Robert Barron, Massimo Borghesi, Susan K. Wood, SCL, Rocco Buttiglione, Guzmán Carriquiry Lecour, Peter J. Casarella, Brian Y. Lee, Thomas L. Knoebel

Isaac of Stella was an English-born Cistercian who studied in the schools before entering monastic life and becoming abbot of Stella in 1147. His liturgical sermons inject a speculative philosophical inquisitiveness into imaginative meditations on scenes from Scripture. This present volume includes sermons 2755, along with three fragments. In these sermons, while treating biblical passages corresponding to the major feasts of the Christian calendar, Isaac tackles weighty dogmatic issues such as predestination, the problem of evil, and Christ's two natures.

The Book of Psalms has provided comfort, nourishment and challenge to many people over hundreds of years. With this retelling of psalms and other familiar Scripture texts Patricia Stevenson, RSJ, shares the essence of these great prayers in language of today. and makes them available to all who seek their help and comfort. The additional prayers are an invitation to witness in these ancient writings a voice that reminds us of the communion that unites the joys and sufferings of people everywhere.

The Maronite Church is one of twenty-two Eastern Catholic Churches in communion with the Pope of Rome. Her patriarch is in Lebanon. Forty-three bishops and approximately five million faithful make up her presence throughout the world.The story of Maron, a fifth-century hermit-priest, and the community gathered around him, later called the Maronites, tells another fascinating story of the monastic and missionary movements of the Church. Marons story takes place in the context of Syrian monasticism, which was a combination of both solitary and communal life, and is a narrative of Christians of the Middle East as they navigated the rough seas of political divisions and ecclesiastical controversies from the fourth to the ninth centuries.Abbot Paul Naaman, a Maronite scholar and former Superior General of the Order of Lebanese Maronite Monks, wisely places the study of the origins of the Maronite Church squarely in the midst of the history of the Church. His book, The Maronites: The Origins of an Antiochene Church, published during the sixteenth centenary of Marons death, offers plausible insights into her formation and early development, grounding the Maronite Church in her Catholic, Antiochian, Syriac, and monastic roots.Abbot Paul Naaman is a Maronite scholar and former Superior General of the Order of Lebanese Maronite Monks.

Reflections for Novices

"Valerie Schultz shares what she learned and the grace she received during fourteen years working inside an American prison"--

"A personal journal seeing language as a vital medium through which the divine is made present to us and which serves to reflect the truth and occasionally mask it. This book also includes an essay that looks at certain features common to myth, fairy tale, lore, and Scripture"--

"A collection of reflections offering hope and encouragement in the face of the sadness and suffering of our world selected from the author's "Daily Reflections with Fr. Don Talafous" posts written for the blog Pray Tell"--

"A resource for reflection and prayer using poetry from several writers"--

"A new paraphrase of the Psalms that reflects the experience of addiction and living in recovery"--

"Describes five distinctive types of Christian spiritual wisdom, illustrated by classical examples: The Way of Discipline, The Contemplative-Mystical Way, The Way of Practical Action, The Way of Beauty, and The Prophetic Way"--

Great small-group facilitators are not born with their abilities; they develop them. This book will help facilitators in their task of enabling members to participate fully in their group. The content and exercises of each chapter present practical information and methods to help facilitators deepen their knowledge of their role and hone their skills in group facilitation.The first eight chapters cover various aspects of facilitation: the role of the facilitator; getting started; communication basics - expressive skills and listening skills; integrating our diversity; tuning into group life; and group transitions. Each chapter begins with warm-up exercises consisting of questions and assignments designed to help readers draw from their own experience as they work with the written material presented in each chapter.The rest of the book outlines eight flexibly formatted, ninety-minute workshop (or individual) sessions corresponding to the eight topics introduced previously. Includes exercises for practicing and assessing skills acquired in each session.

Volume 2

The publication of Laudato Si'a papal encyclical on a defining issue of our timeswas a moment of great importance for Catholics and for the world. Now Fr. Joshtrom Kureethadam, one of the church's top experts on the document, provides a thoughtful, passionate, and highly accessible commentary on its key ideas and themes. Faithfully attentive to the outline of the six chapters of the encyclical, Fr. Joshtrom has also insightfully arranged the book according to the See-Judge-Act methodology that is increasingly used in spirituality, moral theology, and the social sciences.If Pope Francis is right when he insists that the solution to our environmental problems cannot be found only in technocratic approaches by governments and institutions, but by a wide and thoughtful embrace by all of us of our common responsibility, then Fr. Joshtrom's book is precisely what we need at this time.