Divine Mysteries And The Christian Year

This book includes brief explanations of the primary emphases of the Christian or liturgical year as observed in Christian churches in the East and West. Following brief descriptions of the primary periods of the Christian year, poems highlight the diverse theological emphases. They punctuate the scriptural background and theological ideas with appropriate prayers. Though there are differences between the liturgical calendars of Western and Eastern Christianity, many of the emphases are in concert with one another, though dates may vary. In some Protestant churches, the primary events in the life of Christ are celebrated without strict adherence to a liturgical calendar. The poems included here emphasize how the celebration of the festivals of the Christian year address the divine mysteries that followers of Christ seek to understand through worship and study every year, and what it means to observe the Christian/liturgical year. To enhance the use of the volume by clergy and worship leaders, the final section includes at least one musical setting of a poem or text for the primary events of the Christian year.

"The Mystery of Christ is always the same and always complete." These words of Odo Casel, show, as do many other sayings of his, that his thought did not focus exclusively on the celebration of the Eucharist. The intention of this great stimulator amongst the theologians of our century was that his theology of divine worship should embrase the whole of the Christian's liturgical and sacramental life.... He was no mere scholar and specialist theologians, but a spiritual leader and guide for all enquiring men and women; and yet, in spite of his amazingly vast output, he had to restrict himself for the most part to the essays which still command our respect.... Odo Casel, however, certainly felt that the feasts of the Christian Year and their proper celebration urgently required theological and spiritual exposition.

This book includes brief explanations of the primary emphases of the Christian or liturgical year as observed in Christian churches in the East and West. Following brief descriptions of the primary periods of the Christian year, poems highlight the diverse theological emphases. They punctuate the scriptural background and theological ideas with appropriate prayers. Though there are differences between the liturgical calendars of Western and Eastern Christianity, many of the emphases are in concert with one another, though dates may vary. In some Protestant churches, the primary events in the life of Christ are celebrated without strict adherence to a liturgical calendar. The poems included here emphasize how the celebration of the festivals of the Christian year address the divine mysteries that followers of Christ seek to understand through worship and study every year, and what it means to observe the Christian/liturgical year. To enhance the use of the volume by clergy and worship leaders, the final section includes at least one musical setting of a poem or text for the primary events of the Christian year.

Christians are identified by their participation in liturgy. In this primer, Catherine Vincie introduces readers to current liturgical theology by providing them with the foundational themes of the field. She explains that liturgy draws us into the paschal mystery of Jesus Christ, that it should create a space in which we attempt to name toward God by employing an abundance of metaphors and images, and that the sacraments are communicated and understood through the use of symbols. Vincie is grounded in the liturgical reforms of the Second Vatican Council. As such, Celebrating Divine Mystery seeks to draw readers into full, conscious, and active participation" in the liturgy by informing them about recent scholarship and challenging them to enter the divine mystery as informed and engaged participants. Catherine Vincie, RSHM, PhD, is professor of sacramental and liturgical theology at the Aquinas Institute of Theology in St. Louis. She is also author of The Role of the Assembly in Christian Initiation and many articles on initiation, Eucharist, and liturgy and justice. As a practicing liturgical musician, she is also interested in the role of the arts in past and current liturgical celebration. "

'Sacred Mysteries' opens by reflecting on the continual process of reform in the church and on the foundational principles for all liturgical action. It then moves to a discussion of each of the sacraments, with particular reference to the way they are ritualized in the assembly. A final chapter addresses practices that can cloud the experience of mystery during liturgical celebrations and thus inhibit rather than enhance the power of the rite.

The Liturgy is the summit and source of the Church's life, said the Second Vatican Council, and the liturgy unfolds its riches within an annual pattern: the Church's year. Here our life, lived in time, can meet and mingle with the life of Christ communicated in time. In Benedictine monasteries, the liturgical year shapes the whole life of the community. In these community conferences and homilies a Benedictine abbot shares with fellow-monks and fellow-Christians something of the wealth of the mystery of Christ as the liturgy unfolds it. It is of immense satisfaction to those who have long appreciated Abbot Hugh's work that he has so generously agreed to share his insights with a wider public. 'In the course of the year, ' says Vatican II, 'she - holy mother Church - unfolds the whole mystery of Christ from the incarnation and nativity to the ascension, to Pentecost and the expectation of the blessed hope of the coming of the Lord'(Sacrosanctum Concilium 102). 'Thanks to the Holy Spirit, ' writes Abbot Hugh, 'the paschal mystery remains a present, operative reality in human history, a spring of living water, flowing out of the "paradise" of the liturgy and watering the desert of the human heart and human life. It is this which gives our liturgies, so often humanly poor (what else could they be?), their divine value.. It is this unfolding of the mystery of Christ that the following conferences and homilies hope to serve in some small way. Dom Hugh Gilbert, OSB, is Abbot of Pluscarden Abbey. The living stones are the monks. Together they form a house in which the Spirit dwells. If in this place, as the Abbey's motto proclaims, God gives peace, it is through their constant prayer, their glorious liturgy and their ennobling work. The role of the Abbot is crucial to this spiritual building, and in these beautiful conferences and instructions which Abbot Hugh has been persuaded to publish, we see the work of the master builder. ARCHBISHOP MARIO CONTI

This is a fifteen volume set, which is being brought back into print for the edification of the Faithful. Anyone who wishes to appreciate the timeless Tridentine Mass and liturgy will find this set a valuable aid in that endeavor. Dom Gueranger has produced a most excellent work, which began the liturgical movement. We pray that this set of books will bring many more to a true appreciation of the Latin Mass and the Divine Office of the Catholic Church. At one time, under the impulse of that Spirit, which animated the admirable Psalmist and the Prophets, she takes the subject of her canticles from the Books of the Old Testament; at another, showing herself to be the daughter and sister of the holy Apostles, she intones the canticles written in the Books of the New Covenant; and finally, remembering that she, too, has had given to her the trumpet and harp, she at times gives way to the Spirit which animates her, and sings her own new canticle. From these three sources comes the divine element which we call the Liturgy. The Prayer of the Church is, therefore, the most pleasing to the ear and heart of God, and therefore the most efficacious of all prayers. Happy, then, is he who prays with the Church, and unites his own petitions with those of this Spouse, who is so dear to her Lord, that he gives her all she asks. It was for this reason that our Blessed Saviour taught us to say our Father, and not my Father; give us, forgive us, deliver us, and not give me, forgive me, deliver me. Hence, we find that, for upwards of a thousand years, the Church, who prays in her temples seven times in the day, and once again during the night, did not pray alone. The people kept her company, and fed themselves with delight on the manna which is hidden under the words and mysteries of the divine Liturgy. Thus initiated into the sacred Cycle of the mysteries of the Christian year, the faithful, attentive to the teachings of the Spirit, came to know the secrets of eternal life; and, without any further preparation, a Christian was not unfrequently chosen by the Bishops to be a Priest, or even a Bishop, that he might go and pour out on the people the treasures of wisdom and love, which he had drunk in at the very fountain-head. For whilst Prayer said in union with the Church is the light of the understanding, it is the fire of divine love for the heart. The Christian soul neither needs nor wishes to avoid the company of the Church, when she would converse with God, and praise his greatness and his mercy. She knows that the company of the Spouse of Christ could not be a distraction to her. Is not the soul herself a part of this Church, which is the Spouse? Has not Jesus Christ said: Father, may they be one, as we also are one? and, when many are gathered in his name, does not this same Saviour assure us that he is in the midst of them? The soul, therefore, may converse freely with her God, who tells her that he is so near her; she may sing praise, as David did, in the sight of the Angels, whose eternal prayer blends with the prayer which the Church utters in time.

This study explores the way in which, by way of the Christian mysteries, divine action impacts human life. The triune God acts in Jesus Christ by means of historical events whose effects transcend time and which are mediated through their celebration in memorial and worship. Drawing on both Evangelical and Catholic writers, Nichols provides evidence that the general portrait of Jesus found in the Pauline letters and the four Gospels rests on reliable historical witness. On this basis, he offers a concise Christology which presents Jesus Christ as the fulfillment of the Messianic hope of the Old Testament; explores his unique being as laid out in the teaching of the great Ecumenical Councils of the first Christian millennium, and describes how the classic theologian of the Latin tradition, St Thomas Aquinas, sees the chief historical events of Christ’s life as affecting humanity throughout future time. Nichols then looks at the Christian concept of God – namely, Trinitarian monotheism. God so conceived can act efficaciously in the created order and does so by the deployment of his Word and Spirit in ways which express for a fallen, historical world, the dynamics of the interaction of the divine Persons in eternity – Persons who now draw human beings within their range. Those gains in understanding are then applied to the individual mysteries of the life of Christ, from his biological conception to his coming Parousia. For each mystery, Nichols describes a biblical preamble; an account of how the mystery is seen by the Liturgy and the Fathers of the Church; illumination from the three theological masters whom the author makes his own in this work – Aquinas, Balthasar and Bulgakov;- and a visual image drawn from the treasury of sacred art.