Moving Liturgy

What does it mean to be a visual aid in worship? Moving Liturgy: Dance in Christian Worship provides readers with powerful ideas to bring prayers, parables, hymns, and scripture passages to life in the most direct way--storytelling in dance and movement through the body--the best visual aid! This book offers practical and artistic information for anyone interested in learning about, or re-affirming, the use of dance and movement in worship. Jane Wellford has worked extensively in the arts of liturgical dance and drama in collaboration with clergy, musicians, conductors, visual artists, dancers, and entire congregations. Successful ideas for worship, as well as creative possibilities, are all included in this book. I believe that worship should be made multi-sensory, exciting, and as connected to real life experiences as possible. The more senses that are involved in worship, the more likely the message will be received. When we hear the word of God shared through words or music, see it come to life through dance, drama, or other visual arts, experience it through speaking the prayers, confessions, or creeds, and sing it through hymns or chants, we are more actively engaged in the experience of worship.

EVERY MOMENT HOLY, Vol. 2: DEATH, GRIEF, & HOPE, is a book of liturgies for seasons of dying and grieving--liturgies such as "A Liturgy for the Scattering of Ashes" or "A Liturgy for the Loss of a Spouse" or "A Liturgy for the Wake of a National Tragedy" or "A Liturgy for the Weighing of Last-Stage Medical Options." These are ways of reminding us that our lives are shot through with sacred purpose and eternal hopes even when, especially when, suffering and pain threaten to overwhelm us. -over 100 liturgies for seasons of dying and grieving -beautiful leather-bound hardcover -over 20 illustrations by Ned Bustard -silk bookmark -gilded edges

This reference work incorporates the insights and expertise of leading liturgists and scholars of liturgy at work today, comprising 200 entries on important topics in the field, from vestments and offertories to ordination and divine unction. It is systematically organized and alphabetically arranged for ease of use. It also includes comprehensive bibliographies and reading lists, to bring the work fully up to date and to encourage further reading and research.

This beautifully written, classic book teaches about those things that belong to all Catholics: the Mass, the sacraments, the seasons of the church's year. Brief, two-page articles are grouped into units on central topics. Discussion questions and helpful quotations from a variety of sources involve the individual reader, the classroom or a study group in a lively dialogue.

The Deacon’s Ministry of the Liturgy offers a concise and accessible introduction to the liturgical aspects of the ministry of the diaconate. The book covers not only the practical side of liturgical ministry—what the deacon does in various liturgical celebrations—but also roots of that ministry in Scripture and tradition, as well as reflecting on the role of the liturgy in the spiritual life of the deacon. The Deacon’s Ministry series explores the three fundamental diaconal ministries identified in the teaching of Vatican II: those of the liturgy, of the word, and of charity to the people of God (Lumen Gentium 29). This series, written by three highly regarded permanent deacons, offers a rich combination of theology, spirituality, and practical and effective guidance. Deacons and those in diaconal formation, their families, the bishops and priests they work with, and the people they serve will welcome it.

How has the Liturgy of the Roman rite developed and changed in history before and after the Council of Trent? What principles have determined the boundaries of legitimate liturgical reform over the centuries? What was the Liturgical Movement? Did Guéranger, Beauduin, Guardini, Parsch, Casel, Bugnini, Jungmann, Bouyer and the Movement's other leaders know and respect these principles? And what is to be said of the not insignificant liturgical reforms carried out by Saint Pius X, Popes Pius IX and Pius XII and Blessed John XXIII in the course of the twentieth century? In The Organic Development of the Liturgy, Dom Alcuin Reid examines these questions systematically, incisively and in depth, identifying both the content and context of the principle of "organic development"-a fundamental principle of liturgical reform of the Second Vatican Council's Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy Sacrosanctum Concilium-making a significant contribution to the understanding of the nature of the Liturgical Movement and to the ongoing re-assessment of the reforms enacted following the Council.

Contemporary culture is rediscovering the importance of beauty for both social transformation and personal happiness. Theologians have sought, in their varied ways, to demonstrate how God's beauty is associated with notions of truth and goodness. This book breaks new ground by suggesting that liturgy is the means par excellence by which an experience of beauty is communicated. Drawing from both secular and religious understandings, in particular the mystical and apophatic tradition, the book demonstrates how liturgy has the potential to achieve the one ultimately reliable form of beauty because its embodied components are able to reflect the disturbing beauty of the One to whom worship is always offered. Such components rely on understanding the aesthetic dynamics upon which liturgy relies. This book draws from a broad range of disciplines concerned with understanding beauty and self-transformation and concludes that while secular utopian forms have much to contribute to ethical transformation, they ultimately fail since they lack the Christological and eschatological framework needed, which liturgy alone provides.

Mainstream philosophy of religion has primarily focused on the truth and justification of religious beliefs even though belief is only one small facet of religious life. This collection remedies this by taking practice and embodied action seriously as fundamental elements of any philosophy of religion. Emerging and established voices across different philosophical traditions come together to consider religious actions, including public worship, from perspectives such as trauma and social ontology, sound and silence, and knowledge and hope. Embodied religious practice is viewed through the lens of liturgy, intrinsically connecting religious rituals to human existence to show clearly that, no matter where one finds oneself in terms of the so-called 'analytic-continental' divide, philosophy of religion must be concerned with more than just beliefs if it is to adequately deal with the subject matter of 'religion.' The purpose of these studies is not to reject what has gone before but to expand the focus of philosophy of religion. This approach lays the groundwork for investigations into how beliefs are situated in our theological, moral, and social frameworks. For any philosophy of religion student or scholar interested in how thinking and living well are intimately related, this is a go-to resource. It takes seriously the importance of historical religious traditions and communities, opening the space for cross-cultural and interdisciplinary debates.