Book that offers guidance to help Catholics pray in a rich and meaningful way

Our Lord Jesus Christ told us to pray constantly (Luke 18:1). The Liturgy of the Hours provides one way to fulfill this obligation in a structured format. Moreover, the mandate of the Liturgy of the Hours applies not only to all bishops and priests, other sacred ministers, and the religious, but also to the laity. But, for the laity especially, without clear and unambiguous instructions, praying the Liturgy of the Hours can be confusing and difficult. This book has organized all the information you will need to learn to pray the Liturgy of the Hours using the four-volume set, step-by-step, as simply as possible. This new third edition contains comprehensive instructions for praying the Office of Readings, Morning Prayer, Daytime Prayer, Evening Prayer, and Night Prayer on weekdays, Sundays, Memorials, Feasts, and Solemnities. - Detailed information about how celebrations differ in ordinary time, in Advent, and in the Easter season. - Detailed graphic charts for all of the celebrations as they vary by liturgical season. - "Walk-through" examples to lead you step-by-step through the celebration of a Memorial, a Feast, a Solemnity, a Sunday in Advent, and a weekday in the Christmas season.

A host of both very old and entirely new liturgical practices have arisen in digital mediation, from the live-streaming of worship services and "pray-as-you-go" apps, to digital prayer chapels, virtual choirs and online pilgrimages. Cyberspace now even hosts communities of faith that exist entirely online. These digitally mediated liturgical practices raise challenging questions: Are worshippers in an online chapel really a community at prayer? Do avatars that receive digital bread and wine receive communion? @ Worship proposes a nuanced response to these sometimes contentious issues, rooted in familiarity with, and sustained attention to, actual online practices. Four major thematic lines of inquiry form the structure of the book. After an introductory chapter the following chapters look at digital presence, virtual bodies, and online participation; ecclesial communities in cyberspace; digital materiality, visuality, and soundscapes; and finally the issues of sacramental mediation online. A concluding chapter brings together the insights from the previous chapters and maps a way forward for reflections on digitally mediated liturgical practices. @ Worship is the first monograph dedicated to exploring online liturgical practices that have emerged since the introduction of Web 2.0. Bringing together the scholarly tools and insights of liturgical studies, constructive theology and digital media theories, it is vital reading for scholars of Theology and Religion with as well as Sociology and Digital Culture more generally.

At the heart of this study is a biblical-theological approach to central passages on intercessory prayers in the OT. After examining these largely prophetic prayer dialogues, Widmer argues that they provide an important key to biblical theology and spirituality. Furthermore, a close reading of prayers by Abraham, Moses, Samuel, David, Solomon, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Joel, and Amos reveals fascinating insights into the portrayals of these characters and confirms strong conceptual associations with Moses, Israel’s archetypal mediator. Widmer reads these prayers in both their immediate literary and wider canonical contexts. The ultimate aim of this study is to gain a deeper understanding of the God whom the church worships and confesses to be the Father of Jesus Christ. Particularly pertinent is the finding that many OT prayers interact with God’s nature as revealed to Moses in Exod 34:6–7. Yhwh’s fullest revelation is also given in the context of an intercessory prayer. Widmer argues that intercessory prayer and theology have a hermeneutical-spiral relationship, mutually informing and correcting each other. It is in engaging with a loving and holy God that the phenomenon of divine mutability must be understood. Overall, Standing in the Breach suggests that fundamental biblical themes such as God’s mercy and judgment, divine retribution and forgiveness, covenant mediation, substitutionary suffering and atonement, and eventually the dynamics of the cross are all intrinsically related to and illuminated by prophetic OT intercessory prayers.

A new and age-old way of practicing the Christian faith. What does Wesleyan theology and the Methodist way of life have to do with Benedictine ideas and practices? Renowned teacher Paul W. Chilcote reveals surprising and profound similarities and overlaps in the practices and theological convictions of these two Christian streams. Chilcote is a United Methodist scholar, elder, and serves as a Benedictine oblate. He writes from his own spiritual life, offering a gift to readers who are interested in Methodism and mysticism. Chilcote teaches a remarkable approach to spiritual practice; it is a new and age-old way of practicing our faith.

Introduction to Christian Worship, Third Edition traces the development of the major forms of Christian worship, and includes discussion of the newest service books of the principal churches of North America and the British Isles. This staple of liturgical history is used widely in Protestant seminaries and is read by clergy and laity alike as an accurate, informative, and accessible introduction to all aspects of Christian worship. This revision keeps pace with the latest scholarship and includes more maps, tables, woodcuts, and photographs.

What if the church took with utmost seriousness that baptism is the gift of a new identity taking a lifetime to grow into? And, what if that identity includes God's call to a way of life made visible in how Jesus lived his? This book is a response to these questions in relationship to the church's practice of baptizing children. This book's underlying premise is that how the church helps parents prepare for baptism is vital to how the whole family lives its baptismal identity throughout life, as well as to the renewal of churches themselves. In the last several decades, institutionalized Christianity has found itself renegotiating its relationship with a culture that often has churches on the defensive for practices that are little changed from an era now past and insufficient as a witness to life as Christ's disciple. This book urges a reconsideration of what churches offer parents seeking baptism for a child, offering a transformed vision of such a ministry as well as a practical guide for putting it in place in the life of churches. Pastors, educators, and leaders will find a pathway to follow that promises to be life changing for all involved.

According to Father Alexander Men (1935-1990), the Russian Orthodox priest and popular spiritual teacher who was publicly martyred in 1990 in the former USSR, prayer is “the flight of the heart toward God.” This work, available for the first time in English, is a collection of his writings, lectures, and sermons on prayer. You will discover both ancient and modern wisdom, and you will see how one Eastern Orthodox priest taught his parishioners to pray.

"A Michael Glazier book." Includes bibliographical references and index.