Liturgy and Theology Collection (3 vols.)

by Scott Hahn; Randall B. Smith; Mike Aquilina

Publishers:

Emmaus Road; Emmaus Academic

, 2016

Overview

As the second Vatican Council stated, “the liturgy is the summit toward which the activity of the Church is directed; at the same time it is the font from which all her power flows.” Every moment of the liturgy is filled with meaning and significance; therefore, understanding the liturgy—and all the elements that make up the liturgy—is key to understanding the Catholic view of God, of worship, and of our place in the world.

This collection brings together some of today’s most interesting explorations of often overlooked aspects of the liturgy. Here you will find engaging looks at the history and impact of both liturgical music and the creed as well as breaking open the homilies of one of the church’s most profound and revered theologians. These works will help you understand and draw fresh meaning from the liturgy.

Key Features

• Examines the profound influence of music on the spread of Christianity
• Makes the overlooked sermons of Thomas Aquinas accessible to the modern reader
• Explores the revolutionary character and great importance of the Christian creed

Product Details

• Title: Liturgy and Theology Collection (3 vols.)
• Publisher: St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology
• Publication Date: 2016
• Volumes: 3
• Pages: 728
• Christian Group: Catholic
• Resource Type: Monograph
• Topic: Sacraments and Hymnody

>How the Choir Converted the World Through Hymns, With Hymns, and In Hymns

• Author: Mike Acquilina
• Publisher: St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology
• Publicaton Date: 2016
• Pages: 161

Sample Pages: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7

Music is the most effective delivery system for feelings—love, joy, sadness, glory. The early Church Fathers knew that music also has power over minds, and they used that power to maximum effect, writing hymns through which the early Christians would learn, retain, and spread the Gospel message. In How the Choir Converted the World, best-selling author Mike Aquilina demonstrates how the earliest Christians used music to transform a world that desperately needed transforming. As Aquilina suggests, “If we did it once, we can do it again.”

Aquilina has all the qualities that a good guide should possess: he knows the terrain (taking the reader through Scripture, antiquity, and the Church Fathers), he has a discerning eye (spotting the place of music in the Church), and is an engaging wit (the reader feels like he has been brought to stand outside the Jerusalem Temple, or in Ephrem’s choir, or beside Ambrose in the great cathedral at Milan). This book considers an important but overlooked element of theologia prima, namely, how the Church performs her theology in what is actually sung doctrine. Easily accessible, fascinating, and inspiring to believers today.

—David Fagerberg, Professor of Liturgical Studies at Notre Dame University and author of On Liturgical Asceticism

Mike Aquilina is the author or co-author of over forty books, including the best-selling The Fathers of the Church: An Introduction to the First Christian Teachers; The Mass of the Early Christians; and Angels of God: The Bible, the Church, and the Heavenly Hosts. His reviews, essays, and journalism have appeared in First Things, Touchstone, National Catholic Register, and elsewhere. Aquilina is the Executive Vice President of the St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology and along with Dr. Scott Hahn has hosted several popular television series on the Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN). He and his wife Terri live in the Pittsburgh area with their six children.

Reading the Sermons of Thomas Aquinas: A Beginner’s Guide

• Author: Randal B. Smith
• Publisher: St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology
• Publication Date: 2016
• Pages: 376

Sample Pages: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7

Preaching was immensely important in the medieval Church. Renowned medieval theologian Thomas Aquinas expended much time and effort preaching. Today, however, Aquinas’s sermons remain relatively unstudied and underappreciated. This is largely because their sermo modernus style, typical of the thirteenth century, can appear odd and inaccessible to the modern reader. In Reading the Sermons of Thomas Aquinas, Randall Smith guides the reader through Aquinas’s sermons, explaining their form and content. In the process, one comes to appreciate the sermons in their rhetorical brilliance, beauty, and profound spiritual depth while simultaneously being initiated into a fascinating world of thought concerning Scripture, language, and the human mind. The book also includes analytical outlines for all of Aquinas’s extant sermons. Reading the Sermons of Thomas Aquinas: A Beginner’s Guide is an indispensable volume for those interested in the thought of Aquinas, in the intellectual and spiritual milieu in which he worked, and in the manifold ways of preaching the Gospel message.

Randall Smith has written a book that for a very long time has been an urgent desideratum. The sermons of Thomas Aquinas arguably are the most underappreciated and least read part of his theological oeuvre. They are a veritable treasure, but like every true treasure, in need of unlocking. With this excellent book, Randall Smith has finally provided an interpretive key that allows us to receive the treasure of Thomas’s sermons. This well-written book is a piece of rigorous scholarship, a must-read for all students of Aquinas’s theology, also for all who love Christ-centered, biblical preaching, and last but not least for those who want to understand how preaching worked in the world of medieval universities and among the Dominican preachers.

—Reinhard Hutter, Duke University Divinity School

Randall B. Smith is Professor of Theology at the University of St. Thomas in Houston, Texas. He completed his doctorate at the University of Notre Dame under the direction of the late Ralph McInerny. His articles have appeared in journals such as The Thomist, Communio, and Nova et Vetera.

The Creed: Professing the Faith Through the Ages

• Author: Scott, Hahn
• Publisher: St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology
• Publication Date: 2016
• Pages: 191

Sample Pages: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7

Why were the early Christians willing to die to protect a single iota of the creed? Why have the Judeans, Romans, and Persians—among others—seen the Christian creed as a threat to the established social order? In The Creed: Professing the Faith Through the Ages, bestselling author Dr. Scott Hahn recovers and conveys the creed’s revolutionary character. Tracing the development of the first formulations of faith in the early Church through later ecumenical councils, The Creed tells the story of how the very profession of our belief in Christ fashions us for heavenly life as we live out our earthly days.

In an age when subjectivism trumps all, Scott Hahn’s latest book, which emphasizes the objectivity of Christian doctrine, is a bracing tonic. The leitmotif of this work is that we don’t make the creeds; rather, the creeds make us. Further, Dr. Hahn’s exploration of the meaning of the Nicene Creed provides a splendid introduction to the basics of Christian faith.

—Most Rev. Robert E. Barron, Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, Founder of Word On Fire, and Host of the Catholicism series

Dr. Scott Hahn is the bestselling author of over forty titles, including The Lamb’s Supper and Reasons to Believe. Professor Hahn holds the Fr. Michael Scanlan Chair of Biblical Theology and the New Evangelization at Franciscan University of Steubenville, where he has taught since 1990. As Founder and President of the St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology, he is Editor-in-Chief of Emmaus Road Publishing. His Emmaus Road titles include Understanding “Our Father,” Spirit and Life, Scripture Matters, Answering the New Atheism (co-author), and the Catholic for a Reason series (co-editor). He also serves as the McEssy Distinguished Visiting Professor of Biblical Theology at Mundelein Seminary. Dr. Hahn has six children and thirteen grandchildren. He lives in Steubenville, Ohio.