40% off Dan Nicholls' Pick of the Week*
If
you're like me, the ideal book to spend time alone with is
contemplative, quiet where everyone shouts, deep, inviting because it is
based in beauty, and reassuring because it proceeds with a sense of joy
and timelessness, full of that thing St. Thomas says unites poets and
philosophers: wonder. That book, ideal though it may be, has some
reality in Thomas Crean's The Mass and the Saints, which is why it's my recommendation to you.Holy Mass has had its commentators pretty much from the beginning. Something so central to Christian life must inspire discussion and art, and a sort of practical theology gleaned from the liturgy itself. What does it mean that we (traditionally) face the East? Why does the priest elevate the host instead of, say, hiding it away or consuming it immediately? What do these things tell us about God and about us? These are the sort of questions approached in this book--not like a Q&A, but like a tour through the Mass with saints and other writers from its 2000 years of history that have been fixed on the celebration of the Eucharist with eyes open to, as Fr. Crean puts it, the "literal and mystical meaning of the Mass".
A Dominican friar at Cambridge, Fr. Crean knows the value of contemplation mixed
with action, and that's the aspect of this book that
really caught hold of me. I savored it over weeks, and would look
forward to immersing my mind, after a hard day's work, in the many
layers of meaning that the source and summit of Christian life has to
offer. It's a thing to wonder at. The Mass and the Saints is also available as an e-book.Dan Nicholls handles a number of websites for Ignatius, like Ignatius Critical Editions and Homiletic & Pastoral Review. He is a happy graduate of Campion College ('04, AA) and Ave Maria University ('07, BA), and lives in Arizona.
*Employee Pick of the Week program features savings of 40% off a book, movie, or compact disc personally chosen and recommended by an Ignatius Press employee.
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