The Eucharist Yesterday and Today Author:M. Basil Pennington Today's evolving and freer liturgical situation is a difficult one, but this difficulty, suggests Fr. Pennington, can be seen as an exciting challenge. In his customary clear and personal style, Fr. Pennington invites and helps us to enter fully into the challenge of the Eucharistic celebration. He seeks both to bring forth in a living way the h... more »eritage of the past and to suggest ways in which this heritage, this living tradition, can be lived in us, enfleshed, handed on to the next generation as something living and life giving.
Much like Monsignor Ronald Knox's classic of over thirty hears ago, this book provides a step-by-step treatment of the various parts of the Mass, not only surveying their history and development but plumbing their inner meaning as well. Particular attention is paid to the heart of the Eucharistic mystery, the new Eucharistic Prayers in use since Vatican II, including those for Mass with Children and for Masses of Reconciliation.
Also included, in an appendix, are the texts of various ancient anaphoras -- those of St. Basil, St. Mark, Thomas the Apostle, and the Twelve Apostles -- as well as of a remarkable new Eucharistic Liturgy from India. In the text itself, these Eucharistic Prayers are drawn upon as a rich source of comparison for the liturgy with which we are familiar.
Throughout the book, Fr. Pennington discloses for us the inner dynamics, the deeper meaning, of the Mass, reflecting not only his almost thirty years of priesthood and his life as a Trappist but his broad knowledge and keen appreciation of the shape and role of the liturgy in other times and other places.« less