Find out more about forthcoming publications from the St Mary's University Press.
This special book celebrates the famous collection of stained glass by Gabriel Loire, glass-master of Chartres cathedral, installed in the chapel of St Mary's University, London, in word, image and prayer.
The prayers, inspired by the windows, have been specially composed by Bishop Richard Moth, and meditate on the the life and miracles of Mary, Mother of God, as depicted in the windows.
The windows themselves, a dazzling array of heavenly blues, yellows and reds, are brought to life through the superb photography of Sarah McKenna-Ayres. With a preface and forward by Canon Robin Gibbons and Professor Anthony McClaran setting the context, the result is a superb and inspiring volume of prayer, art and wisdom.
Publication Date: December 2024
Over 50 years after the liturgical reform of the Second Vatican Council, tensions remain in the Church over the Old and New Rites – tensions which theologians and liturgists have not been able to resolve. Consequently, the aim of this book is to bring about liturgical reconciliation among Catholics of the Latin Rite through constructing a theology based on people’s actual liturgical experiences. In this respect it is innovative and unique, though very much rooted in the synodal process initiated by Pope Francis, in that it draws on actual testimonies of Catholics about their experiences of liturgy in the New and Old Rites, and uses these as the starting point for theological reflection.
Therefore, this book seeks to overcome “liturgy wars” and contribute to Pope Francis’ call for liturgical unity by a radically new approach to liturgical theology based on the actual liturgical experiences of lay Catholics. Testimonies of people’s actual experiences of the Roman Rite of Mass, specifically the choice they make to attend Old or New Rite (or both), responded to by a mixed group of scholars and pastors: a diocesan priest/moral theologian on “deep listening”; a Melkite priest/theologian looks at liturgical diversity and the unifying power of church architecture; a lay woman theologian examines multi-sensory liturgical experience in relation to catechesis and also disability; an Orthodox priest looks at Orthodox liturgical reform (“conservative” versus “traditional”) in dialogue with the West; a contemplative nun on non-verbal aspects of the liturgy and the resources for unity they can offer; and a priest/theologian of the arts questions logocentric theologies of the liturgy and exposes the destructive role of weaponization of liturgy. A concluding chapter calls for an urgent renewal of liturgical anthropology.
Editor descriptor
Fr (Rev Dr) Dominic White is Prior of St Dominic’s Priory, London, and Acting Director of Research at the Margaret Beaufort Institute of Theology, Cambridge. His theological interests focus especially on theology of the arts, and the implications of the arts for metaphysics, liturgy and spirituality, especially mysticism and spiritual cosmology. Fr Dominic is the author of The Lost Knowledge of Christ: Christian Cosmology, Contemporary Spiritualities and the Arts (Liturgical Press, 2015), and How Do I Look? Theology in the Age of the Selfie (SCM, 2020).He is an organist, pianist and composer, and co-founder of the Friends of Sophia group.