Handbook for Today's Catholic Family: A Redemptorist Pastoral Publication Book

Preacher to the popes since 1980, Fr. Cantalamessa offers a robust examination of the Eucharist at a time (the early 1980s) when devotion was undergoing a renaissance. Fr. Cantalamessa considers scriptural, theological, ecclesiastical, and eschatological aspects of the Eucharist.

Most of my reviews try to get at some theory offered by the author; that would be inapt here. This is a theologically informed devotional book - smartly written, comprehensive, and steeped in citations. But it does not aim to be a development of doctrine so much as an exhortation to integrate the Eucharist and its sacrificial, generous modes of being into the whole life of believer and Church. The Eucharist, Fr. Cantalamessa successfully argues (with extensive references to Christian Fathers and appropriate nods to non-Catholic Christian sources), is the apex and source of the Christian life. It is Jesus Christ, true Blood (a point Fr. Cantalamessa stresses) and true Body, gathering and transforming his people and his world.

Fr. Cantalamessa is an effective prophet of the Real Presence and a faithful critic of the Church when it fails to live concorditantly with that truth or witness to it with real authority. A good read for a Catholic looking to kindle sacramental fire.