John F. Baldovin, SJ, is professor of historical and liturgical theology at the Boston College Clough School of Theology and Ministry. He served on the advisory committee for the Bishops’ Committee on the Liturgy of the USCCB (1989-1993) as well as the advisory committee of the International Commission on English in the Liturgy (ICEL) from 1994-2002. He is past president of the North American Academy of Liturgy as well as Societas Liturgica. He is former president of the International Jungmann Society for Jesuits and the Liturgy and the author of Reforming the Liturgy: A Response to the Critics published by Liturgical Press.

“In his conclusion to this careful study, John Baldovin acknowledges that the understanding of the ordered priesthood he soundly constructs through its fundamental relationship to church and sacrament has required attention to ‘difficult and delicate questions.’ Indeed so. And he has done so in admirably even-handed fashion. Baldovin’s approach—historical, doctrinal, pastoral—places him solidly in the lineage of the earlier Jesuit so instrumental to the liturgical renewal, Josef Jungmann, even as he commands contemporary advances in scholarship. The book is a genuine contribution toward realizing, in thought and practice, the assembly of the baptized as the active subject of the Eucharist and thus, priestly sacramental ministry as service to the people’s participation, as members of Christ’s Body, in the paschal mystery.”Bruce T. Morrill, SJ, Distinguished Professor of Theology, Vanderbilt University Divinity School

• ContentsAbbreviations   xiIntroduction   xiiiChapter One:  Take, Bless, Break, Give—Eucharist as Source of Christian Living   11. Eucharistic Sacrifice   22. Real Presence   133. Communion   254. Conclusion   29Chapter Two:  Representing Christ, Representing the Church: In Persona Christi, In Persona Ecclesiae   311. Priesthood in the New Testament   322. Historical Development of the Priest’s Sacramental Role   343. In Persona Christi Capitis   504. Conclusion   55Chapter Three:  Mass Intentions and Their Application by a Priest   581. Praying for the Living and the Dead   612. A Crucial Turning Point: “Germanization”   663. Private (Votive) Masses and the Multiplication of Masses   704. The Support of the Priest   755. The Fruits (Benefits) of the Mass or the Medieval Synthesis: From Practice to Theology   765.1.  Thomas Aquinas   775.2.  John Duns Scotus   825.3.   The Reformation, Trent, and After   855.4.   Twentieth-Century Theology: Maurice de la Taille   916. Karl Rahner on the One Fruit and the Many Fruits of the Mass   937. Mass Offerings (Stipends)   988. Further Theological Considerations   1049. Conclusion   112Chapter Four: Priestly Concelebration   1141. The Assembly at Worship   1162. Concelebration and the Theology of the Eucharist   1193. Concelebration in the Church’s Tradition   1214. Concelebration Today   1284.1  Excursus: The Private (Solitary) Mass   1295. Concelebration Today—continued   1326. Conclusion   136Chapter Five: Frequency of Eucharistic Celebration   1391. Eucharistic Frequency in History   1412. Daily Mass and Eucharistic Theology   1453. Pastoral Considerations   151Chapter Six:  The Priest and an Embodied Eucharistic Prayer   1561. The Posture of the Assembly   1572. Versus Populum or Ad Orientem?   1603. Enacting the Eucharistic Prayer   1643.1.  Historical Origins   1663.2.  The Practice of Other Churches   1713.3.  The Manual Acts   1744. Conclusion   177Conclusion: Servants of the Mysteries   179Selected Bibliography   187Index   208