Roger W. Nutt - Böcker

General Principles of Sacramental Theology addresses a current lacuna in English-language theological literature. Bernard Leeming’s highly respected book Principles of Sacramental Theology was published more than sixty years ago. Since that time, there has been a noted decrease, especially in English-language sacramental theology, in treatments of the basic topics and principles—such as the nature of the sacraments of signs, sacramental grace, sacramental character, sacramental causality, sacramental intention, the necessity and number of the sacraments, sacramental matter and form, inter alia—which apply to all of the sacraments. Rather than deconstruct the Church’s tradition, as many recent books on the sacraments do, Roger Nutt offers a vibrant presentation of these principles as a sound foundation for a renewed appreciation of each of the seven sacraments in the Christian life as the divinely willed means of communion and friendship between God and humanity. The sacraments bestow and nourish the personal communion with Jesus Christ that is the true source of human happiness. Recourse to the patrimony of Catholic wisdom, especially St. Thomas Aquinas, can help to highlight the sacraments and their significance within the plan of salvation. This book will be of use in seminary, graduate, and undergraduate courses. It is further offered as a source of hope to all those seeking deeper intimacy with God amidst the confusion, alienation, and disappointment that accompanies life in a fallen world. The sacraments play an irreplaceable role in pursuing a Universal Call to Holiness that is so central to Vatican II’s teaching.

The Anointing of the Sick is possibly the most underappreciated and understudied sacrament. Here, Roger Nutt seeks to bring greater attention to and appreciation for the Anointing of the Sick.Beginning with an examination of cultural perceptions of dying, death, and burial, To Die Is Gain exposes the ways in which contemporary atheism and physicalism mark a clear divergence from ancient attitudes. In contrast to contemporary hopelessness, the Anointing of the Sick is a powerful counter witness that highlights the great dignity of the human person and the depth of Christian hope. Unlike the cures to particular ailments facilitated by modern medical science, in Holy Anointing Jesus gives his dying followers the healing graces that they need to pass from this life to the next in loving union with Him. As Nutt exposes the biblical and traditional foundations of this sacrament, he corrects common misconceptions and malpractice of this sacrament, especially the ways in which Vatican II is often misleadingly enlisted to support a broadening of the sacrament from end-of-life situations to non-life threatening illnesses. Finally, Nutt carefully describes the graces and effects of the Anointing of the Sick and richly expounds the theological depth of the rite of the Anointing of the Sick. The result is that readers can confidently say with St. Paul that "To die is gain" (Philippians 1:21).

Paul famously challenges his readers in 1 Corinthians, "If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all men most to be pitied". What does it mean to hope in Christ for the life to come? How can we intellectually defend such hope in the midst of secularist and materialist trends so prevalent in contemporary society? Even if we believe as Christians in eternal life, how do we find meaning in such hope when the injustices of the world and our own suffering often loom so large?Drawing primarily upon the witness of biblical revelation and its reception and formulation in the teachings of Thomas Aquinas, the essays in Hope & Death: Christian Responses answer contemporary questions related to how Christians might face suffering and death with hopeful minds and hearts. The essays recover Christian hope in three main parts: what hope reveals about God's nature and his providence, how hope responds to and clarifies the meaning of human suffering, and the way in which all hope draws human beings to an end beyond this world.

There is perhaps no aspect of traditional Thomistic thought so contested in modern Catholic theology as the notion of predestination as presented by the classical Thomist school. What is that doctrine, and why is it so controversial? Has it been rightly understood in the context of modern debates? At the same time, the Church’s traditional affirmation of a mystery of predestination is largely ignored in modern Catholic theology more generally. Why is this the case? Can a theology that emphasizes the Augustinian notion of the primacy of salvation by grace alone also forego a theology of predestination?Thomism and Predestination: Principles and Disputations considers these topics from various angles: the principles of the classical Thomistic treatment of predestination, their contested interpretation among modern theologians, examples of the doctrine as illustrated by the spiritual writings of the saints, and the challenges to Catholic theology that the Thomistic tradition continues to pose. This volume initiates readers— especially future theologians and Catholic intellectuals—to a central theme of theology that is speculatively challenging and deeply interconnected to many other elements of the faith.

Mother Teresa was one of those rare figures in history who enjoyed a wide and solid reputation of holiness during her lifetime. She became—for Catholics, Christians, and those of other faiths or even of none—a symbol of kindness, compassion, and tender care of the poorest people throughout the world. Known as a joyful and generous soul, Mother Teresa inspired countless persons to experience the “joy of loving,” as she liked to say, through their own acts of love and compassion.It thus came as a total surprise to everyone, including the members of her own religious family, the Missionaries of Charity, that Mother Teresa experienced nearly fifty years of what she called “the darkness.” When a book of her private letters, Come, be My Light, was published in 2007, it caused a sensation. It received worldwide media attention, including as the cover story of Time magazine. People struggled to understand it; many misunderstood it, some entirely!As the president of Ave Maria University, Jim Towey, tells us in the introduction, many questions abound about Mother Teresa’s darkness: “What are we to make of the spiritual darkness that enshrouded Mother Teresa so tightly? Could the words and experiences of this little Albanian woman with no advanced formal education have anything to say to the challenges the twenty-first century presents?”Ave Maria University gathered theologians to begin answering these questions and others. The resulting symposium provided the contents of this book. The first such assembly of scholarly work on the topic, Mother Teresa and the Mystics offers readers the opportunity to enter much more deeply into the interior—even mystical—world of St. Teresa of Calcutta.

Scholars have often been quick to acknowledge Thomas Aquinas's distinctive retrieval of Aristotle's Greek philosophical heritage. Often lagging, however, has been a proper appreciation of both his originality and indebtedness in appropriating the great theological insights of the Greek Fathers of the Church. In a similar way to his integration of the Aristotelian philosophical corpus, Aquinas successfully interwove the often newly received and translated Greek patristic sources into a thirteenth-century theological framework, one dominated by the Latin Fathers. His use of the Greek Fathers definitively shaped his exposition of sacra doctrina in the fundamental areas of God and creation, Trinitarian theology, the moral life, and Christ and the Sacraments.For the sake of filling this lacuna and of piquing scholarly interest in Aquinas's relation to the Fathers of the Christian East, the Aquinas Center for Theological Renewal at Ave Maria University and the Thomistic Institute of the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception at the Dominican House of Studies co-sponsored an international gathering of scholars that took place at Ave Maria University under the title Thomas Aquinas and the Greek Fathers. Sensitive to the commonalities and the differences between Aquinas and the Greek Fathers, the essays in this volume have sprung from the theme of this conference and offer a harvest of some of the conference's fruits. At long last, scholars have a rich volume of diverse, penetrating essays that both underscore Aquinas's unique standing among the Latin scholastics in relationship to the Greek Fathers and point the way toward avenues of further study.

But who do you say that I am?"" asks Jesus at the decisive turning point in the Gospel. Simon Peter answers correctly at first but is soon corrected when he protests the revelation of the Cross. Christians in every age are called to confess the right faith in Jesus, who suffered, died, and rose for our salvation. Our own period is beset by a crisis of faith in Jesus, which has had manifold deleterious effects on our lives, our Christian communities, and our world.For the sake of addressing this crisis, the Aquinas Center for Theological Renewal at Ave Maria University and the Thomistic Institute of the Pontifical Faculty at the Dominican House of Studies cosponsored an international conference that took place at Ave Maria University under the title Thomas Aquinas and the Crisis of Christology. Beginning with a gripping foreword by Archbishop J. Augustine Di Noia, OP, of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, this volume gathers together several of the excellent conference presentations given by scholars working in North America, South America, Europe, and Western Asia. These studies consider both formulations of who Christ is and of how we are under his judgement. With help from Thomas Aquinas and the Thomistic tradition, this work engages today's crisis of Christology as seen in multiple theological topics and offers models of faith to answer Jesus' question for ourselves, ""But who do you say that I am?