Roland Millare at Eighth Day Books

Last Wednesday, January 18, Eighth Day Books hosted a presentation and book signing by Roland Millare. He was in Wichita for a program at the Spiritual Life Center and wanted to visit Eighth Day Books.

His book--adapted from his dissertation under the director of Matthew Levering--is titled A Living Sacrifice: Liturgy and Eschatology in Joseph Ratzinger which

. . .  focuses on the inherent relationship between eschatology and the liturgy in light of Ratzinger’s insistence upon the primacy of logos over ethos. When logos is subordinated to ethos, the human person becomes subjected to a materialist ontology that leads to an ethos that is concerned above all by utility and progress, which affects one’s approach to understanding the liturgy and eschatology. How a person celebrates the liturgy becomes subject to the individual whim of one person or a group of people. Eschatology is reduced to addressing the temporal needs of a society guided by a narrow conception of hope or political theology. If the human person wants to understand his authentic sacramental logos, then he must first turn to Christ the incarnate Logos, who reveals to him that he is created for a loving relationship with God and others.

The primacy of logos is the central hermeneutical key to understanding the unique vision of Ratzinger’s Christocentric liturgical theology and eschatology. This is coupled with a study of Ratzinger’s spiritual Christology with a focus on how it influences his theology of liturgy and eschatology through the notions of participation and communion in Christ’s sacrificial love. Finally, A Living Sacrifice examines Ratzinger’s theology of hope, charity, and beauty, as well as his understanding of active participation in relationship to the eschatological and cosmic characteristics of the sacred liturgy.

I had seen the book before at Eighth Day Books and commented that the cover, featuring one of Fra Angelico's paintings of the Last Judgment, was a major selling point! It has been added to my growing pile of books to read, received since my birthday and Christmas last month, although I have read the introduction, so I've jumped the gun. I purchased it with a Christmas gift certificate. Several copies are available at the store!

One highlight of the evening was that the author brought his copy of my book all the way from Houston for me to sign--he autographed my copy of his book, and I autographed his copy of mine, which, by the way, is also available at Eighth Day Books! 

We had a good turnout (I'd sent a blurb to the editor of the Catholic Advance for the weekly e-mail newsletter, and the Theology Department at Newman University promoted it too!)