The Liturgical Environment: What the Documents Say

by Mark G. Boyer

Overview

The Liturgical Environment: What the Documents Say is a useful compendium of present liturgical law on the liturgical environment. Calling to mind the norm of active participation as the guiding principle for all liturgical celebration, each chapter considers the ecclesial documents that pertain to the particular object under discussion, the theology found in the documents, and the praxis that flows from the theology. This book is for all persons who are involved in planning, building, decorating, and worshiping in a sacred environment.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780814648575
Publisher:	Liturgical Press, The
Publication date:	05/15/2015
Edition description:	third edition
Pages:	296
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.63(d)

About the Author

Fr. Mark G. Boyer, a retired priest of the Diocese of Springfield-Cape Girardeau, Missouri, is the author of fifty books, including three editions of The Liturgical Environment, on biblical and liturgical spirituality. He continues as a part-time instructor in the Religious Studies Department of Missouri State University, Springfield, where he has taught courses in New Testament and Bible and Film for twenty-eight years. His other books include the following titles: Praying Your Way through Luke’s Gospel and the Acts of the Apostles, An Abecedarian of Animal Spirit Guides: Spiritual Growth through Reflections on Creatures, and Overcome with Paschal Joy: Chanting through Lent and Easter—Daily Reflections with Familiar Hymns.

Table of Contents

	Abbreviations	vii
	Introduction	ix
Chapter 1	The Gathering Space of the Community	1
Chapter 2	The Altar Is Christ	15
Chapter 3	The Table of God's Word	43
Chapter 4	The Chair for the Priest Celebrant, Seating for Other Ministers, and Seating for the Assembly	57
Chapter 5	The Tomb and Womb of the Church	71
Chapter 6	Eucharistic Reservation and the Tabernacle	97
Chapter 7	Christ the Light	113
Chapter 8	Clothing the Assembly	125
Chapter 9	The Holy Oils and Their Repository	135
Chapter 10	The Chapel of Reconciliation	151
Chapter 11	Shrines for Popular Devotion and Stations of the Cross	157
Chapter 12	Other Things Associated with the Church: Cups and Plates, Doors, Bells, Sacristies, the Organ	175
	Bibliography	187

Editorial Reviews

The book remains an excellent guide to the liturgical documents and rites in relation to building or renovating and furnishing a church building.
Pacifica

This book is a classic for every parish. May ordained ministers and environment ministers have courage to understand what the documents say.
Pastoral Music

This compendium of liturgical law on the liturgical furnishings and environment is an excellent resource for those involved in planning, building, renovating, or developing the decoration for church buildings. This book is helpful for all those who are engaged in the sacred environment.
John Thomas Lane, SSS

The Liturgical Environment should probably be in the hands of every liturgical minister. The book provides excellent documentary answers to most of the questions that might arise in the parish about what to do liturgically and how to do it.
Catholic Books Review

I was living and working in Los Angeles during the time the new Cathedral was being constructed, and I experienced in a peripheral way the controversies and challenges that were a part of creating that sacred space. I had the opportunity to visit the Cathedral after it had come alive as a place of gathering and prayer, and I found that sacred space was indeed there. That was possible, I believe, because beneath the massive pylons of earthquake prevention, lay a solid theological foundation for what needed to be created. It seems to me that Mark Boyer's text opens that possibility for other communities.
Catholic Studies

The Liturgical Environment is at once convenient, instructive and inspiring: convenient, because it assembles the totality of ecclesial documents-both Papal and {US} Episcopal-relevant to matters liturgical; instructive, since it offers precise and informed directives for the appropriate and reverential use of each individual aspect pertaining to liturgy; inspiring, in its profound and thorough treatment of the theology which animates and enlivens the central liturgy with its liturgical environment and its ancillary elements. This liturgical handbook speaks profoundly to the original sense of the Greek term 'leitourgia' or 'work of the people', and summons the Assembly to a full and active participation in the celebration of the Pascal Mystery. It is an indispensable, up-to-the-minute guide for all engaged in Parish Ministry.
Pauline Nugent, CCVI

Fr. Boyer's treatment of the liturgy and its environment is a must-read for anyone planning, celebrating, or just studying worship in the Roman Catholic Church. His reflections on sacred space and sacred time, as well as his presentation of key sacramentals such as oil and altar combine a pastor's touch with a scholar's acumen. Boyer makes it plain that liturgy flourishes today and abounds in grace thanks in large measure to the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy enacted at the Second Vatican Council.
Robert Hodgson, Jr., American Bible Society

From the Publisher