Announcements
of New lay Dominican Books
Books from
Barnes & Noble Press www.bnpress.com
“The
Courage and Will to Preach: Lay Dominicans at the Edge of the World”
“Now is the acceptable time,” the General
Chapter of Quezon City, 1977 begins, “for the Dominican family to achieve true
equality and complementarity among its different branches.”
To achieve
true equality, the laity of the Order of Preachers must accept co-responsibility
for the doctrinal mission – preaching. Since 1971 the General Chapters of the Order
– the ruling body – have made calls such as this conjuring a vision of the
laity, which none of us have. The Acta of the Order since 1971 has added
step-by-step an understanding that the culture is becoming increasingly
secularized and relativistic and sliding wholly toward the abyss. With a
significant drop in friar vocations since 1975, the General Chapters are calling
for those members of the Order of Preachers who live and work in the secular
places where this is happening. The laity.
This book
draws together all of the Acta, presents a postmodern worldview model for us to
understand the problems, delivers us a brief view of theology that the General Chapters
have called upon us to study. In addition the book covers how lay Dominicans
prepare to face the secular world from a preaching standpoint, how to study the
Social Doctrine of the Church as a guidebook for preaching, how to discover and
engage the “signs of the times”, a practical program for learning social and
cultural issues, gives us a way forward, and introduces the Institute for lay
Dominican Preaching, a virtual Institute in its infancy.
This is a
revolutionary book for those who feel called to take their rightful place in
the Order.
Now, is the
acceptable time.
“Theological
Principles for lay Dominican’s Preaching”
The Acta of the General Chapters – the ruling body of the Order – and
letters from the Masters of the Order, make it clear that it is necessary for
lay Dominicans to study basic theology, or the science of God.
These
theological principles cover such things as Faith and Reason, the Objective the
Existence of God, Jesus, God as Trinity, the Nature of the Church, Mary, Sacramental
Life, and Eschatology, all in a specific learning format that can be delivered
as a year-long ongoing formation course for all lay Dominican chapters.
This book is
the first of its kind.
“Handbook
for Ongoing lay Dominican Formation”
For all these years, Ongoing Formation
has had no specific course or plan. Lay chapters decide if they want to study
devotional subjects such as Catherine’s Dialogues, writings by other
Dominicans, or more histories, never understanding that the Acta of the General
Chapters have outlined specific things for lay Dominican chapters to study for
the purpose of educating and developing lay Dominican preachers, destined to
step into the darkness and relativism of the secular world. Subjects include
basic theology for preaching, Social Doctrine of the Church, the study of
important and necessary documents of the Church teaching allowing lay
Dominicans to thoroughly understand, in a practical way, church teaching for
the purpose of delivering the Gospels, the Good News, and the Word of Hope to a
despairing world.
This book is
the first of its kind.
Note: Review
copies are available for LPC leadership, write:
rbcurti@hotmail.com
Note: print and delivery times will vary; we
will send an email to confirm
ATTENTION
A new, exciting book is beginning, titled,
“Devotional to Preaching: Nudging Devotional Lay Dominicans into the 21st
Century”
In this book, we will discuss the history,
background, and methodologies for lay Dominican preaching in the many places in
the secular world where it is needed. We are hoping for unique preaching
stories. For example: “Preaching in Norfolk” is the story of a lay Chapter in Massachusetts
that holds its chapters meetings inside the Norfolk Prison. Master of the
Order, Timothy Radcliffe called this, his “favorite lay chapter.”
If you know of keenly unique preaching
missions – not the same as apostolates – that required use of theology, Social
Doctrine of the Church, Catechism (not catechesis or apologetics), and other
documents of the Church in an immersive way, forward them for consideration.
This could be a lasting testament to lay Dominicans taking up the mantle of
co-responsibility for the doctrinal Mission of the Order, as the General
Chapters – the ruling body of the Order – have established since 1971 in
Tallaght, Ireland.
Send all
stories to rbcurti@hotmail.com
Be part
of the new reality, the new understanding of lay Dominican vocation!
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