Book Review: Rehearsing God's Just Kingdom: The Eucharistic Vision of Mark Searle

Abstract

Rehearsing God's Just Kingdom: The Eucharistic Vision of Mark Searle. By Stephen S. Wilbricht. A Pueblo Book. Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 2013. xiv + 240 pp. $29.95 (paper).Stephen Wilbricht provides an excellent entryway into Mark Searles body of work, an extensive contribution to work of liturgical study and eucharistie theology in Roman Catholic tradition. Weaving in Searles vocational journey from Franciscan priest and teacher to liturgical scholar, as well as Searles valiant, terminal battle with cancer, Wilbricht creates a portrait of Searie as someone who was completely immersed in liturgy as a way of life. Searie saw it as his life's work to bring to full fruition liturgical reformation initiated in Vatican II-calling for a new liturgical movement that did not necessarily need to change eucharistie rite but instead improve church assembly's full, active, and conscious participation in liturgy, which Searie saw as obligation of faithful.Wilbricht, in his careful review and study of Searles work, aims to amplify Searie s call for liturgical renewal, emphasizing two core concepts found in Searles writing: (1) Searles foundational principle of liturgy as the of Christian attitudes, emphasizing great significance of engaging in regular, repeated ritual activity as body of Christ; and (2) Searles view of liturgy as church's privileged locus for calling on and bringing forth justice of (p. 11). Wilbricht expands upon these two concepts by going into four main parts of Roman Catholic Mass: gathering as Christ's body; listening to God's Word; participating at altar (living with an attitude of sacrificing); and communing or seeking a oneness with God and all of God's creation.In each of these areas, Wilbricht upholds Searles vision for liturgy as place where people of God are repeatedly rehearsing (practicing, embodying) Christian faith, engaging in rehearsals of of obedience and surrender, exercises and celebrations of our self-abandonment to God in Christ (p. 28). As Searle sees it, this rehearsal of Christian attitudes (and here Searle is influenced by ritual theory work of Suzanne Langer, see pp. 17-26) has to do with our habitual ways of thinking, judging, and acting in world, with how we relate to ourselves, and how we respond to world around us. Liturgy has power to shape how people as individuals and as communities of faith see, think, and act in world. …