“The sacraments are efficacious signs of grace, instituted by Christ and entrusted to the Church, by which divine life is dispensed to us. The visible rites by which the sacraments are celebrated signify and make present the graces proper to each sacrament. They bear fruit in those who receive them with the required dispositions.” (Catechism of the Catholic Church 1131). To help unpack this dense paragraph and take us beyond what we learned as children during catechesis, Roger W. Nutt will take us through his pick of the five best books on the sacraments in general.
Roger W. Nutt, S.T.L., S.T.D., is Provost of Ave Maria University. He teaches undergraduate and graduate courses on the Sacraments and Christology. He co-directs the Aquinas Center for Theological Renewal with Dr. Michael Dauphinais and Dr. Steven Long. His research focuses on Christology and Sacramental Theology, and especially the Theology of St. Thomas Aquinas. He is the author of three books and many articles on the sacraments: Thomas Aquinas’ ‘De Unione Verbi Incarnati’ (Peeters Publishers, 2015); General Principles of Sacramental Theology (The Catholic University of America Press, 2017); and To Die is Gain: A Theological (re-)Introduction to the Sacrament of Anointing of the Sick for Clergy, Laity, Caregivers, and Everyone Else (Emmaus Academic, 2022). His articles and chapters have appeared in publications such as Nova et Vetera, Gregorianum, Louvain Studies, The Thomist, Harvard Theological Review, Angelicum, Antiphon: A Journal of Liturgical Renewal, and the Oxford Handbook of the Reception of Aquinas.
His recommended books on the sacraments are:
- The Cleansing of the Heart: The Sacraments as Instrumental Causes in the Thomistic Tradition by Reginald Lynch O.P.
- Touched by Christ: The Sacramental Economy (also available for Kindle) by Lawrence Feingold
- The Spirit of the Liturgy by Card. Joseph Ratzinger
- On Baptism, Against the Donatists (also available for Kindle) by St. Augustine
- The Mysteries by St. Ambrose
Five Books for Catholics may receive a commission from qualifyng purchases made using the affliate links to the books listed in this post.
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