Product Overview
The image of Christ as Light of the World, reflected in the use of fire and light in the Triduum, is now central in Christianity. But when did this image develop and why? The 1951 liturgical experiments within the Roman Catholic Church and the 1955 Decree of Maxima Redemptionis, which gave official sanction to those experiments, restored the former prominence and importance of the ceremonies of the Triduum. Yet in spite of the abundance of literature treating the restoration of these paschal rites, no monograph has yet been written that is devoted specifically to a study of the use of light in the services of the Triduum. Fire and Light identifies from a historical viewpoint the cultural and liturgical milieux from which the ceremonies of Tenebrae, the new fire, and the Easter candle emerged. In describing these three light-featuring rituals of the Triduum, it traces their development, incorporating the theological significance and pastoral aspects of each, relating them to the liturgical changes of the 1950s while offering reasons for those changes. A. J. MacGregor's treatment is extensive and thorough. His methods are scholarly, yet his intent is pastoral: to illuminate the meaning of the paschal rites so that they may be celebrated at the parish level more purposefully.
