BREAD AND THE WORD

A series of meditations on the liturgy, Bread and the Word is intended both to furnish homiletic themes to preachers and to be a handbook for use by individual Catholics. Logically, the book is divided into three parts: the first is concerned with faith, and provides several meditations on each verse of the Apostles' Creed; the second treats of the sacraments; the third part deals with the Mass by drawing analogies between the liturgical seasons and the various parts of the Sacrifice. In each section, the material is keyed to the liturgical cycle and furnishes points of meditation for most Sundays and major feasts of the year. For what it is intended to be, Father Roguet's book is satisfactory. The contents, if not strikingly original either in approach or in treatment, are nonetheless clearly presented and intelligently organized both in their grouping and within the individual pieces. The book's audience is composed exclusively of priests and religious, and perhaps of a few laymen, to whom the book may be offered with that lack of enthusiasm reserved for the very ordinary.