Servants of the Mysteries

John Baldovin, SJ, presents a comprehensive eucharistic theology of the ministerial priesthood as envisioned by the Second Vatican Council.

The theology of the ordained priesthood has been unfinished business following Vatican II, especially with regard to the priest as sacramental minister. In Servants of the Mysteries, John Baldovin brings the theology and sacramental practice of Catholic priests in line with Vatican II’s commitment to full, active, and conscious participation of all the faithful in the liturgy in light of insights from contemporary Catholic theology of the Eucharist.

A comprehensive theology of the sacramental role of the priest has long been missing. After forty years of teaching and writing on the relation between ordained priesthood and the Eucharist, Baldovin helps fill that lacuna. Servants of the Mysteries provides a way forward for a greater understanding and appreciation for the role and practice of the priest in presiding in and from the thought and vision of the Council.

John F. Baldovin, SJ, is professor of historical and liturgical theology at the Boston College Clough School of Theology and Ministry. He served on the advisory committee for the Bishops’ Committee on the Liturgy of the USCCB (1989-1993) as well as the advisory committee of the International Commission on English in the Liturgy (ICEL) from 1994-2002. He is past president of the North American Academy of Liturgy as well as Societas Liturgica. He is former president of the International Jungmann Society for Jesuits and the Liturgy and the author of Reforming the Liturgy: A Response to the Critics published by Liturgical Press.