Christmas Greetings from Kent & Rhoda

Christmas greetings to our subscribers from the Annual Meeting of the North American Academy of Liturgy (NAAL), which we both started attending in the late 1990s as graduate students. This year’s gathering is at our Alma Mater, Valparaiso University, where worship at the Chapel of the Resurrection fostered in both of us a love of graceful and grace-filled liturgy. Attending NAAL is a time for scholarly discussions with other academics and practitioners as well as a time to enjoy the fellowship of others who share our conviction that liturgy is not an end itself but the primary means through which the faithful encounter Jesus Christ in the proclamation of the Gospel (in preaching, liturgy, and song) and through participation in the sacraments.

Here we are at our Alma Mater! In between Kent and me is Noel Snyder from the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship. Noel and other staff at CICW have reviewed our book manuscript, so over dinner and adult beverages, we had a lovely chat about the long process of our research (funded by CICW) and the writing of our book, now in the hands of our publisher, Wipf & Stock. It will be part of a CICW series on Christian worship.

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Banner photo (by Rhoda Schuler, June 2024):
Adoration of the Magi, textile; back yoke section of a cope in the Cathedral Treasury, Cologne, Germany.