Community, sacraments, pastoral care and teaching come to many of the faithful through the lay minister. Father Power reviews the documents and needs of this post-conciliar time before focusing on the practice in the early churches and in the light of the New Testament. He propounds for the church, that body called the people of God in Christ, a theology of lay ministry based in "taking faith communities in earnest as bodies wherein the single members possess the Spirit and His gifts, and all are together responsible."
About the Author
Born in Dublin in 1932, David N. Power, OMI (Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate), is Professor Emeritus of the School of Theology and Religious Studies, The Catholic University of America, where he taught from 1977 to 2000. He has also taught at the Gregorian University and St Thomas Aquinas University, both in Rome, as well as at the Milltown Institute of Philosophy and Theology, Dublin. He has been a visiting professor at St Paul University, Ottawa, Oblate School of Theology, San Antonio, St John's University, Collegevillie, and at seminaries in Tahiti and South Africa. He has also lectured in Australia, Pakistan, Philippines, and Sri Lanka. He's been a recipient of the Berakah Award of the North American Academy of Liturgy (1992) and the John Courtney Murray Award of the Catholic Theological Society of America (1996). He is the author of 10 books, including Gifts That Differ (1980), Unsearchable Riches (1985), The Sacrifice We Offer (T & T Clark and Crossroad, 1987), The Eucharistic Mystery (1992), and Love without Calculation (2005).
