Signatures of Grace: Catholic Writers on the Sacraments - Hardcover

Signatures of Grace is a collection of essays interweaving personal testimony with historical and theological reflections on the sacraments at the heart of Catholic worship. The contributors to this volume are among America's best contemporary Catholic writers, including Patricia Hampl, Mary Gordon and Murray Bordo. Perhaps the book's best essay, however, is "Eucharist," by novelist Ron Hansen (author of Mariette In Ecstasy). Hansen's description of the Eucharist's significance in Catholic theology is deft and broad-minded: "Our gifts of bread and wine are changed by Christ ... They are no longer things; they are God. And in this extravagant gift of the Eucharist we are, as Saint Augustine wrote, receiving ourselves, for our Baptism formed us into the body of Christ and his members." The book ends with an essay by the late André Dubus called "Sacraments", which describes how the author found God's presence in everyday physical experiences, such as cooking for his daughters, lighting a cigarette for his father and feeling the breeze on his face. Signatures of Grace will help many readers to become similarly attuned to God's presence in their everyday lives, in a manner that is firmly grounded in Catholic history and theology. --Michael Joseph Gross