Sacramental Life: Spiritual Formation Through the Book of Common Prayer

In an age when Protestants are recovering such disciplines as fixed-hour prayer and the liturgical calendar, it's refreshing to have a book that invites readers to rediscover relatively ordinary rituals like baptism, the Eucharist, marriage, confession and last rites. Although some of these are no longer official sacraments for Protestants, they are a crucial part of the Book of Common Prayer that is the foundation for this text. While DeSilva is no longer Episcopalian himself, he has been spiritually formed by the BCP and wants readers to join in its richly textured “sacramental life.” He makes valuable contributions throughout, but some chapters are less original than others, with the section on how the BCP handles death and grief the best of all. These would be an amazing resource for high church support groups on dying and bereavement. There are a few small errors (e.g., it was Mary I, not Mary Queen of Scots, who restored Catholicism to England in the 16th century), but these minor mishaps are offset by the book's strengths, especially the practical exercises that close each chapter. (Sept.)