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"In these modern days of the six-minute homilette, some may question the use of translating musty old sermons. Why bother with the past? Wouldn't we be better off walking hand in hand into the future, leaving what is dead and buried behind us? Yet I think that if we want to move ahead with our faith, we also need to know what went before us. In these confusing, often demoralising times where some in the Church seem to be trying their hardest to erase older forms and distance themselves from a reminder of the past by creating a ""parallel Church"" where truth and tradition are being assailed and threatened from outside the Church and, sadly, even more from within her, it becomes all the more necessary to review our faith, in order to be able to explain what we believe and why, especially to the younger generation which is (re)discovering its Catholic inheritance. These sermons can help us in our quest. Written during a time when the Catholic Church was under siege from Protestantism, the sermons are clear examples of how we might strengthen our own faith in the face of adversity. The author, Joseph Rivius (1607-1666), was a Norbertine canon regular from the abbey of Tongerlo in Belgium. He was a faithful religious, a zealous prior, and a dedicated pastor of several parishes in northern Flanders. His sermons were written up as notes and later published in 1668 as a book of sermons for the entire year by his good friend and confrere Ludolphus van Craywinckel, himself a writer. The 113 sermons follow the usus antiquior of the Missal and comprise sermons for the Sundays of the liturgical year, as well as some for Saints' feast days and one for the Dedication of a Church. Because of the size of Rivius' original book, the translation has been published in five volumes for ease of reading: Volume I: Advent, Christmas, Epiphany; Volume II: Septuagesima, Lent, Eastertide; Volume III: Pentecost and Time after Pentecost; Volume IV: Sanctoral cycle I; Volume V: Sanctoral cycle II."

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9781990685798

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"In this year of the 900th Jubilee of the founding of the Canonical Order of Prémontré we are able to know and appreciate the doctrinally and spiritually rich texts of Fr. Joseph Rivius, a Flemish Norbertine from the 17th century. These texts are the fruit of the arduous work of an authentic spiritual renewal of the Church. May these texts inflame priests and lay faithful of our day with the desire to renew the Christian life with the perennially valid doctrinal and liturgical tradition of the Church. -✠ Athanasius Schneider, Auxiliary Bishop of Astana. These excellent translations by Fr. Roestenburg are a good and timely reminder for us of the constant call to conversion, and with it the hope of salvation, which is timeless and universal. The sermons, and the loving way they have been translated, will inspire preachers to keep at the heart of what they say and do the truth of Jesus Christ; that the mission to preach is about the care of souls for the good of souls. What was preached with passion by a zealous Norbertine pastor four hundred years ago remains the truth for us today. -✠ Hugh Allan O.Praem., Titular Abbot of Beeleigh Abbey, Prior of St. Philip's Priory, Chelmsford, Apostolic Administrator of the Falkland Islands and Superior of the Mission sui juris of St. Helena, Ascension Island and Tristan da Cunha. It is no secret that in our times ""the quality of homilies needs to be improved."" (Benedict XVI, Sacramentum Caritatis, 46) A newly translated collection of hour-long 17th century sermons may not seem the obvious starting point in attending to this urgent duty, but the fidelity and apostolic zeal this Norbertine pastor seeking to protect his flock from ""the horrendous blasphemies"" of his times and to move their wills and bring them to repentance and conversion of heart has much to teach preachers today. Not only shall the ministry of bishops, priests and deacons benefit from Joseph Rivius' dedicated example as a homilist, so too all who open this book will benefit from his orthodoxy, insight and supernatural motivation-for Catholics of the 21st century have many horrendous blasphemies with which also to contend. -Dom Alcuin Reid, Prior, Monastère Saint-Benoît, Brignoles, France."

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