Still Hungry at the Feast - by Samuel Torvend (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

In Still Hungry at the Feast, Episcopal priest and professor Samuel Torvend invites readers to expand their experience and understanding of the Mass, the Holy Eucharist, as more than a personal encounter with the risen Christ. Drawing on recent Jesus research, the long history of eucharistic reflection among Christians, and contemporary commitments to economic justice, Still Hungry at the Feast invokes the integral relationship between eucharistic practice and eucharistic mission. Here the ecumenical pattern and meaning of the Mass opens toward care for our wounded creation, solidarity with the poor and outcast, keeping the fast, and recovering a eucharistic economy. Lectionary references will assist those charged with liturgical preparation, while preachers and catechists will find guidance in the eucharistic homilies that conclude the book.

Review Quotes

"Although Torvend provides ample footnotes and a generous bibliography to guide further reading, he presents theological, liturgical, and historical fare in accessible ways for those serving parishes as musicians or as other worship leaders. I recommend Still Hungry at the Feast as a theologically rich companion for our thinking about what it means to hold the eucharist as central to who we are as Christ's companions, the ones who break bread with another."
CrossAccent

"This book raises important questions for bishops and clergy, liturgical scholars and catechists alike. Taking those questions seriously will offer a healthy corrective to bland worship celebrated in isolation."
Ecclesia orans

"Still Hungry at the Feast is an intermediate text that will best serve those who have a basic understanding of church history, liturgical and sacramental theology, and ritual studies. Torvend writes lyrically and with conviction, and the questions that he raises with regard to eucharistic ethics, and the suffering that we encounter around us, merit consideration by anyone who takes Jesus' command to 'love your neighbor as yourself' seriously."
Anglican Theological Review

"So many riches packed into this little book." Catholic Book Review

"Torvend weaves current research in economics to explain how a proper theology of the Eucharist can provide a challenge to Christians who are dissatisfied with elements within our current society. This book is appropriate for parish and college libraries."
Catholic Library World

"In Still Hungry at the Feast, Torvend sets a bountiful table of food for thought, as well as a large helping of troubling questions. Equally at home in a variety of ecumenical understandings of what the eucharistic table often means for Christians, Torvend challenges readers to broaden their perspective, to reflect on what eucharistic table practice has to say about the larger feast of life that leaves so many still hungry at the table. The world is God's household, with a bountiful table set for all life, yet that `household of the world is marked by deathly inequities.' This book is a passionate appeal to mend the breach between liturgy and life, between Eucharist and justice for all God's creatures. Urgent questions face liturgists, homilists, catechists, and indeed all at the eucharistic table. `Who is still hungry at the feast' of life, and how can this table model and inspire care for those still hungry at that larger table? A much-needed book with timely insights and questions."Gil Ostdiek, OFM, Professor of Liturgy, Catholic Theological Union, Chicago

"In these pages, Torvend pushes beyond familiar personal and communal meanings of the Christian eucharist to its large implications for social well-being and the good of the earth itself. The worldly ground and horizon of eucharistic practice emerges clearly here through fresh biblical reflections and many voices out of Christian history. Far more than an academic treatise, this is an urgent plea that Christian eucharistic feasting address the cries of the world's hungry and poor, the afflicted and oppressed."Thomas H. Schattauer, Professor of Liturgics, Wartburg Theological Seminary, Dubuque, Iowa

"Samuel Torvend's Still Hungry at the Feast is a beautifully written primer on the spirituality of living eucharistically; living what we pray and praying what we live. Continuing the work of Monika Hellwig and others, Torvend asks `who is hungry at the feast?' and proceeds to expand that question into contemporary realities regarding the eucharist as the liturgy of the world in the face of real hunger as well as real capabilities to distribute food equitably. Eschewing the facile trends of the casualness of `word' and `meal, ' Torvend draws on Scripture, particularly the gospel of Luke, a breadth of early Christian tradition, and his own facility in Lutheran, Anglican, and Roman Catholic theologies and practices to guide his readers towards the reality that every eucharist is a `mass of creation' rooted in the materiality that God has created and with which we are intimately related. Both generous in breadth and focused in intent, this small book exemplifies the `economy of grace' in which the author places the eucharist, gift of God and work of human hands. May we take into action the `economy of grace' at the heart of this writing!"Lizette Larson-Miller Huron University College, University of Western Ontario Author of Sacramentality Renewed: Contemporary Conversations in Sacramental Theology