The author, Reginald Horace Fuller.

FOREWORD: ... "Another apparent infelicity is that from Lent C through the per annum Sunday 2 A....practical suggestions for the homilist were somewhat desultory and mingled with the exegetical comment." [vii]

Sought to "separate off and develop more systematically these practical suggestions." This corresponds to an essential part of sermon preparation, what the Germans call Predigtmediation. In these meditations "the shift is made from exegesis--which with Dean Krister Stendahl of Harvard I understand to be the method of discovering what the text meant--to answering the question: What does the text mean now, in our situation today?" [vii]

"In 'plugging the holes' left in the WORSHIP articles over the past three years by such pretermissions, I have been guided by the following principles. Only those Sundays which occur in the Roman use [IN THE ROMAN USE!] during the whole decade 1970-1980 have been provided for." [viii]

{Reginald seems to give it away. Cannot resist the boast, the association with Rome's perduring paganism only slightly hidden in or under the concealed nocturnal pretermissions.}

CONTENTS

"Roman Table of Sundays and Holy Days"
Introduction by Rev. Dr. Eugene L. Brand
Preparing the Homily by the Author

PROPER OF THE SEASONS
Lent
Holy Week
Easter
Trinity Sunday to Sunday
...
Advent
Christmas
Lent
Holy Week of Year A
Easter to Ascension
....
Pentecost
Trinity Sunday
...
PROPER OF THE SAINTS
Immaculate Conception (Dec 8) {Note discrepant with Birth on Christmas}}

Reading from Revelation, 1:5-8 "this passage comes from the epistolary address of the Apocalypse. It is a greeting from Jesus Christ as well as from the Father and the seven spirits". {Clearly no monotheism.} Then follows a triple doxology:

Point 1: he loves us --note the present tense: Christ's love is perpetual and goes beyond the historical event of the redemption (Jerome Biblical Commentary {!} Died 420). [451-452]

Point 2: the historical event of the atonement, couched in a traditional credal formula. {!}

Point 3: the effect of the redemption is to set up a community which shares Christ's kingly and priestly functions. {!}

After the doxology there follows a proclamation of the imminent parousia which is to be the theme of the whole apocalypse. {!] This proclamation draws upon a combination of Old Testament testimonia used elsewhere in the New Testament, from Daniel 7:13-14 and Zechariah 12:10. The reading ends with a self=proclamation of Yahweh under three titles:

Alpha and Omega, a hellenized expression of the Old Testament's "first and last"; a second title asserting that God's being comprises present, past and future (a reflection on the meaning of Yahweh?); and the third title (pantocrator), a Greek rendering of Sabaoth (hosts). Combined together, all three look like a meditation on the meaning of KYRIOS HO THEOS, YAHWEH 'ELOHE SEBAOTH. [452]

The Author acknowledges that "It is not certain precisely what attitude Jesus took toward this charge "of being a messianic pretender". And he interpolates "King" as "the Roman equivalent of the Messiah" {!} "established by the titulus on the cross, "handed down in various forms"! "Some traditions present him as preserving a stony silence...while others represent him not as rejecting it, but as being at pains to correct it (the answer, "you say so,"...). In the Johannine version of the trial begfore Pilate Jesus explicitly corrects the charge by offering a reinterpretation of what kingship means for him." Bottom line is that Jesus did not, ever, claim "kingly and priestly" functions. "He has come into the world to be the bearer of the divine revelation", which in Johannine terms is NOT being a "king"!

Fuller goes on the suggest lines for the homilist to take today. For example, treat the "second coming not as the last chapter of Christian dogmatics, but as an immediate, relevant concern of Christian existence." [453] Contrary to the text, Fuller urges that an exposition of the "way in which the Christian community already here and now shares Christ's kingship and priesthood" would be to "point to the liturgy as the focal point where its priesthood is expressed and to secular life as the place where its kingship is exercised through service". Wow. He himself seems to see the somersault, in that he goes on immediately to say "But then it becomes necessary to insist that Christ's kingship is 'not of this world'--suggesting a consideration of the relationship between the church and political power."

Finally, the author suggests "Thirdly, the homilist could concentrate upon the Johannine Christ's redefinition of kingship in terms of witness to the truth. Perhaps it is particularly relevant just now to refute recent attempts to portray Jesus as the paradigm of a political revolutionary." [453] {Ouch!}