On the Way to Jesus Christ
The writings in this book precede Ratzinger's reign as Pope Benedict XVI and reflect his long teaching career, which included 24 years as prefect of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith under John Paul II. The papers inOn the Way to Jesus Christdeal with following Christ on a variety of fronts. The initial three pieces concern discerning Christ in the text of the Bible, in liturgical imagery and iconography, and in the processes of evangelization. The next four address the figure of Christ in history and the church, as reflected by his responses to Satan's temptations, and present in the Eucharist and the community of its partakers; as perspicacious as they are learned, they are about as limpidly expressed as such careful exegesis could be. Of the closing two pieces, "Universality and Catholicity" instructively and even provocatively contrasts those terms in the context of the church, and the other answers criticisms of the Vatican II-inspired 1992Catechism of the Catholic Churchfor being insufficiently modern. If none of this is easy reading, neither is it obscure or clotted with citational apparatus. Serious Christians stand to learn and relearn much from it.Ray OlsonCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved