Compassionate Christ, Compassionate People Liturgical Foundations of Christian Spirituality

Deeply grounded in Scripture and demonstrating deft command of insights provided by Karl Rahner and Louis-Marie Chauvet, Bob Hurd's Compassionate Christ, Compassionate People articulates a Christian spirituality, that, nourished by liturgical practice, moves with the spirit of God moving within us. Hurd's account of liturgy ties the love that moves Dante's stars with the love that God summons us to practice in the human village.

You have enjoyed singing Bob Hurd's liturgical music. Here is your opportunity to enter the fruitful mind of this faithful Christian. You will explore not only the workings of worship, but also the God whom worship encounters. Hurd's book will help you appreciate why his music so powerfully draws you into Christian prayer.

I have read other books on the topic of Eucharist and living a just life by some very fine authors. Bob Hurd's book is outstanding in its category. It is well-written, interesting, organized, clear, ecumenically-focused, theologically-rich, and liturgically-challenging. Hurd offers fresh insights on familiar topics, moving easily from poets, playwrights, theologians, and spiritual writers. His treatment of Louis-Marie Chauvet makes this contemporary theologian comprehensible and accessible to the average reader. Coming from a person who has spent a lifetime composing texts and music for worship, this book is clearly the fruit of study, personal prayer, and liturgical celebrating. I hope to adopt it for a graduate course next semester and encourage professors of liturgy and sacraments to give it a close look. Very highly recommended!

There is much to savor here by those who lead liturgies and those who participate in them. A reverent and insightful evocation of Mystery in liturgy.

This book is recommended for college and seminary libraries.

Bob Hurd has found a liturgical niche crying out to be exploited and has done so quite effectively in his impressive book debut demonstrating his sophistication both as a theologian and liturgist.

Bob Hurd guides readers through a mediation that incorporates insights from Scripture, systematic theology, liturgy, and the Christian spiritual tradition. Readers with pastoral and academic interests will enjoy engaging this distillation of the author’s liturgically formed spirituality. Pastoral musicians and presiders will appreciate Hurd’s attention to how music and well-chosen words shape spirituality and tune an assembly’s heading to ‘the Word in the readings’ and ‘the Word in the rites.’

Compassionate Christ, Compassionate People feels like a magnum opus: a master practitioner's distillation of a rationale of liturgy as spiritual formation developed over a lifetime. For students and practitioners of liturgy, it is a worthy resource.

Bob Hurd, best known as a liturgical composer, shines in this text as a liturgical scholar. In a thoughtful and clear manner, he presents liturgical celebration as central for the fullest expression of Christian life.

In weaving together various elements from the arts and literature, philosophy, theology, and Christian mystics, this helpful text adds an important piece to the field of liturgical spirituality in its wider interdisciplinary and ecumenical understanding.