Prex Eucharistica - Rev. Dr. John Bombaro
The Divine Service reaches its apex at the Altar, where the celebrant offers the Anaphora, the Eucharistic Prayer that the Western church has also called the Great Thanksgiving, which carries the entire church family into communion with Jesus Christ. That prayer belongs to the whole congregation, and it constitutes the corporate church’s preparation for Holy Communion, a preparation embedded in the liturgy itself and renewed every Lord’s Day. However, the church’s corporate preparation has never exhausted the communicant’s own devotion, because historic Christian piety has always afforded each Christian critical moments of personal prayer surrounding the Sacrament: repentant prayers of preparation before communing, known in the tradition as the praeparatio ad Communionem, and joyful prayers of thanksgiving after communing, the gratiarum actio post Communionem. These twin disciplines have been, and ever will be, vital to Christian spirituality, constituting an indispensable act of devotion to our manifest Lord Jesus, who comes to us at the Altar as the Bread of Life, His body true food and His blood true drink. Prex Eucharistica: Prayers of Preparation and Thanksgiving for Holy Communion, by Rev. Dr. John J. Bombaro, now places that discipline back in the communicant’s hands. The volume supplies prayers derived from the lectionary texts for each week of the Church Calendar following the historic One Year Lectionary, moving through the Time of Christmas (Advent, Christmastide, Epiphany), the Time of Easter (Lent, Holy Week, Easter), and the Time of the Church (Trinity), together with the feasts and festivals observed by the church catholic. Consequently, the communicant’s private preparation is bound to the very texts the congregation will hear read and preached, so that personal devotion and corporate worship converge on the same Word. The prayers of preparation proceed from the proper disposition for communing, which is repentance and faith. Each preparatory prayer facilitates the consecration of oneself to Christ and to the self-giving benefits He bestows at the Altar, “the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation,” and this act of self-examination and purification of intent heightens the communicant’s acknowledgment of, and anticipation for, divine grace, connecting the one who prays directly to the ultimate sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ and to His glorious resurrection. The prayers that follow reception answer to the other half of the discipline. After receiving the Eucharist, the Christian physically and spiritually harbors the presence of Christ, and the prayers after Communion become an intimate dialogue of thanksgiving, which is fitting, since Eucharist literally means thanksgiving. These prayers ask that the Sacrament transform the communicant, supplying the grace, strength, and virtues needed to live out the Christian life in the week to come. Prayed in Christian faith, Prex Eucharistica will bind communicants of all ages to their visible congregation and to the invisible communion of saints, intensifying the mystical encounter with our ever-incarnate Lord Jesus Christ. The book runs to 102 pages in a 5x8-inch format sized for the pew rack, the coat pocket, and the bedside table, and it is available in hardcover, softcover, and Kindle editions, with a leather-bound edition pending.