I read from this book on Sunday night and I just so appreciate his translation of Scripture.

Wills captures the blunt vibrancy of the language, rendering it so directly that it is "penetrating even between soul and spirit, joints and marrow." (Heb. 4:12)

Think we can get him to publish a Catholic New Testament?!

But for us the most important thing was the institution of the Eucharist, one of the two seminal sacraments. The other one, baptism, occurs only once in anyone's life. But the early Christian agape (love meal) was the source of Christian strength and unity, to be renewed constantly, the mystical body of Christ eating its proper food as our physical bodies do ...

The cup of blessing, once blessed, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? We many are one bread, one body, because we all partake of a single bread. (1 Cor. 10:16-17)

Wills really calls for communion, that is, unity, with the urgency found in his own translation of St. Augustine's Sermon 272:

When you say "Amen" to what you are, your saying it affirms it. You hear "The Body of Christ," and you answer "Amen," and you must be the body of Christ to make that "Amen" take effect.

I dare not quote any more from the book. Tolle Lege!

Busted Halo Interview with Garry Wills

tags technorati : garry wills rosary