“David Fagerberg invites us, with the urgency of the gospel, to see God the Trinity in every created thing, and to offer to God as a joyful sacrifice of praise the good things He has made, rather than cleaving egocentrically to these good things. When, through the Dove (the Spirit), Christ frees us to do the world in this way, we become the liturgical priest-kings we were meant to be; we learn how to live and die on the ascending path of Christ. Steeped in the spirituality of the Orthodox East and the Anglican West, enriched by the Catholic masters of Ressourcement, Fagerberg shares his vision in everyday language for all to hear. Just when it seemed that spiritual masters no longer roamed university hallways, God has raised up a true spiritual guide for our time. Open this book, awaken from spiritual slumber, read and rejoice.”
— MATTHEW LEVERING
Mundelein Seminary
“Consecrating the World takes up where David Fagerberg’s masterful On Liturgical Asceticism left off, providing a key to living the liturgy in every moment and aspect of human life. That this is indeed an everyday task takes nothing away from its divine content and sublime finality. Fagerberg is rightly regarded as one of the foremost liturgical theologians of our day. His engagement with the tradition is both fresh and fruitful. If we are to be ‘thoroughly imbued with the spirit and power of the liturgy,’ we must grasp what the Sacred Liturgy in fact is. For this, Fagerberg is a worthy and rightly demanding guide.”
— DOM ALCUIN REID
Monastère Saint-Benoît, La Garde-Freinet, France
“Consecrating the World is no ordinary book. It is a course in re-training the mind and the senses to perceive the world in a new way. Like the ancient Fathers, David Fagerberg sees all material things as sensible signs leading us to heavenly realities. Like Maximus and Dionysius, he shows us that the cosmos is itself a liturgy, calling us to consecrate ourselves and our work, our passions and the world to God — to sanctify the temporal order. This is a theology most visionary, joyful, and passionate.”
— SCOTT HAHN
Franciscan University of Steubenville
“In David Fagerberg’s new book, his trademark genius for integrating liturgical theology, ascetical theology, and the theology of creation is on full display, but here developed in a new, pneumatological direction that seems to lift it all up on the wings of the Holy Spirit. This book fully corroborates Fagerberg’s reputation as one of the most creative and inspiring liturgical theologians of our time. It will have a wide readership both inside the academy, in seminaries, and in the hands of anyone interested in learning what is the deep connection between the sacred moments of the liturgy and the mundane moments of life in the world as we all must live it.”
— JOHN C. CAVADINI
University of Notre Dame
“This book succeeds as an imaginative, at times provocative paean to the total integration of liturgy and life, by carrying to the utmost the logic of the Incarnation and the radical challenge of the Ascension. Can God become flesh, as it were, in all the aspects of life? And can the whole of creation really be raised up on high, as a sign, even a foretaste, of the heavenly liturgy? Fagerberg’s arguments lead us to see the urgency of rediscovering the full symbolic richness, the ‘splendid beauty,’ of traditional liturgy as the means by which we must glorify God and divinize our lives in this world. The author has a particular gift for expounding old truths in startlingly original ways — enough to capture our jaded attention and make us rethink certain doctrines ‘from the ground up.’”
— PETER KWASNIEWSKI
Wyoming Catholic College
