Using the Eucharist as an interpretative key, Paul McPartlan surveys the entire sweep of Church history, from its roots in the Old Testament through the foundation and unfolding of the Church over the last two millenia. This century's great renewal is examined through the eyes of Henri de Lubac, who reintroduced the idea of the Church herself as the great sacrament 'which contains and vitalises all the others.' This is an understanding profoundly traditional but at the same time capable of generating consequences of extraordinary power and originality.
