Communion of Saints by Stephen Walford, Angelico Press, £17
Subtitled “The Unity of Divine Love in the Mystical Body of Christ”, this book explores a doctrine that, as Walford suggests, went out of fashion after the Second Vatican Council: the communion among members of the Church on earth (the Church Militant), the Holy Souls in purgatory (the Church Suffering) and those who have achieved the Beatific Vision of God in heaven (the Church Triumphant).
If this doctrine seems quaintly theological, Walford argues with both scholarship and passion that it is central to the life of Christians on earth. Often, he writes, people seem to regard the Church “more like an NGO than the Sacrament of Salvation for humanity”. Indeed, he thinks it is essential “that we rediscover the richness of the supernatural life of the Church”.
