Enflamed by the Sacramental Word

Christian proclamation, says Dietrich Bonhoeffer, is the living Christ walking among the people. Preachers know that Jesus is the living Word, and that the Spirit of Jesus animates the preaching event. Preaching is an epiclesis, an invocation of the Holy Spirit over God's holy people. As such, it must touch their imagination. Pastro proposes that preaching is the living ecclesial presence of Jesus Christ, Sacramental Word of the God of the poor. The Word speaks from the imagination of the poor-the economic poor, but also the ""new poor"" of the twenty-first century: entire indigenous cultures, women, those marginalized because of their sexuality, undocumented immigrants in dominant cultures, and many others. All Christian preachers in every context are called to solidarity with the poor.

""If your preaching companions include Mary Catherine Hilkert, Walter Breuggemann, or Paul Janowiak, include Vince Pastro's Enflamed by the Sacramental Word: Preaching and the Imagination of the Poor. The thread of the Sacred Preaching allows Pastro to bring together disparate pieces of history as he traces the work for justice and the influence from the early Spanish Dominicans to Dietrich Bonhoeffer today. A must read for anyone interested in theological reflection and preaching.""
--Sharon Casey, OP
Leadership Team, Dominican Sisters of Tacoma, WA

""Vince Pastro gives us, in an original and a confident way, the passion for the Word of God and enthusiasm and responsibility for communicating it. In Latin America, this passion arises from the life and daily reality of the common and ordinary people. The life of the poor expresses a faith that constantly erupts in thought, words, and, particularly, in popular songs. The message of the good news is preached not just by the official ministers of the different religious traditions; rather, the Word comes as the daily bread of the people.""
--Fr. Jose Marins
Theologian and mentor to the base ecclesial communities

""Vincent Pastro has presented, in Enflamed by the Sacramental Word, a rich study of the history of Christianity in Latin America. Narrating the trajectory of important theologians of the past such as Bartolome de Las Casas, and having as a counterpoint theologians of the present such as Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Vincent critiques the past and looks toward a dialog with contemporary theology. Above all, through clear instructions and various examples, he looks attentively to the greater necessities of the Church of the twenty-first century-'to help the pastor to be a theologian and the theologian a pastor.'""
--Luis Eduardo Cumaru
President, International Bonhoeffer Society, Portuguese-speaking section
Brazil

""This inspiring and important book should be required reading for all students and scholars of preaching. Perhaps nothing in postmodern homiletics is as misunderstood as what passes for 'justice' preaching with its chest-beating and its guilt-inducing rhetorical 'isms.' This insightful and ingenious book presents a new paradigm for reforming social justice preaching through the 'imagination of the poor' and through a very ancient Dominican model of community and solidarity. Vincent Pastro demonstrates not only what social justice preaching is and what it can do, he also teaches how social justice preaching acts in real life. This is a book to which I will turn again and again to learn and re-learn about the courage to preach life-saving and world-changing words.""
--Kay Lynn Northcutt
Fred Craddock Associate Professor of Preaching and Worship
Phillips Theological Seminary
Tulsa, Oklahoma


Vincent J. Pastro is the pastor of Holy Spirit Catholic Church in Kent, Washington. He served for five years in Lima, Peru, and has had