Hands at Mass; With an Introduction by the Rev. C.C. Martindale, S.J.
London: Chapman and Hall, 1951. First edition. Thin quarto (10 inches tall), original cream linen cloth, gilt titles to spine and front board, original photographic dust jacket. Book fine, modest chipping and soiling to scarce original photographic dust jacket. An excellent copy. Item #1436
"SO WE MAY SAY IN A TRUE SENSE THAT THE PRIEST'S HANDS ARE GOD'S HANDS"
First edition of Walter Nurnberg's solemn portraits of the Sacrifice of the Mass—featuring a series of 17 black-and-white photographic plates. A bright, fresh copy complete in the scarce original photographic dust jacket. An excellent book for a collection focused on the Liturgy.
Captioned in Latin, the images are described in the lengthy Introduction by C.C. Martindale, a Catholic convert and a notable English Jesuit. At Oxford's Campion Hall, Father Martindale "dazzled and stimulated the most various undergraduates by his restless zeal, incisive diction, and by his modernity" (Evelyn Waugh). Martindale's essays, numbered in I - IX parts, concludes: "So we may say in a true sense that the Priest's hands are God's hands and that, in the great mystery of the Mass, not only That which is offered, but He who offers it, is Christ himself." With a short Preface (dated "London, February, 1951) by the German photographer Walter Nurnberg: "I present this book, therefore, not with the pride of the craftsman, but with the humility befitting the subject. There is no room for the irrelevant or the ornate. Simplicity alone can tell this story—a story not of worldly toil, but of our offering to God." The Anamnesis of the Roman Canon is printed on the leaf preceding the photographs. Approbations.
Price: $100.00