Celebrated week after week, the liturgy shapes who we are as Christians and sends us forth with a mission. This session will draw on liturgical texts and biblical images to reflect on how the liturgy can form us for Christian living.
     Father Ostdiek is a professor of Liturgy at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago and Director of the Institute for Liturgical Consultants, a program for liturgical consultants for church building and renovation. He has served on the Advisory Committee of the International Commission on English in the Liturgy (ICEL), its Subcommittee on the Translation and Revision of Texts, and it’s general editorial committee for the recently completed revision of the Sacramentary. He is past president of the North American Academy of Liturgy. In 1998 the Notre Dame Center for Pastoral Liturgy gave him the Michael Mathis Award for contributions to pastoral liturgy. Among his special interests are ritual studies, the non-verbal dimensions of liturgy, the relationship between liturgy and other areas of pastoral ministry and adult education workshops on liturgy. His publications include Cathechesis for Liturgy.

     Through music and a poetic reflection on the entrance rites, this presentation performed in collaboration with a cadre of pastoral musicians, will consider how the entrance rites are a prophetic introduction to the rest of the eucharistic liturgy. We will confront how the promise and challenge of the Sunday Assembly is symbolized in the opening rites of the Eucharist.
     Father Foley is professor liturgy and music at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago. A member of the Province of St. Joseph of the Capuchin Order since 1966, he was ordained a Roman Catholic presbyter in 1975.

     The texts and actions of liturgy by which we give praise and glory to God also shape our faith as liturgical-sacramental Christians in the world. This address will focus on how the contents of our liturgies (especially Christian Initiation and the Eucharist) shape our particular Trinitarian faith.
     Rev. Johnson, an ordained pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, is associate professor of liturgy at the University of Notre Dame. He is currently engaged in research toward the writing of a book on the Virgin of Guadalupe from an ecumenical-liturgical perspective. He was also the recipient of the First Prize in the Joseph Essay Contest sponsored by the Pontifical Oriental Institute, Rome Italy, for his essay, The Archaic Shape of the Sanctus, Institution Narrative, and Epiclesis of the Logos in the Anaphora ascribed to Sarapion of Thmuis.

     The "Public Work" of Sunday Eucharist: Foundation of Formation into Christ--Following the wisdom of the American Bishops who wrote that "good liturgy strengthens faith," one has to raise questions about what is "good" in this context? One way to approach the topic is to raise the subordinate question: In what way does a Catholic worshipping community successfully cooperate with God’s Spirit to be formed into the Body of Christ in this time and place? Using the New Testament sense of good to mean "of God." (See Mark 10.18), the presenter will examine the multiple human dynamics that facilitate or block the com-munity’s obvious growth into becoming a sacrament of Christ as it celebrates the Eucharist week after week.
     Eileen holds degrees in Vocal and Choral Music, Spirituality, and Theology. She is presently completing a doctorate in Sacred Theology at the Weston School of Theology in Cambridge, MA. Eileen has served as Director of the Office of Worship for the Dioceses of Dallas, TX and Omaha, NE. Eileen has published frequently in Homily Services, an ecumenical journal, as well as in Pastoral Music, The Omaha Catholic Voice, Texas Catholic, The Pilot, The Harvest, Today’s Parish and other Catholic publications. She is a contributor to the Dictionary of Liturgical Theology, published by Liturgical Press. She co-authored the script for a Gabriel award winning film on Christians living in Israel and the West Bank and has published chapters in two volumes of Liturgical Studies published by Pastoral Press.