The importance of the "power of the Word" as the means by which the saving events of the past become "actualized" in each present moment within the life and experience of the Church is the focus of this book. In searching for a hermeneutic for exegesis and interpretation of the Scriptures in today's world, Breck turns to the patristic vision to recover the dynamic quality of the Word as the instrument of God's self-disclosure and self-communication.
It is within the liturgical context particularly that Fr Breck sees the corrective to the purely "verbal" understanding of the Word, restoring to the Word its dynamic quality and its revelatory and saving power as an instrument of the divine will. It is only within the Eucharistic community, as with the disciples at Emmaus, that one's eyes are opened to a true understanding and acceptance of the divine economy, to the perception of the full revelation of God through a personal and intimate communion in the divine gifts of Christ's Body and Blood. Only in the Sacrament is the Word transformed from a message about Jesus into a true participation in His divine life.
