Liturgy in the Twenty-First Century
edited by Alcuin Reid, Oremus, £16.99
‘The reform of the reform” – in other contexts the phrase could have an absurd ring to it, the sound of thinkers disappearing down a plughole of their own making. But when it comes to the liturgy, the stakes are genuinely high.
The Second Vatican Council document Sacrosanctum Concilium tells us that the liturgy is “the outstanding means whereby the faithful may express in their lives, and manifest to others, the mystery of Christ and the real nature of the true Church”. Yet many of the faithful are faithful no more. The new liturgical practices that followed in the wake of Vatican II do not seem to have bound the people more closely to their Church. Something is not right.
