The Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy of Vatican II declares that ‘the liturgy is made up of immutable elements divinely instituted, and of elements subject to change. These not only may, but ought to be changed with the passage of time if they have suffered from the intrusion of anything out of harmony with the inner nature of the liturgy or have become unsuited to it.’ This is a statement the author does not accept. The worship of the Church is divinely instituted; in the Old Testament and the New, God establishes not only that we should worship but how. ‘The Spiritual hand that shaped the Roman liturgy over centuries did so in conformity with divine ordinances: it was itself a revelation’ (p. 11). Therefore there can be nothing in the liturgy which is out of harmony with its inner nature. By ‘liturgy’ the author means the liturgy of the Roman rite, with the other local or particular rites related to it as they were before reforms began under the inspiration of the ‘Liturgical Movement’ in 1910.

The roots of the divinely instituted worship of the Church can be shown to be the Temple in Jerusalem with its altar and holy of holies. For this thesis the author is much dependent on the eccentric exegesis of Margaret Barker. ‘The early Christians considered themselves to be the true successors not so much of the worship of the Synagogue but of the Temple. They believed themselves to be reflecting a tradition they had received directly from Jesus and what he communicated, often in secret, to the Apostles’ (p. 12). This was handed on in secret through the years of persecution so that no written texts of this tradition survive.

The Temple of the Old Covenant is replaced by the body of the incarnate Son, who is also the High Priest of this worship. ‘Jesus’ self understanding is developed out of the idea that Melchisedech is the Messiah and Jesus understands himself to be the return of the messianic priestly figure of Melchisedech’ (p. 72). Thus the roots of the Holy Eucharist lie in the first Temple, a temple in which there is no tradition of animal sacrifice, and in Melchisedech's offering of bread and wine.

At the Ascension the new Temple, the body of Christ, is taken from this world and located in the heavenly Holy of Holies. The author does not seem to like the Pauline teaching that the body of the faithful now constitutes the new Temple in which the new rational worship takes place. Rather the one Temple is replaced ‘with the possibility of many temples, and so on many sites of sanctification, many churches’ and the one unique and eternal sacrifice, offered in the heavenly worship, can now appear on many altars (p. 102). The author is insistent that the one temple, which was Christ's body on earth, is replaced by many physical buildings. ‘All liturgical signification presumes the sanctified place which indicates the liturgy of the end‐times: the altar and the sanctuary are the body of Christ and the ‘holy of holies’ of the Temple of the new Jerusalem, that alone has the potency to bring man into the precinct of the New Jerusalem’ (p. 92). ‘The principles of church architecture are divinely revealed – this is the meaning of the Old Testament passages which specify the lengths and quantities of the construction of the Temple … For the correct order of the Temple makes possible the presence of the Majesty of God with his people so that he (as Bridegroom and High Priest) can dwell with them’ (p. 128). There is much insistence on Christ as the High Priest of the liturgy, but the teaching of the New Testament that all the faithful share in this priesthood and that through the liturgy the public worship of head and members is offered to God is not mentioned.

The liturgy that is divinely ordained for these temples is complicated and difficult to understand. ‘Everything in a church intends a meaning, so the whole of the liturgy, its chant, what is performed, by whom and how, where and when, form a whole textual complex with intricate significance. The meanings intended have been built up over centuries, but much of it was taken over from the understanding and connections the early Church had of and with the religion and history of Israel’ (pp. 11–12). The elements of the liturgy ‘articulate a complex and sophisticated language of relations between persons and the meaning of the sacred vessels, and so reveal the gradations of the ranks of priesthood and grades of angels. In as much as this language is derived from divine command given to describe the nature and character of sacred vesture in the Temple, they indicate a divinely revealed origin, not just human manufacture’ (p. 380).

‘This book,’ the author tells us, ‘argues that the call for liturgical reform, especially in the form that it began to take after 1903, and with full force in the period 1965–70 was driven by an underlying rationalism. Rationalism is the understanding that everything, all truth, arises on the basis of what can be foreseen by man, what is calculable and predictable for him in advance of its occurring’ (p. 24). That rationalism, he thinks, can be seen particularly in the insistence on fully active and conscious participation of the faithful in the liturgy, so dear to the liturgical movement. Vatican II sees the lack of this participation as something which is quite at variance with the inner nature of the liturgy. It decrees: ‘To promote active participation, the people should be encouraged to take part by means of acclamations, responses, psalmody, antiphons, and songs, as well as by actions, gestures, and bodily attitudes. And at the proper times all should observe a reverent silence’ (Sacrosanctum concilium§30). But the council also makes it quite clear that ‘their minds should be attuned to their voices, and that they should cooperate with divine grace lest they receive it in vain’ (§11)

The author sees the insistence on such activity as a product of the modern rationalism in which we are all caught up, even the Papacy itself. He spends many pages explaining the false concept of self, found in Descartes and Nietzsche, which is always present in advance of everything else it knows. ‘This is in contrast to the understanding of the self that preceded Descartes, based on the ancient conception of self, that the self is not ‘there already’ but is actually activated and constituted by what it knows’ (p. 33). At the end of this argument the reader is left wondering what strange philosophy must have motivated Christians, who all through the first eight hundred years of the Church took it for granted that they should take an active part in the liturgy in the way the Council describes. And what of the monks and friars who have through the centuries delighted in a full conscious participation in their community liturgy? The author has some beautiful things to say about the value of singing in liturgical worship (pp. 38–40,142). Is this to be the privilege only of monks and clerics?

The most important way of actively participating in the Liturgy is surely by sacramental communion according to the Lord's command: ‘Take and eat’, ‘Take this all of you and drink from it’. But the author regrets the reintroduction of frequent communion by St Pius X. Here he relies much on the historical argument that frequent communion was little practised after the fifth century; those who did receive communion often did so outside the Mass. In fact the action of the Mass is complete as soon as the priest has received communion (pp. 117–124). Here he lays himself open to the accusation of that very archaeologism which he so despises in the liturgists who brought about the post‐conciliar retoration of the liturgy.

A further manifestation of modern rationalism is found by the author in the desire to relate the sacred liturgy to the requirements of the age and to inculturate it in the different cultures of the world. The liturgy, we are told, is not made for man. It is the God‐given means by which we are to make some return in love for the love shown us in the sacrifice of God's Son. Human beings must adapt themselves to the liturgy and not presume to change it to suit themselves. ‘Our current age sees everything as an object of manufacture, as something which can be got hold of or altered, to produce better or more effective outcomes’ (p. 10).

This is a closely argued book which contains many beautiful insights and many interesting opinions which cannot be discussed in a brief review. Behind it all, however, lies a theology of Christian worship which departs in many respects from the tradition of the Church as it is found in the New Testament, the teaching of the Fathers, and the papal encyclicals of the last hundred years.