The cover of this book could give a misleading impression of its contents. The cover depicts a Pontifical High Mass celebrated by Cardinal Sarah in the church of the London Oratory. But the book itself is concerned, not so much with what goes on in church as with the relationship of the liturgy with the world in which it takes place. The contributors seek the authenticity to which the title alludes in a healthy relationship with the world, measuring that health principally by the desire of Vatican II that the Church's worship be given new vigour to meet the needs and circumstances of modern times.
Although this collection is principally concerned with Western liturgies, the East is not forgotten, appropriately enough, since their theology has remained closer to the liturgy than ours. Helmut Hoping, in his paper on ‘Liturgy and the Triune God’, with its theological analyses of the liturgical action, gives examples of how this can be achieved. Peter Cullinane asks how Orthodox writers, even explicitly anti‐catholic ones, can shed light on the relationship between the liturgy and the moral life. David Fagerberg brings a breath of fresh air with his rhapsodic prose style and his reliance on eastern as well as western Christian writers.
Necessarily for such a compendium, Dom Alcuin Reid contributes a meticulous enquiry into what exactly the Council fathers wanted from the Liturgy, which was very different from what transpired. He promises a fuller, book‐length treatment of this subject, to which I look forward. His study is complemented by an analysis by Michael Lang of the process by which the 1570 so‐called ‘Tridentine’ missal came to be. The contribution of Charbel Parat de Lys would also benefit from fuller treatment. His discussion of ‘The public nature of the liturgy’ rests on anthropological presuppositions that are clearly carefully considered, but a single lecture has not allowed space for their full articulation. Joris Geldhof casts his net wide, considering many of the ‐isms that have found favour in Western society in recent centuries, and insisting that none of them can rightly be considered as antithetical or inimical to what the Church does in her liturgy.
Other contributions are concerned with the liturgy in itself. More explicitly than those I have discussed so far, they express dissatisfaction with the situation that has developed since the Council, and a desire to move forward. Bishop Alan Hopes writes on the current process of revision of the Liturgy of the Hours. His paper shows how analysis of the original texts and policies for their translation have developed since the early days of vernacular liturgy, and offers grounds for hope that a new breviary will represent a further step forward on that rocky path. Recently, the Pope has changed the rules governing liturgical translation. Time alone will tell what effect the changes will have.
Andrew Burnham has been involved in the production of liturgical texts for communities that have recently come from an Anglican context into full communion with Rome. Their situation is complex, as they have inherited various texts from various countries and periods. Burnham is concerned to show that Ordinariate worship has deep roots in the Western Catholic tradition, and can of itself be an enrichment of that tradition. The annual Sacra Liturgia conferences were born of a dissatisfaction with the post‐conciliar liturgical situation in the West. Two of the papers express this directly. Stephen Bullivant focuses on evangelisation, to which the liturgical reform was intended to contribute. This noble aim, he argues, was swamped by other concerns. But now that the term ‘new evangelisation’ has become current, meaning evangelisation of cultures that were once Christian, the hope of the Council Fathers needs to be reawakened, so that the Roman Rite plays its part in bringing the gospel afresh to the cultures that gave it birth.
I was greatly amused by Peter Stephan's account of the vicissitudes undergone by Saint Hedwig's Cathedral in Berlin as successive pastors and their collaborators sought to accommodate the building to their liturgical ideas. Many of their modifications will be familiar to readers from other churches, even the cutting of a huge hole in the middle of where the congregation is to connect ground floor and crypt. I was struck by the absence in his account of any awareness of the building's orientation, which was so important a consideration to church architects in the first Christian Millennium. The notion that we face East because we look for the return of Christ has been almost entirely forgotten, reinforcing the inward‐looking approach to liturgy that this collection of essays is intended to challenge.
The book also contains sermons preached at liturgies during the Conference, and addresses by Bishop Rey and Cardinal Sarah. This last became notorious as the media broadcast the Cardinal's recommendation that celebrants face in the same direction as the people during the Eucharistic Rite. Little was said about the context in which he made his suggestion. In a long address he developed a strongly theocentric view of the Mass. As Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments he has sought constantly to recall the Church to authentic liturgical prayer. The inclusion of his talk here gives us a chance to explore his views in depth, rather than relying on snippets more widely available.
