T&T Clark Companion to Liturgy
Overview
In the decades following the Second Vatican Council, Catholic liturgy became an area of considerable interest and debate, if not controversy, in the West. Mid to late-twentieth century liturgical scholarship, upon which the liturgical reforms of the Second Vatican Council were predicated and implemented, no longer stands unquestioned. The liturgical and ecclesial springtime the reforms of Paul VI were expected to facilitate has failed to emerge, leaving many questions as to their wisdom and value.
Quo vadis Catholic liturgy? The T&T Clark Companion to the Liturgy brings together a variety of scholars who consider this question at the beginning of the 21st century in the light of advances in liturgical scholarship, decades of post-Vatican II experience and the critical re-examination in the West of the question of the liturgy promoted by Benedict XVI. The contributors, each eminent in their field, have distinct takes on how to answer this question, but each makes a significant contribution to contemporary debate, making this volume an essential reference for the study of Western Catholic liturgy in history and in the light of contemporary scholarship and debate.
Learn more about the thought of Pope Benedict XVI with The Homilies, Audiences, and Other Writings of Pope Benedict XVI in English and Latin (13 vols.).
Key Features
- Examines the implications of Catholic liturgical reform at Vatican II
- Provides scholarly examination of the Church’s liturgy and suggests solutions to debated questions
- Traces and reappriases the liturgy advocated by Benedict XVI
Contents
- Part I: What is the Liturgy
- Liturgical Theology
- Part II: The Liturgy in History
- The Jewish Roots of Christian Liturgy
- The Study of Early Christian Worship
- Key Themes in the Study of Early Medieval Liturgy
- Late Medieval Liturgy: A Celebration of Emmanuel, “God with us”
- The Roman Missal of the Council of Trent
- In Pursuit of Participation-Liturgy and Liturgists in Early Modern and Post Enlightenment Catholicism
- Late-Nineteenth-Century Catholic Theology
- The Twentieth Century Liturgical Movement
- The Liturgy of the Sacraments
- The Divine Office in History
- Gregorian Chant
- Part III: The Liturgy of the Second Vatican Council
- The Vision of the Constitution on the Liturgy
- The Implementation of Sacrosanctum Concilium
- After Sacrosanctum Concilium: Continuity or Rupture?
- A Reform of the Reform?
- Conservative Protestants in America
- Part IV: Themes in Contemporary Liturgical Studies
- Pastoral Liturgy Revisited
- The Liturgy and Sacred Language
- Englishing the Mass
- Liturgical Music
- Liturgical Architecture
- The Usus Antiquior: Its History and Importance after the Second Vatican Council
- An Anglican Perspective
- Part V: A–Z of the Study of Catholic Liturgy
Top Highlights
“The maxim that lex orandi establishes (statuat) the Church’s lex credendi is a way of saying that God’s activity establishes our belief. It does not mean, to the contrary, that worship reflects our theology; it does not mean that if we wish to produce a certain belief in the congregation we should begin by modifying their prayer.” (Page 15)
“For the latter they are not, because Catholic liturgy is (as the Christian East has never forgotten) intrinsically latreutic—it is the worship of Almighty God, not a means of our own self-expression. It is inherently traditional—we receive its forms, we don’t construct them. And its pastoral efficacy flows not from the measure it is adapted to our desires, but from the measure we adapt ourselves to its ritual, latreutic demands, and thereby enter into Christ’s action in the public worship of His Church.” (Page xviii)
“The liturgy is our inclusion in a relationship between the Son and the Father. ‘The sacred liturgy is, consequently, the public worship which our Redeemer as Head of the Church renders to the Father, as well as the worship which the community of the faithful renders to its Founder, and through Him to the heavenly Father.” (Pages 9–10)
“Kevin Irwin includes the subtitle ‘Method in Liturgical Theology’ to his book, and argues that ‘Liturgy is an act of theology in the sense that its statements and actions are addressed to God and are made about God.’” (Page 5)
“Therefore, liturgical theology is received; it is not created. Liturgical theology receives the lex orandi of the Church; it does not create the lex orandi of our own desires.” (Page 14)
About Alcuin Reid
Alcuin Reid is a monk of the Monastère Saint-Benoît in the Diocese of Fréjus-Toulon, France. After studies in Theology and in Education in Melbourne, Australia, he was awarded a PhD from King's College, University of London, for a thesis on twentieth century liturgical reform (2002), which was subsequently published as The Organic Development of the Liturgy with a preface by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger. He has lectured internationally and has published extensively on the sacred liturgy, including Looking Again at the Question of the Liturgy with Cardinal Ratzinger, The Monastic Diurnal, The Ceremonies of the Roman Rite Described, A Bitter Trial: Evelyn Waugh and John Carmel Cardinal Heenan on the Liturgical Changes, and From Eucharistic Adoration to Evangelization. His writings have been translated into Italian, French, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Lithuanian, Polish and Croatian.