I quote at length the editor at the start of this review given there is not space to comment on each article and because he provides an excellent summary of the book enabling readers of this review with a clear picture of its contents. “The contributions gathered in this volume cover a variety of topics and offer different perspectives, but they are united by their grounding in the rich history of Christian liturgy, by their theological awareness and reflection, and by the authors’ shared concern for the state of divine worship in the Catholic Church today. Alcuin Reid considers the place of positive liturgical law in the twenty-first century and explored the theological dimension of ars celebrandi. Ryan J. Marr relates the seminal thought of Rene Girard to contemporary discussions on the sacrificial character of the Eucharist and on liturgical reform.  My article offers a fresh reading of Augustine’s conception of sacrifice in City of God, Book X, a historically charged text that continues to generate lively interest among theologians and liturgists.  Michael P. Foley sheds light on the origins of the rite of peace in the Roman tradition and discusses its significance and practice in contemporary liturgical celebrations.  Madeleine Grace, CVI, makes a compelling case from biblical, liturgical and canonical sources to recover the spiritual benefits of Eucharistic fasting. Daniel G. Van Slyke compares and contrasts the current Order for Blessing Water Outside of Mass with its immediate predecessor.  Clinton Allen Brand presents the language of the liturgical books approved for the Ordinariates according to the Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum Coetibusas an idiom of worship that resonates with Anglophone culture and provides an opportunity for evangelization” (pp. viii – ix).

The opening article by Reid argues that during the 1970s and 1980s most presiders ignored the rubrics of the GIRM, treating them as guidelines. Although this has ceased today, the problem now is ignorance of liturgical law and perhaps more importantly a laissez-faire attitude towards ritual, leading to,  “this is what we do here.”  He therefore asks, “are there reasons for taking rubrics seriously” and answers this question with a beautiful closing sentence: “when we live in and live from this ecclesial communion, a communion sustained in love by Love Himself, rubrics and laws take their proper place in our life of worship, and fidelity to them is nothing other than our act of love and of fidelity to God Himself” (p. 32).

Marr’s chapter examines Rene Girard’s work in relation to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, noting that Girard supported the movement to provide the Tridentine Mass.  He makes the contention that Girard’s scholarship provides a fuller understanding of the mystery of the Eucharist in relation to Christ’s sacrificial work on the cross which, he argues, helps us appreciate more fully the strengths of the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite. He notes that Benedict XVI hoped the two Forms of the Mass would be mutually enriching, and Marr proposes that how this might be done would be to insert from the Extraordinary Form the prayers at the foot of the altar and the traditional offertory into the regular celebration of the Ordinary Form.  This would underline the essential unity between the two forms and accentuate the sacrificial character of the Mass once again among the Catholic faithful.  

The longest article in the volume is by Michael P. Foley (61 pages) who studies thoroughly the Kiss of Peace in the Roman Rite. Foley points out that great angst/worry over this ritual is ecumenically shared and remarks humorously “that it may, ironically, be one of their stronger ecumenical sources of commiseration and solidarity” (p.83). Foley argues that the renewed Missal would benefit greatly from a restoration of the paschal meaning of the Roman kiss especially given that the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy gives clear testimony to the Paschal Mystery re-presented in Mass and that this paschal account aligns perfectly with the traditional significance of the kiss, arguing further that this seems to be what the Vatican II council fathers had in mind. In other words, the traditional Roman Rite gives pride of place to the PASCHAL aspect of the kiss and this should be restored.  Foley argues further that “indeed, helping the new form of Mass rediscover rather than reinvent or relocate the kiss could be one of the greatest fits of the usus antiquior to the Ordinary Form.  In this way, it would contribute substantially to Benedict XVI’s goal of the two missals mutually enriching each other” (p. 140).

The editor has chosen well the articles for this book from the journal Antiphon in order to highlight the Sacred Liturgy and its renewal. Hopefully this tradition of collecting articles into book form will continue.