Customer Reviews

Ceremonies of the Liturgical Year: According to the Modern Roman Rite: A Manual for Clergy and All Involved in Liturgical Ministries

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This is an excellent book of guidelines for the various ceremonies of the liturgical year. Monsignor Elliott explains the special ceremonies (such as those of Advent, Christmas, Lent, and Easter) in a very plain and understandable fashion. A priest can find the information he needs quite readily in these pages. Monsignor Elliott also does an excellent job of explaining how the liturgical year sanctifies all time.

If you want to know how Midnight Mass, the Easter Vigil, or other such special ceremonies are supposed to be celebrated with reverence and dignity, then this is the book for you!

Few priests, deacons or others responsible for preparing the celebration of the Liturgy have time to study in detail the rubrics and instructions found in the liturgical books and interpretative documents issued by the Holy See. This, the second book of ceremonial from the pen of Msgr Peter Elliott (his first, Ceremonies of the Modern Roman Rite: The Eucharist and the Liturgy of the Hours appeared in 1995), seeks to bring together such directives for the feasts and seasons of the Liturgical Year in one handy volume.

In doing so, Msgr Elliott has performed a great service. What cleric will not reach for this book with gratitude as Holy Week approaches? What liturgical preparation group will not fail to find in it treasures of the Church's liturgical tradition, both old and new, that cannot but enrich the celebration of the Church's feasts and seasons throughout the year? Homilists, too, will find helpful suggestions for the exercise of their ministry.

Helpful tables are given, covering the precedence of liturgical days, movable feasts and cycles of readings, and appendices give suggestions for further enrichment of the liturgical year. The paragraphs of the book are numbered throughout. This undoubtedly makes referencing easier, but can also confuse. The bibliography is somewhat sparse, lacking some of the official sources of the Modern Roman Rite. A small but useful glossary is included.

Of course, writing a ceremonial manual is a precarious task, as there are so many sources to synthesise and practical judgements that need to be made. The Holy See's Directory on Popular Piety and the Liturgy was published too late to be incorporated in the present volume. Ceremonies of the Liturgical Year also contains one or two errors (the most glaring being the failure to use the new National Calendar for England, published in 2000), and some points regarding which one may disagree with the author. (In a book such as this it is important to distinguish between what the liturgical books require and what legitimate diversity they tolerate.)

On the whole, though, the approach taken is sound and practical. Indeed, this book is a valuable aid for all who seek to celebrate the Liturgy, to borrow the words of Cardinal Hume, "in a manner that is prayerful, dignified and worthy of so great an action."

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Verona
Natick, MA