Customer Reviews

Know Him in the Breaking of the Bread: A Guide to the Mass

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I loved every page of the book. It was hard for me to put it down. I am hungry for every morsel of the Church and Fr Randolph fed it to me like a good shepherd. I have traveled a rocky road myself and thank God I found the Church. I want to show God all my love and reverence for His Son and this book has helped me do this. I want to enjoy all the treasures my Father has stored for me in the Mass and this book has done this. I want to teach my children everything about the Mass just as I have promised God and this book has helped me. As I read the words I sense the Love for Jesus in Fr Randolphs' pages. I want to give my all and this book tells you how. The faith is not a buffet where you take only what you want nor is it a democracy its the Kingdom of God and this book tells you why certain things are done and how the body and blood are to be treated. Worship Him!

Contrary to other reviews, this book is not necessarily a plea for the Tridentine Mass, but is a recognition that some of those advocating changes to the Mass in recent decades have perhaps gone too far. Moreover, the book provides a balanced look at the different elements in the Mass, what they symbolize or mean, and the history behind them. Fr. Randolph does often insert his beliefs in what the Mass should be like, but that doesn't detract from his reasoned look at the meaning of what we celebrate every Sunday, the source and summit of our Christian life.

"Cheap fabric and dim lighting," Morty Seinfeld once famously told Mr. Peterman on television. "That's how you move merchandise."

That's unfortunately the same approach many liturgical experts take toward the liturgy. "Keep the people stupid and entertain them; that's how you celebrate Mass."

Fr. Randolph's book is the much needed corrective to this sort of thinking. He offers excellent explanations of the prayers of the Mass with helpful commentary on the history and development of the liturgy.

In his recent apostolic exhortation Sacramentum Caritatis, Pope Benedict XVI writes, "[t]he eucharistic celebration is enhanced when priests and liturgical leaders are committed to making known the current liturgical texts and norms, making available the great riches found in the General Instruction of the Roman Missal and the Order of Readings for Mass."

"Know Him in the Breaking the Bread" is a great first step toward the sort of liturgical catechesis envisioned by the Holy Father in his exhortation. Warmly recommended indeed.

This book does a fine job of going step-by-step through the Holy Mass. While Fr. Randolph does share his personal thoughts on where the future directions of the Mass should/might go, he does so with a firm sense of the Mass' history and theology.

It is naive to think that someone could write on the Holy Mass in some sort of mythical objectivity that does not exist. In this work Fr Randolph comes accross as someone who loves the Holy Mass. He is not opposed to the organic development of the Mass. Rather, he is opposed to the imposition of the ideology upon the Mass that sees it as something we can recreate or reinvent.

The Mass is something we have received from Jesus Christ and we must pass it on faithfully to the next generation by loving it and understanding it. Yet, it is not some relic that we keep dusted and stored on some shelf. It is by actively praying the Holy Mass that it transforms us more and more into the image of Jesus Christ. Praying the Mass in this way allows us to hand it on to the next generation faithfully. It is toward that end of praying the Mass, loving God through the Mass, understanding the Mass, and faithfully handing it on that Fr. Randolph offers this book.

Also, the section on Latin in the Mass is very well done. It has been almost ten years since I first read this book, and the connection he makes between Latin and contemplation makes more and more sense as the years go by. Warmly recommended.

Fr. Randolph knows a fair bit of the history of the Mass. It is not a detailed historical treatment (as is The History And The Future Of The Roman Liturgy by Denis Crouan) and the editorializing noted in other reviews is given with appropriate caveats.

Fr. Randolph's main goal, which I believe he accomplishes, is to show the broad outline of the Mass and review both those essential, core elements as well as the "furniture" and changeable styles of this and previous ages. This is a book in the spirit of traditional liturgical reform, for sure, but that is a sub-theme in this succint book. Our parish purchased it for a teen class on the Mass (which is why I ended up reading it). It will work for that with some knowledgable instructor exposition.

Randolph's book is a plea for the advancement of the Latin Mass, altar rails, tabernacles behind the altar, the priest at the altar with his back toward the people, etc. It is not a guide to the Mass as understood by the Catholic Church, but as Randolph wants it to be. He takes misguided shots at everything he doesn't like in the Mass.