practical steps for liturgical reform

By Diogenes ( articles ) | Nov 28, 2005

On the Pontifications blog, Father Jay Scott Newman offers some fine practical advice.

If you need to be convinced to read his whole piece, how about this sample:

1. Take Cardinal Mahoney's pastoral letter on the celebration of parochial liturgy and throw it on the fire. Watch it burn. Now go take a hot shower.
2. Reject the ideology that got us here. Root and branch, cut it out of yourself. Empty seminaries, despoiled religious orders, plummeting Mass attendance, and wholesale immorality among clergy and laity alike are probably pretty good clues that the vocation to holiness which is our baptismal second birthright is getting obscured along the way.
3. Read good books that will help you understand the real nature and purpose of the sacred liturgy. Two excellent places to start are The Spirit of the Liturgy by Joseph Ratzinger (who now goes by a new nom de plume) and Looking at the Liturgy by Aidan Nichols, O.P. For the mechanics of celebration, start with Peter Elliott's Ceremonies of the Modern Roman Rite and Ceremonies of the Liturgical Year