Saturday, January 14, 2012

Mershon reviews Cekada

Last year Dom Alcuin Reid, OSB, reviewed Anthony Cekada's Work of Human Hands: A Theological Critique of the Mass of Paul VI (Philothea Press, 2010), 445 pp pb, as we noted last August in our post, "The elephant in the liturgical living room" (August 28, 2011).

Brian Mershon has just reviewed it, after reading it "multiple times," in RenewAmerica. Mershon says he highly recommends the book to those "who desire to understand in excruciating detail the theological reasons behind the rupture with liturgical and theological tradition caused by the use of this new rite of Mass for the past 40 years."

The book should provoke some healthy controversy where it's needed.

1 comment:

Tawser said...

I'm no friend of the Novus Ordo. I read Father Cekada's book when it first came out and found it utterly convincing. But looking at the new translation gives me pause. Whatever the intentions of Bugnini et al were, the language of the new translation is refreshingly traditional. For example, I was staggered to find the concept of satisfaction in one of the Lenten prefaces, and the need for asceticism is taught in a number of the collects. I would love to see a traditionalist critique of the new translation, because I definitely get the sense that the translators intended to reintroduce concepts and teachings that were previously obscured, perhaps even in the original Latin Novus Ordo.