Announcing a New Book on the Traditional Liturgy

We are happy to announce to readers of Rorate Caeli the publication of a new book, Resurgent in the Midst of Crisis: Sacred Liturgy, the Traditional Latin Mass, and Renewal in the Church (Angelico Press, 2014; 224 pp. paperback), by our own contributor, Dr. Peter Kwasniewski.

Here is the publisher’s description:

SINCE THE TIME OF THE SECOND VATICAN COUNCIL, the Catholic Church has experienced an unprecedented crisis of identity, symbolized and propelled by the corruption of the greatest treasure of her tradition: the sacred liturgy. The result has been confusion, dismay, devastation. To the surprise of some, however, the same half-century has witnessed a growing counter-movement of Catholics who find in the Church’s traditional liturgy a perennial witness to the orthodox faith, a solid foundation for the interior life, an ever-flowing source of missionary charity, and a living embodiment of the true Catholic spirit.

In this book, Peter Kwasniewski presents a fearless critique of the path of liturgical novelty and a ­detailed apologia for liturgical tradition in all its beauty, richness, and profundity, addressing such topics as ­solemnity, sacredness, the language of symbols, contemplation, participation, the symbiosis of lex orandi and lex credendi, silence, music, worship in Latin, and Gregorian chant. He confronts the humanism, rationalism, utilitarianism, and modernism so prevalent in the liturgical reform, assesses the prospects and limitations of a “Reform of the Reform,” and reflects on the great gift of Summorum Pontificum. In the end, Kwasniewski argues for a zealous recommitment to Catholic Tradition in its fullness, starting with divine worship and embracing the whole realm of faith and morals, including integral Catholic social teaching.

Evidently, there is an all-encompassing crisis in the Church, which the Extraordinary Synod unveiled to a global audience. Unexpectedly a resurgence is taking place, with the usus antiquior or classical Roman Rite at the very heart of it. To those who have loved the traditional Mass all their lives, those who have newly come to it, or those who simply wish to learn more about the issues, this book offers abundant matter for reflection.

The book is now available at Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk.

It would make a good stocking stuffer or Christmas gift—or shoe stuffer on the feast of St. Nicholas, whose zeal for orthodoxy led him to slap Arius in the face at the Council of Nicaea, and who would therefore appreciate the combination of apologia and polemic in this book’s pages!