Lumen Christi

<p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>The Roman rite once the serene inheritance of countless saints was not abruptly overturned in the late 1960s as a conventional traditionalist narrative suggests; instead it was subjected to a process of gradual dismantling in the mid-twentieth century prior to the </span><em style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>coup de grâce </em><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>delivered by Paul VI's Consilium. Among the most significant turning points was the imposition of a reformed Holy Week in 1955 under Pope Pius XII. This was no gentle pruning or restoration but a momentous rupture a deliberate reshaping of ancient ceremonies to fit the mind of modern man an attempt to reimagine and improve upon the past rather than receiving it humbly as the treasure it is. As a result the 1962 liturgical books bear the wounds of earlier deformations and anticipate wounds yet to come.</span></p><p><em style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>Lumen Christi</em><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)> confronts these uncomfortable truths not in a spirit of nostalgia but in the name of intellectual honesty and historical clarity. Authentic liturgical development never came from panels of experts wielding scissors and glue; it emerged from the living faith of the Church slowly refined in its expressions over the course of centuries. In its magnificent Holy Week its rich calendar and its undiminished prayers and ceremonies the classical Roman Rite is no museum piece left behind in the march of progress. It is the Latin Church's living liturgy still loved by many souls and ripe for reintroduction wherever the </span><em style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>usus antiquior </em><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>is-or in a happier future will come to be-offered in our churches. What was sacred to our forefathers remains sacred and great for us today: such is the conviction that animates the pages of </span><em style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>Lumen Christi</em><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>.</span></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>With a panoply of historical liturgical canonical and theological arguments </span><em style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>Lumen Christi </em><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>helps readers to understand what is at stake in the restoration of the once and future Roman Rite and provides practical guidance in accomplishing it. Four ample appendices round out the book: permissions needed (or not needed) for the use of earlier liturgical books; charts of all the changes made to the missal and breviary between 1955 and 1962; a step-by-step plan for transitioning at the parish level from the 1962 to the pre-1955; translations of key liturgical documents.</span></p><p><span style=background-color: rgba(255 255 255 1); color: rgba(15 17 17 1)>In the end our task is simple: to emerge from the cave of modern liturgical innovations into the full light of tradition. This book is an indispensable roadmap for that journey.</span></p>