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BOOK REVIEWS The Church and the Liturgy: Liturgy Vol. ~. Concilium. Edited by JoHANNES WAGNER. Paulist Press, Glen Rock, N. J., 1965. Pp. 191. Cloth, $4.50. What strikes one most forcibly in reading the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy is its determination that the renewed liturgy shall be the means by which the People of God are sanctified and enabled to worship their Creator in spirit and truth. The principal concern of the Constitution is to make the Church's worship meaningful to modern man, but if the intention of the Council is to be realized, not only will there be need for specific reform measures on the part of the post-conciliar liturgical commission but there will also be need for proper instruction, or more precisely, a genuine education, in the sense of the Church which is both constituted and expressed through the liturgy. The way to a thorough renewal has already been partially prepared by theoretical specialists, but their thought must filter down to the practical administrative levels of the parish, religious house, and school. In a way, then, the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy is both a beginning and an end. It is the beginning of a new phase in the life of the Church's liturgy, but it is also the culmination of years of historical research, theological development and pastoral experimentation. The second volume of Concilium, edited by the distinguished German liturgist, Johannes Wagner, is devoted to the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, but the editors and the contributors have attempted above all to see the document in terms of the Church and its growth in recent years. As Wagner points out in his preface to the volume, " The liturgical movement . . . is ultimately but a part, the specific expression and an important interpretation of a much greater and more comprehensive process that has been going on in the Church irresistibly for a long time: the image of the Church is seen in a new light; it is seen and made a reality in a new and profound manner." Since the liturgy is the mystery of the Church's own life, it is the greatest treasure which the Church possesses and therefore the object of heavy responsibility for the bishops who possess authority in the Church. As the Constitution points out, it is first of all in his celebration of the Eucharist that the bishop manifests the true nature of his episcopal office as a successor of the apostles. It is in and through the liturgy that he continues the apostolic work of building the Church as the Body of Christ through the proclamation and celebration of the Paschal Mystery so that men might be made one in Christ's Body, dead to sin and risen in glory. The Church 456 BOOK REVIEWS 457 is built where the apostolic ministry gathers men together in the name of Christ by proclaiming the gospel to them and by breaking for them the Bread of Life. In view of the vital role which the bishop plays in the liturgical life of the Church, the first four articles of The Church and the Liturgy delineate various aspects of this topic. Dom Cyprian Vagaggini illustrates the theological bases upon which rests the full range of bishopliturgy relationships, Joseph Pascher outlines the relation between bishop and priests according to the liturgy Constitution, Frederick McManus discusses the juridical power which the Constitution has vested in the episcopal conferences with regard to the liturgy, and Joseph Jungmann discusses the bishop's role in the development of the devotional life of the Church. But since it is impossible for the bishop always and everywhere to preside over the whole flock in his Church, " he must establish smaller groupings of the faithful. Among these the parishes, set up locally under a pastor who takes the place of the bishop, are the most important, for in some manner they represent the visible Church constituted throughout the world" (Constitution, paragraph 4~). Because each parish celebrates the Eucharist in union with the local bishop and because every bishop is in union with the Pope as the Bishop of Rome, the Church is visibly manifested to the world above all...

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