Father Ed Mazich, O.S.B., our Foundation President, recommends a book written by two Monks, Appreciating the Collect: An Irenic Methodology, edited by Father James Leachman of Ealing Abbey, London, and Father Daniel McCarthy of Saint Benedict’s Abbey, Atchison, Kansas.

Theology students and others will be interested in this analysis of the opening prayer of Mass that employs the methodology used at the Pontifical Institute of Liturgy, Sant’Anselmo. Latin students too will find both clear and helpful the presentation of the Latin language by Reginold Foster, 40 years Papal Latinist. This is the first time that his Latin pedagogy is in print.

The book: Appreciating the Collect: An Irenic Methodology, ed. J.G. Leachman – D.P. McCarthy (Documenta rerum ecclesiasticarum instaurata, Liturgiam aestimare : Appreciating the Liturgy 1), St. Michael’s Abbey Press, Farnborough, England 2008.

Available here

Book description

From the Editor’s Preface:

In the forty years since the publication of the four Constitutions of the Second Vatican Council, naturally the first phase of work was that of producing new editiones typicae. Since the production of these editions, there has been a second phase of work, that of translating the editiones typicae into the vernacular languages and then of implementing the renewed liturgical books mandated by the Council in their vernacular translations.

We have noticed that little attention has been given to the detailed study of the renewed editiones typicae, because the effort shifted to translating and implementing them pastorally. The time is now opportune, we believe, to deepen the academic study and appreciation of the renewed editiones typicae.

Accordingly, at the meeting of Societas Liturgica in Palermo, August 2007, we proposed a new model of liturgical renewal, which we call Liturgiam Aestimare : Appreciating the Liturgy, for, to the degree to which we deepen our appreciation of the current liturgical documents, will the Church discern the way forward.

Thus, we began to develop the project Documenta Rerum Ecclesiasticarum Instaurata—DREI—which offers a hermeneutical analysis of the liturgical documents renewed at the behest of the Council, that the Church may further discern the course of liturgical renewal. The—DREI—project employs a new methodology for interpreting liturgical texts that combines the clear and detailed understanding of the Latin language, as taught by Reginaldus Foster OCD, Rome, and the textual hermeneutic of Renato De Zan, a professor of the Pontifical Liturgical Institute, Rome.