even unto the god of my hope and of my salvation."
i have been reading catherine pickstock's after writing over the past few weeks. i intend to reread it again this fall when i'm back home and i can sit with it in the bathtub and soak it up by candlelight. it's an important, even if obviously horrenedously-written book. it might be much clearer, and one hopes in better style, if she wrote in latin. and my old latin vocabulary would probably be more up to the task.
the main thrust, if such a rounded book may be accused of having a thrust, is that the liturgical revisions of vatican ii, and therewith all the little vatican ii tag-alongs such as the american book of common prayer 1979, were scarcely better informed than the reformers of the time around the council of trent, whom they were so quick to criticize. moreover, she suggests that the western church has cast off what was left of a liturgy that would be accessible in a "post-modern" age to replace it with something that is so 1976.
as one who came to the "big church" only around 1980, and who has only gradually come to explore the much richer fare of the pre-vatican ii west and of the non-vatical east, i am delighted that she supports my inclinations with such carefully nuanced research. unfortunately, it seems that for the most part the post-vat church is fairly reluctant to say, "oops, we goofed." (benedict may be an exception, but unfortunately his plate has so many rotten potatoes on it it makes it difficult to hear him when he speaks of strong meat.)
meanwhile, i am happy to continue with using the book of common prayer 2009. perhaps black is the new black.
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