In the good old day, in the great churches, the smoke curled up, the vestments glowed, the chants rolled, and there was a solemn occasion. Today the small group can celebrate a mass with its own music, and a rewardingly personal character to it. But in the parish today, 'church is boring' say the children, and the grown-ups complain also with deariness. it is difficult to have either a solemn or an intimate occasion there. Pére Gelineau draws on twenty-five tears or ordinary pastoral experience in the parish church to show ways forward which will draw on the great traditions of liturgical worship and will enable our worship today to be available to the men and women of contemporary society. The great danger now, as before Vatican II, is that we celebrate a mystery which is not 'available'. This does not mean that we must reduce it to plain prose - it must have the evocativeness of poetry, and the clarity of plain gospel speaking. The author knows all the practical difficulties and it is a great virtue of his text to speak not of some theoretical utopia, but of the tiresome everydat realities we all know.
U15186