This is a short and fairly “light”
book, 140 pages and I would suggest that you skip straight to chapter
5 because if you have the inclination to pick up this book it is
highly likely that you will merely find the first chapters an
irritation, as they breeze through 2000 years of liturgical history
with the depth of analysis appropriate to the back of a cereal box.
The one line of the whole book that
will stick in my head is Weil's claim “I am not a rubrical
fundamentalist.”. Well, I will be honest – my name is Gwilym and
I am a rubrical fundamentalist and I do get upset when the rubrics
are abused (often more upset than I do about the abuse of the text)
and the worse offence in my eyes is the stretching of the
interpretation of “occasional” use under Common Worship, but at
least the first step to overcoming a problem is admitting you have
one...
Weil also has a long rant against the
use of “manual acts” during the Eucharistic prayer, which I think
is an entirely personal prejudice – but then as a fan of “manual
acts” I would say that – however the point is the Weil makes a
“universal” case for their unhelpfulness which I don't think is
justified nor evidenced.
So overall this book was something of a
disappointment.
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