Whose Mass Is It? Why People Care So Much about the Catholic Liturgy

At once a history of the liturgical developments of the past fifty years and a comprehensive inventory, justification, and defense of the entities that lay claim to the Mass. Accessible to those who have little historical knowledge about the Mass while also offering surprising insights and details to those with a deeper understanding.

Ideal for liturgical discussion groups, a review for liturgical ministers, a textbook for parish liturgy committees . . . It will surface useful discussions on local issues and practices, clarify harbored misunderstandings, and help promote good parochial liturgy.

With this book, Turner answers his question definitively: "The Mass does not belong to some idealized past; it belongs to the living church.

Paul Turner offers us a concise and accessible guide to the post-Vatican II eucharistic liturgy, replete with a great deal of historical information. This book should provide an excellent guide for parish liturgy committees and anyone interested in gaining a fuller understanding of what we do when we come together for Eucharist.

Using the question `Whose Mass is it?' Paul Turner uncovers the skein of relationships that give people, from the local sacristan to the curial officials of the Congregation for Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments, a sense of ownership of the Mass. The number of stakeholders is more than most of us imagine, and the relationships between stakeholders are not always easy. Turner invites each stakeholder to recognize the others. He acknowledges the challenges brought on by change, conflicts won and lost, familial tensions heightened-and sometimes resolved-and gifts many and varied shared, neglected, or rejected. With great scholarly erudition and even greater pastoral wisdom, Turner charts a path of mutual recognition that invites each of us to recognize that the liturgy ultimately belongs to Christ, the center who holds both the liturgy and all of us together.

A valuable tool for priests, staff, and liturgy committee; a good review of what we can do, should do, and should not do.

What Turner voices in this book captures the mutual relationship between liturgical renewal and liturgical movement. Turner's book challenges us to reflect on the way we value the celebration of the Mass and what energy we invest into the celebration of the Eucharistic liturgy. After reading this book I was challenged to realize that the Mass is meant for the People of God and tells a story of who we are as Catholics.