Leading liturgical experts come together to provide a crucial new resource for liturgical formation from “Sacra Liturgia 2013”

San Francisco, May 8, 2014 – An important international conference on the Sacred Liturgy, Sacra Liturgia 2013, took place in Rome, Italy, last June. The proceedings have been published in a new book from Ignatius Press, Sacred Liturgy: The Source and Summit of the Life and Mission of the Church, edited by Dom Alcuin Reid.

Sacra Liturgia 2013 explored questions of liturgical art, architecture, music, the ars celebrandi, the importance of ritual in human psychology, truly pastoral liturgy, the place of the older liturgical rites in the New Evangelization, liturgical formation, liturgical law, the role of the diocesan bishop in respect of the liturgy, and more.

“The Sacred Liturgy is not a hobby for specialists. It is central to all our endeavors as disciples of Jesus Christ. This profound reality cannot be over emphasized. We must recognize the primacy of grace in our Christian life and work, and we must respect the reality that in this life the optimal encounter with Christ is in the Sacred Liturgy,” explained Bishop Dominique Rey of Fréjus-Toulon, France, who opened the conference with these words.

Sacra Liturgia 2013 saw over three hundred delegates from over thirty countries listen to twenty leading liturgists, cardinals, bishops and other scholars—including Cardinals Burke and Ranjith, Archbishop Alexander Sample, Bishops Mark Aillet and Peter Elliott, Abbot Christopher Zielinski, Father U.M. Lang, Don Nicola Bux and Professor Tracey Rowland—emphasize the centrality of liturgical formation and celebration in the life and mission of the Church. “The New Evangelization must be founded on the faithful and fruitful celebration of the Sacred Liturgy as given to us by the Church in her tradition – Western and Eastern,” Bishop Rey asserted.

As the fruit of this conference Sacred Liturgy: The Source and Summit of the Life and Mission of the Church is an important resource in ongoing liturgical formation for clergy, religious and laity and makes a significant contribution to that renewal promoted in the Pontificate of Benedict XVI: a renewal which embraces the riches of liturgical tradition as valuable treasures, seeks to read the Second Vatican Council according to a hermeneutic of continuity, not rupture, and is in no doubt that, as Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger once wrote, “the true celebration of the Sacred Liturgy as the center of any renewal of the Church.”

About the Editor:
Dom Alcuin Reid is a monk of the Monastère Saint-Benoît in Fréjus-Toulon, France. He has lectured and has published extensively on the Liturgy, including The Organic Development of the Liturgy with a preface by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, and The Ceremonies of the Roman Rite Described.

Dom Alcuin Reid is available for interviews about this book. To request a review copy or an interview with Dom Alcuin Reid, please contact: Rose Trabbic, Publicist, Ignatius Press at (239) 867-4180 or [email protected]