The Mass and Modernity: Walking to Heaven Backward

Many in the Church have accepted modernity in their effort to speak to the modern world, and not nearly enough attention has been given to trying to disentangle the complex of ideas and half-formulated convictions that constitute this mind-set which is in fact contrary to Christianity.

The first aim of this book is to examine the origins and present day influence of modernity, and then to argue that there is nothing in the Christian's concern for the modern world that requires accepting this damaging mind-set in connection with the highest form of worship, the Mass.

The second aim of the book is to show that that the sources of a genuine liturgical renewal are to be found in a heightened sense of the centrality of the Mass and a return to a theology compatible with the Catechism of the Catholic Church. "Fr. Robinson?s book is a philosopher?s gift to the Catholic liturgy. He provides a thoroughly lucid account of the climate of ideas which handicaps the celebration of Catholic worship in the modern world. This is a diagnosis which shows just how far reaching must be the cure." ?Fr. Aidan Nichols, O. P. Author, Looking at the Liturgy