The kind folks at SCM Press sent me a review copy of James G. Leachman’s The Liturgical Subject: Subject, Subjectivity, and the Human Person in Contemporary Liturgical Discussion and Critique.

After Vatican II, there have been many discussions centered on liturgical reform in the Catholic Church. Within this discussion, there are those who interpret the council making a conscious break with
tradition and those who interpret it as being in continuity with the past traditions of the Church. This book exemplifies such a tension in its essays. The tone of the book is set in an ecumenical voice that is
not antagonistic to such a reform. This book is an important contribution to theology because it seeks to uncover how the Christian way of being-in-the-world emerges in and through the liturgy of the Sacred Mass.

The blurb from their website reads:

“This volume is intended to offer to philosophers, liturgists and theologians of different schools a forum for conversation on issues of liturgy and philosophy and to enable a greater  appreciation of the wealth of theologies in current Catholic writing. The potential of the Church’s ministry in the world is diminished to the degree that internal dialogue is limited; more robust conversation ad intram could only strengthen the theological community in its service to the whole Church in our different countries, churches and cultures for her
service to the world.

The book aims to promote this internal dialogue between liturgists, theologians and church philosophers by presenting a variety of approaches to the topic of “Subject, subjectivity and the human person in contemporary liturgical discussion and critique”. Rather than profiting from any weaknesses seen in others’ theological or liturgical of traditions, we are called to serve them and to respond to them, for as liturgists, theologians and philosophers our mission is to serve and to develop the Church’s thinking.”