The Mass and Modernity: Walking to Heaven Backward

Front Cover
Ignatius Press, Nov 12, 2010 - Religion - 380 pages

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, Author, Looking at the Liturgy

 

Contents

The Enlightenment Daring to Know
55
Latitudinarianism Giving Up on Revelation
63
Kant and Moral Religion Giving Up on the Church and the Sacraments
76
Hume and Atheism Giving Up on God and Everlasting Life
96
Hegel God Becomes the Community
116
Comte Policing the Sublime
147
The Night Battle
165
Postmodernism Blowing It All Up
171
The Lambs High Feast
229
The Paschal Mystery
239
With Desire I Have Desired
266
From Communal Divinity to the Holy Community
287
Mr Ryder Comes to Town
297
Know What You Are Doing
314
LEnvoi
345
Bibliography
347

The Church in Society
184
Swimming against the Tide
203

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About the author (2010)

Fr. Jonathan Robinson is the founder of the Oratory of St. Philip Neri in Canada. He holds a Ph.D. from the University of Edinburgh, and a License in Theology from the Gregorian University in Rome.

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