The Traditional Latin Mass Explained

Foreword by Peter Kwasniewski

The spiritual vision of Dom Prosper Gueranger culminated in the primacy and centrality of the sacred liturgy, the opus Dei or work of God. He writes, “The liturgy is the highest and the holiest expression of the thought and intelligence of the Church, simply because it is carried out by the Church in direct communication with God, in confession, in prayer, and praise.”

The Traditional Latin Mass Explained, a succinct and sublime presentation of the prayers and ceremonies of the Latin Mass, is the perfect complement to his magnum opus, The Liturgical Year. This short work delivers a surprisingly complete exposition of the theology and spirituality of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass by way of commentary on the texts and gestures of the Tridentine Rite. In this way, beyond its author’s original intention, this gem of a book is capable of revealing to us anew the treasure we have always possessed in this magnificent liturgy, the tragedy of its near extinction in the period after the Second Vatican Council, and the immense blessing of its gradual return across the Catholic world. Consequently, as time goes on, we shall have not less but more and more reason to take up again the writings of Dom Gueranger, discovering in him, not a relic of the nineteenth century, but a prophet of the twenty-first.

About the Author
Prosper Louis Pascal Gueranger (1805–1875) was ordained a priest in 1827 and became Abbot of the newly-established monastery of Solesmes in 1837 at the age of 32. He became one of the leading monastics and liturgists of his generation, and his writings were highly influential both in France and abroad. He is best known today for his The Liturgical Year, a leisurely fifteen-volume tour of the feasts and seasons of the Catholic calendar, left unfinished at the time of his death but soon completed by his disciples, and still in print.