Letters on Liturgy

By Fr. Dwight Longenecker

178 pp

$18.95

Edition: Paperback

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Letters on Liturgy

Paperback

From $18.95

In these imagined letters to a young seminarian, Fr. Dwight Longenecker distills decades of pastoral experience into a warm, witty meditation on the meaning of Catholic worship. With humor, candor, and a storyteller’s instinct, he guides the reader through the pitfalls of modern liturgical confusion toward a renewed sense of reverence.

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About the Book

The timeless beauty of the Catholic liturgy should provide stability and depth in the superficial, fast-changing modern world, but too often it sacrifices part of its soul to the Spirit of the Age. In Letters on Liturgy, Fr. Dwight Longenecker writes to a fictional seminarian about the meaning and purpose of the liturgy in the modern world. His witty, wise, and down-to-earth letters blend a love of literature, drama, and art with decades of experience as a pastor. They leave technical jargon, arcane arguments, and unrealistic ideals behind, offering in their stead accessible, practical ways to bring beauty and reverence back into Catholic worship.

Praise

“Here we find good advice, good taste, joyful patience, and realistic hope. A powerful little book on a most important subject.”

— DOM XAVIER PERRIN

OSB, Abbot of Quarr Abbey

“With a vitality of style matching his theological ambition to re-enchant Catholic worship, Dwight Longenecker educates, instructs, and inspires.”

— R. R. RENO

Editor, First Things

“Fr. Dwight Longenecker demonstrates a profound grasp of the difficulties often found in contemporary Catholic worship. The writing is a rare and welcome fusion of profound love of the liturgy and deep compassion for the faithful.”

— W. WINSTON ELLIOTT III

Publisher of The Imaginative Conservative

“I highly recommend Letters on Liturgy. Fr. Longenecker charitably corrects modern errors, excesses, and distortions, while offering also practical advice on how to restore greater reverence and recover lost traditions.”

— REV. MSGR CHARLES POPE

Pastor of Holy Comforter St. Cyprian Catholic Church

“Father Longenecker persuasively shows us that to re-enchant the liturgy is to re-enchant the world, and thereby make our ancient Faith new.”

— MAGGIE GALLAGHER

Benedict XVI Institute

“Letters on Liturgy reminds us that beautiful liturgy brings us ever closer to ultimate realities, at the heart of which is the Logos Himself.”

— SAMUEL GREGG

Acton Institute

“As one who loves the Extraordinary Form of the Mass, I welcome the insights of pastors, such as Fr. Longenecker, who celebrate the Ordinary Form with reverence, and with canonical, theological, and aesthetic sensibility.”

— JOSEPH PEARCE

editor of the St. Austin Review

About the Author

Fr. Dwight Longenecker was raised in an Evangelical home and was ordained as a priest in the Church of England. In 2006 he and his family returned to his native USA where he was ordained as a Catholic priest under the Pastoral Provision for married convert clergy. He is author of over twenty books, a blogger, podcaster, and popular speaker nationwide, and serves as Pastor of Our Lady of the Rosary Church in Greenville, South Carolina.