REVIEW: The Roman Catholic Ceremonial: Volume I. The Ordinary Ceremonies by Jeffrey Collins.

Liturgical worship should be reverent, careful and the best we can accomplish.  The expanding use of the Extraordinary Form will help to correct many of the aberrations inflicted on people through the Ordinary Form.  Therefore, every priest, every seminarian, as many Catholics as possible should embrace also the Extraordinary Form, know it well and carry it out well and through it worship God well.

There are several good books available for people who need to learn or serve (or understand thoroughly) the Extraordinary Form.  Here is another.  I have spoken of it before, but it has been updated with corrections, clarifications, and a good index.

It is The Roman Catholic Ceremonial: Volume I. The Ordinary Ceremonies by Jeffrey Collins.

Here is the description (my emphases):

The Roman Catholic Ceremonial presents a thorough and accurate, yet simple, explanation of the ceremonies of the 1962 Roman Rite. Volume I,the present volume, contains the functions of the ordinary parish church. For all but the easiest ceremonies, scripts are provided for each participant to enable quick mastery of his particular duties. This feature will prove invaluable for the busy Master of Ceremonies, who often has little if any time to conduct rehearsals for even the greatest occasions. The text is rounded out with a clear exposition of basic ceremonial principles and the general rubrics of the 1962 Missal, as well as glossaries on ecclesiastical furnishing and vesture, and is complemented by schematic diagrams of the major liturgical functions. This Second Revised Edition includes an Index. Whether a novice altar boy or a Prince of the Church, every minister of the altar will find reliable answers to his rubrical questions in The Roman Catholic Ceremonial.

It is also affordable.

The author is working on a volume of Pontifical Ceremonies.

About Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Fr. Z is the guy who runs this blog. o{]:¬)
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6 Comments

  1. acardnal says:

    Fr. Z, here is another book which you might find interesting and worthy of placing on your Wish List.
    I have the first edition published in 1996. This is the new and updated edition. HERE

  2. Speravi says:

    How does this compare with Fortescue/Reid?

  3. Supertradmum says:

    Is it only available in euros?

  4. billriccio says:

    As a person who has known Jeffrey for more than 20 years, and watched as the book was written, I can attest to its usefulness to the average parish, and its practicality in answering many questions posed by the newbie or the experienced cleric or master of ceremonies. Full disclosure, I am one of the people to whom he dedicated the book, which may in some minds make me an unfit or at least tainted commentator; however, as one who has been in the traditional movement for most of my adult life and as a person who’s had to put together some daunting liturgies with little rehearsal, this is a God-send.

    It is simple, direct and uses an economy of words and descriptions unlike older texts that sometimes spend 6 sentences describing how one turns to the right.

    Congratulations, Jeff. I know how much work and time this has taken and I hope parishes, large and small, find it useful.

    Bill Riccio, Jr.

  5. Stephen Matthew says:

    I wander if there is any risk the “Ordinary” in the title may cause confusion regarding “Ordinary Form”?

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