Commentaries on selected opening prayers of Sundays and Feasts with sample homilies. McCarthy demonstrates how the English prayers we use at present offer only a limited taste of the rich Latin prayer tradition.

Liturgy gathers individuals into a community and transforms them. At the heart of this process, when understood and applied at its best, is the opening prayer/collect in the Introductory Rites/Gathering of the Community.

The highlight of my weekly reading of the Tablet in 2006-7 was the commentary on the Sunday collect/opening prayer by Daniel McCarthy OSB. Cutting-edge scholarship met healthy spirituality. I am hence delighted that these commentaries have been revised and collected together.

This is not a book to be read at one sitting, but to be savoured and lived week by week. I unconditionally recommend it to any who follow the Western liturgical tradition.

Fr. Bosco Peters
http://www.liturgy.co.nz/reflection/prayers.html