What We Have Done, What We Have Failed to Do: Assessing the Liturgical Reforms of Vatican II

• How can we deepen the advances made in celebrating the reformed liturgy and adjust things that might not have advanced the reform? • How can both a greater comprehension of the sacred liturgy and a fuller participation in it be fostered? • How can we reemphasize particular Catholic characteristics of the liturgy that may have been eclipsed in some of the reform? These are three of the many questions addressed by renowned liturgical scholar Kevin W. Irwin in this reverential yet not uncritical book. Written to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of the promulgation of the Second Vatican Council’s Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy in December 1963, What We Have Done, What We Have Failed to Do has as its purpose to shed some light on, and to invite discussion about, the experience in which Catholics have been engaged since Vatican II in implementing and praying the liturgy as reformed after the council. Everyone involved in preparing and leading Catholics in the reformed liturgy will benefit from What We Have Done, What We Have Failed to Do, including bishops, priests, deacons, readers, servers, cantors, musicians, eucharistic ministers, and the variety of pastoral ministers whose daily efforts shape how and what we celebrate. †