Though originating in the postconciliar period, Adrien Nocent's volumes remain one of the church's finest commentaries on the lectionary and contain remarkable up-to-date insights for our times. Thanks to the emendations and annotations of Paul Turner, one of today's finest liturgical scholars, these volumes will enrich the thoughts of parish liturgists, presiders, homilists, musicians, lectors, theology students, and participants in the church's liturgy.
Stephen J. Binz, biblical scholar, author of Conversing with God in Advent and Christmas (also Conversing with God in Lent and Conversing with God in the Easter Season)
Aggiornamento is back! Paul Turner has updated the first volume of Adrien Nocent's The Liturgical Year in a discrete, respectful, and informed manner, enabling the author's reflections on the feasts and seasons as well as on the Lectionary to connect effectively with the concerns and interests of present-day readers. I look forward to the next two volumes.
Patrick Regan, OSB, Saint Joseph Abbey, Saint Benedict, Louisiana, Author of Advent to Pentecost
Adrien Nocent was truly a remarkable scholar well ahead of his time! First published in English in 1977, we cannot today but be astonished at the depth of theological and pastoral insight on the Lectionary and liturgies in this first of his multivolume work on the liturgical year. He weaves the paschal mystery, eschatology, and living liturgy daily into a core tool for interpreting Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany in a fresh way. In this reissue, Fr. Paul Turner sensitively respects Nocent's own voice as he bridges the time after the Council to the present age: he emends the text to render it in horizontal inclusive language, redresses some theological and historical issues, and includes the latest translation of the liturgical text. This work needs to be on every priest's, liturgist's, musician's, and assembly member's "go to" shelf.
Joyce Ann Zimmerman, CPPS, Institute for Liturgical Ministry
In 1977 when Adrien Nocent's book appeared in English translation, I was studying the liturgical year with him at Sant'Anselmo. I remember how moved I was to read his deep reflections after having experienced the new lectionary with its three-year cycle of readings at that point only a couple of times. Now, having experienced the three-year cycle more than a dozen times, I am still moved by his writings. I am delighted that his book has been updated by Paul Turner and is coming into print again.
Michael S. Driscoll, Associate Professor, University of Notre Dame
This new edition of Adrien Nocent's The Liturgical Year dappers up an old friend! The passing of time and the introduction of the new translation of the Roman Missal had made the original edition of Nocent's work more difficult to use. Now Paul Turner has done us a favor with this thorough revision: he has replaced prayer texts with the new translation, explained the context of some issues that have faded in the almost forty years since Nocent wrote the book, and emended Matthew J. O'Connell's fine translation to make it more accessible to readers today. The virtues of Nocent's original work (namely, his opening up of the reformed liturgical year through the lens of the lectionary and prayer texts of the Missal in the light of the history of the liturgy) can again serve preachers, liturgists, and lovers of the liturgy because of Turner's fine work. It promises to be a key resource for another forty years.
Rev. Michael Witczak Associate Professor of Liturgical Studies Catholic University of America
