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Title: Buyer beware!
Review: This book offers idiosyncratic interpretations of the rubrics of the Roman rite and tries to pass them off as official and binding. For example, the discussion on the proper placement of the tabernacle (page 29) misrepresents what is actually said in the body of Roman ecclesiastical law on this subject. In giving directions to the celebrant for the communion rite (page 121), Eliot goes way beyond what is actually stated in the General Instruction of the Roman Missal, stating that the priest is to hold the paten in the left hand, hold the host at eye-level and so on. Thirty years ago the church abandoned this kind of writing about the liturgy for good reason: It mistakes mystification for mystery. This book fails to understand the nature of the renewed liturgy, and tries to put new wines in old wineskins.
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