In this often surprising book, Dr. Kwasniewski takes nine objections Catholics make to the traditional Latin Mass, and turns them around in a jiu jitsu fashion: “You are right—but you don’t realize how right you are!”

To the objection that “the priest has his back to me. I can’t engage with him,” he replies: “Yes, he does, and no, you can’t—that’s exactly how it should be, and here’s why.” Or “at Mass the priest is doing everything and I’m just watching him”: “Yes, he alone does everything in his proper priestly way, and that makes it possible for you to do everything in the way proper to you.” Or: “It’s all fancy, like a royal court, which doesn’t fit with a democratic society like ours”: “That’s right, because we are in a royal court, the most royal and most courtly of all, and we have left democracy far behind.”

And so with six additional objections, having to do with:

• the use of Latin
• kneeling to receive Communion on the tongue
• repetition in prayers, gestures, and readings
• the “limits” of the one-year lectionary
• fixed rituals governed by strict rubrics
• the importance of not understanding everything, even after long exposure has opened one door after the next.

By turning the tables around, Dr. Kwasniewski helps us to savor the Holy Spirit’s wisdom in forming over the centuries this venerable rite for the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass—the way that countless saints prayed the Mass day in and day out—and shows how we, too, stand to gain from its peculiar non-modern, even anti-modern features. Ultimately this tradition guides us to deeper conversion: the turning-around to God that is the most important of all conversions.