Gillhammer, Light on Darkness: The Untold Story of the Liturgy

Perhaps towards a review (update pending):

Cosima Clara Gillhammer, Light on Darkness: The Untold Story of the Liturgy (Reakiton Books, 2025)

 

I bought this book after listening to the Spectator event on the renewed interest in traditional Christianity in which Dr Gillhammer took part. I was also encouraged to spend my cash by the fact that Dr Gillhammer is currently employed at my old college, LMH.

 

Gillhammer teaches English. She examines the Western Liturgy here, especially in the Medieval period according to the Roman rite. Her interest is not primarily historical. She sees these texts and their ritual use as illuminating universal human experience and she pays attention to the interaction of liturgy, art, music and literature. The Biblical text is quoted in Latin with English translation. The BCP Psalter is used.

 

The earliest use of the term “liturgy” in the OED is  1564. The medieval English may have referred to an office, rite or observance.

 

Eight main chapters draw on texts from the liturgy related to specific themes as follows:

 

Petition – the Psalms – especially the penitential psalms, especially Psalm 51

Love – the Song of Songs

Hope – the advent Antiphons

Suffering – The Triduum - Maundy Thursday to Easter Saturday

Grief – Good Friday - The Stabat Mater traditions of Mary at the cross

Joy – Exsultet from the Easter Vigil

Death – Dies irae from the Requiem Mass

Revelation – scenes from the book of

 

And then two final chapters consider liturgy in relation to time and space.

 

For those new to such things, Gillhammer provides a brief outline of the Christian year and of Christian belief (in the form of an exposition of the Apostles’ Creed).

 

There are 21 illustrations. A website https://liturgybook.com/ provides, amongst other things, YouTube videos of the music referred to chapter by chapter.

 

* * *

“Liturgy is at the roots of Western culture. Our music, art, literature and architecture are shaped by and developed out of the liturgy. Without it, Dante’s Divine Comedy would not exist, and neither would Michelangelo’s Pieta. Not even Star Wars would have its memorable soundtrack had it not been for the medieval liturgy.

 

…. Perhaps it is one of the best-kept secrets of our time that the liturgy stands at the centre of the cultural history of the West. It deserves close attention and appreciation. It is a common assumption that liturgy is stuffy and stale, but nothing could be further from the truth. The rites of the liturgy are endlessly rich and imaginative, generating in turn new artistic responses throughout the centuries.” (p8-9)

 

“The story of Jesus of Nazareth is the central story around which the Western artistic imagination has revolved for thousands of years, but for audiences in the modern secular world this tradition can seem inaccessible. The liturgy can therefore provide the key for unlocking this tradition, and with it, the story that has shaped the West.” (p19)