Forgotten Language

The Forgotten Language: How Recovering the Poetics of the Mass Will Change Our Lives by the Rev Michael Rennier, 196 pages

It sometimes seems that never before in human history has so much poetry been written and so little read.  Indeed, even the ability to recognize, still less to comprehend, poetry seems to have almost completely atrophied.  The modern mind demands solutions, while poetry requires understanding, the modern world celebrates pride, but true beauty cannot be received without humility.  Great poetry draws the audience beyond a superficial knowledge into deeper and deeper layers of meaning, towards beauty that is transcendent and truths that are mysteries.  As William Hazlitt explained, "Poetry is the universal language which the heart holds with nature and itself.  He who has a contempt for poetry cannot have much respect for himself, or for any thing else... all that is worth remembering in life is the poetry of it."

The greatest poem of all is, of course, Creation itself, which cannot be rivalled but only participated in.  The second greatest is the Divine Liturgy, that prayer in which the human is joined to the Divine, which likewise is not a work of man alone but of the Man who is God.  It is impossible to enter meaningfully into either without a poetic imagination.  There is no way to learn a language, however, without practice.  This is the genius of The Forgotten Language: it is not only a prescription, but also a primer.  Fr Rennier alternates between liturgical commentary, spiritual reflection, literary appreciation, conversion story, and personal anecdote in a way that may initially seem confused and off-putting, until the reader begins to perceive how they rhyme, and a new world opens or the old world is made explicit.