The present work, Life and Liturgy, which introduces the series, is one of great importance to everyone who is all interested in living more fully the prayer life of the Church, especially in promoting active and fruitful participation in the Holy sacrifice of the Mass. For our gloriously reigning Holy Father says that 'the Mass is the source and, as it were, the center of Christian piety.' In this work, the learned Oratorian, Fr. Louis Bouyer, undertakes the very difficult but very necessary task of showing us what that prayer life, especially as centered in the Mass itself, essentially is. Of necessity, there fore, he strives to disengage the essential nature of the liturgy from not only the forms it took when misunderstood or neglected, but also from those forms it might be given in various unconsciously mistaken attempts at restoration.