For those unfamiliar with this work, I highly encourage you to read it, even if in bits and pieces.
A general introduction: Dom Guéranger, abbot of Solesmes from 1837-1875, was one of the leading monastics and liturgists of his generation, and his writings were highly influential both in France and abroad. He is perhaps best known today through the pages of his L'Année Liturgique - The Liturgical Year - which he began in 1841 in order to make the riches of the liturgy more widely known by the faithful. In fifteen volumes (which he did not live to complete) he follows the cycle of the liturgical year, illuminating the traditional liturgy with interpretations, commentaries, and riches collected from other liturgies both of Eastern and Western Christendom.
Dom Prosper Guéranger is famously known for the restoration of Gregorian chant in Solesmes (with the help of Dom Jansions, Dom Pothier and Dom Mocquereau). What is less known is that on a larger scale Dom Guérangerwas promotingthe restoration ofthe Roman liturgyin France (40 years after the French Revolution and suppression of the Benedictine order). The collection of books 'TheLiturgical Year' wasthe initiatorof the so-called 'Liturgical Movement'. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Liturgical_Year http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prosper_Guéranger
Ste Thérèse of Lisieux used to read The Liturgical Year with her sisters during her childhood.
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