Shortly after his election as Bishop of Rome, John XXIII, who at age seventy-seven was expected to be a merely transitional pontiff, announced his intention to convoke a Council of the Roman Church to renew it by “opening the windows to let in some fresh air,” as he put it. A half-century later, its fiftieth anniversary was the occasion of a number of observances and publications evaluating the legacy of the Constitution on the Liturgy. Part of that legacy is the Lutheran Book of Worship of 1978. The first and most important observation to be made about the LBW is that it was a cooperative venture, and that fact immensely enriched the book...