“Catholic Church Architecture and the Spirit of the Liturgy,” By Denis R. McNamara, 225 pp., $50, Liturgy Training Publications, (800) 933-1800. This review is not written for artists, architects, pastors, seminary students, designers, liturgists, contractors or professors. “Catholic Church Architecture and the Spirit of the Liturgy” should simply be their required reading. This review is for today’s voiceless parishioners who, without the kind of information in this book, have no constructive opinion as to what their church building’s interior renovation or new construction should ultimately look like. The author, architectural historian Denis McNamara, is assistant director and faculty member at the Liturgical Institute of the University of St. Mary of the Lake/ Mundelein Seminary. North, South, East and West from Holy Name Cathedral, our archdiocese has some of the most awesome churches in Christendom. Most were built in a different era, when, as author McNamara says, the church building was “a sacrament of the city of heaven.” If one of these is your house of worship, thank God, and read this book to better appreciate what you have. (In fact, McNamara’s first book, “Heavenly City,” showcased our outstanding houses of God.) If perchance your Sunday Eucharist is offered in an upscale gymnasium, read this book to be informed of what you’re missing. All parish churches are filled with happy and sentimental memories — loving neighbors, and ghosts of those who went before — who cooked the chicken dinners that built those walls in our founding pastor’s price range. McNamara expresses a school of thought that the “something” missing in so much of our world is Beauty, Truth and Goodness, which is God himself. He hopes through this book to help readers “rediscover the meaning of Beauty.” Savor these 225 pages and 425 stunning photographs that will speak to your heart. He also addresses the competing themes at work in church design today and strives in charity to find middle ground. Summing up the role of liturgical art and architecture in liturgy, McNamara writes: “…it reveals to us our heavenly destination by showing us where we are, where we have been and where we are going. … It welcomes us to the Heavenly Banqueting Feast … It shows to our eyes the glory of heaven.”