I am a Vatican II baby. The Church as it is following that revolutionary call for reform and revival is the only way I know the Church. And I think Vatican II is a good thing. That is as far as I know what it actually is and what the council achieved. I'd hoped to find a book that would act as a summary introduction to the many documents of the Second Vatican Council. Sadly I don't think this book is it as it seems to assume prior familiarity with the output of the council and deals in theological language just out of my grasp. Despite that I find it satisfying that O'Collins is generally positive about Vatican II and it's continuing implementation for all people in the faith. It seems all that I read these days are criticisms and reactionary views regarding Vatican II.
Favorite Passages

I beg to differ from some cardinals and other critics, who think the sheer numbers [canonized by John Paul II] have cheapened the "honors" of canonization and beatification. The Holy Spirit operates powerfully everywhere, and one can rightly suppose that many of the faithful have responded courageously to the call to universal holiness, which Vatican II recognized and proclaimed. To say otherwise would be to demean the work of the Spirit and Christ's call to heroic discipleship, and even to picture real sanctity as something that happens only far away and long ago. The truth was state on May 4, 2003, by a huge banner in Madrid's Plaza de Colón when John Paul II came to canonize five twentieth-century Spaniards: "You too can be a saint." (p. 26)
Changing situations call for fresh emphases and developments. The long history of Catholic Christianity shows repeatedly that it takes creative fidelity to effect a rejuvenating reception and promote true development. Both fidelity and creativity have been regularly involved: a fidelity that does not decline into rigidity and a creativity that does not lose its roots in the mainstream tradition (p. 47).
Will the health of the English-speaking areas of the church be promoted or even maintained by a special sacral language that sounds remote, archaic, and awkward? Such language hardly agrees with the kind of language for prayer used and reccomended by Jesus himself. He spoke to God and about God in a simple, direct, and familiar way: "Abba (Father dear)," "your kingdom come," "deliver us from the evil one," and so forth. It is very difficult to imagine Jesus encouraging us to start using words like beseech and deign (p. 74-5). ( )