This investigation examines the importation of modern and secular assumptions into the reform of the Roman liturgy after the Second Vatican Council. By synthesizing Catherine Pickstock's theory of liturgical language and the Thomist treatment of prayer, this thesis proposes that liturgical prayer properly speaking "occurs" in the imperative and subjunctive moods, while explicit recourse to the indicative mood in prayer implies a tendency toward a purely immanent rationality that is sealed off from the transcendent dynamism of true doxology. Through a comparison of the pre-conciliar Roman Offertory and the Preparation of the Gifts in the Missal of Paul VI, we see how the drastic shifts in both syntax and verbal mood enacted by the liturgical reforms evince the intrusion of univocal, secular, and non-doxological forms of rationality into the liturgical practice of the Roman Catholic Church. Finally, the integrating ethos of Thomas Aquinas is suggested as a theoretical basis for a fundamental liturgical theology that outflanks the reductive tendencies of contemporary Catholic liturgical reflection.