LITURGICAL THEOLOGY

The theological task arising from Christian worship is multifaceted. Its starting point is neither dogmatic affirmation, nor, strictly speaking, liturgical text, but rather the living Church actively engaged in the worship of God. Likewise, its final goal is not merely to understand the various dimensions of worship, but in addition to return that understanding to the Church's life and prayer.

Place and Character. Liturgical theology must intersect with other branches of theology, e.g., ecclesiology, Christology, and soteriology, particularly insofar as their own theological truth unfolds in the act of worship. It must examine current and past liturgical texts, as expressions of theological understanding and as texts whose meaning and purpose is to be activated as Christian worship. Liturgical theology must engage many disciplines and many methodologies, but its enduring concrete focus on the living worship of the Church is both its unifying principle and its distinguishing characteristic.

As a branch of theology it is both systematic and pastoral. It is systematic in that it explores the doctrines of faith which liturgy articulates in its own way (lex orandi est lex credendi ) and examines these doctrines in relation to their other formulations. Liturgical theology also explores fundamental theological questions relating faith to prayer and Revelation to proclamation. It is pastoral because liturgical theology always speaks from and to the Church at prayer. It cannot rest content with the inner logic of a reflective methodology. The truth which unfolds in liturgical theology must finally be validated in the experience of worship itself.

Development. Liturgical theology evolves upon several relationships which hold between faith, the liturgical event, and reflective theology. These can be specified as: faith related to liturgy and liturgy related to theology.

Faith and Liturgy. A dialectic relationship exists between faith and liturgy. Vatican Council II in the Constitution on Sacred Liturgy articulated the dual movement of this dialectic when it affirmed that liturgy expresses faith (movement from faith to liturgy) and, at the same time, instructs or informs faith (movement from liturgy to faith) (Sacrosanctum Concilium 59). Liturgical theology must engage both movements of this dialectic.

The first movement is addressed in the attempt to understand the inner contours of the faith experience as it comes to expression in symbolic action. This is a complex hermeneutical task, partially fulfilled by phenomenological description, e.g., describing the inner movement of Eucharistic Prayers and the full significance as commitment and surrender of the people's Amen. The task is further advanced by anthropological and psychological studies into the nature and behavior of ritual, and by investigations into the power of language to evoke affections, motivation, and commitment. In short, liturgical theology at this point attempts to determine the conditions under which people successfully enter and engage in liturgical prayer, and the dynamics by which faith seeks ever new modes of liturgical expression.

Liturgical theology likewise seeks to understand the effect liturgy has upon faith. Vatican II gives two directions for this investigation: "In the liturgy the sanctification of the People of God is manifested by signs perceptible to the senses, and is effected in a way which is proper to each of these signs…" (ibid. 7). Sanctification signals all that God in Christ has done and continues to do for us. It embraces liberation from sin, growth in holiness, and a promise of final victory over death. Vatican II affirms that this is not a mysterious, behind-thescenes activity of God. Rather, it is spoken to human awareness and accomplished in human life in recognizable ways.

Liturgical theology seeks therefore to understand the liturgy as accomplishing this twofold function, viz., to manifest and effect sanctification. For the first, it attempts to understand the nature of proclamation with deep respect for the mystery of God, the evocative thrust of symbolic language, and the cognitive dimension of human awareness. For the second, it investigates the profound truths of the Christian faith, conscious that not only is the liturgy the place where these truths unfold, but that the inner dynamics of the liturgy reveal the process by which they unfold.

Liturgy and Theology. A similar dialectic relationship exists between liturgy and theology, which liturgical theology likewise investigates. The movement toward theology recognizes the liturgy as a privileged source (locus theologicus ) for understanding the Church, its sacramental actions, and its fundamental creeds. This line of investigation is perhaps the most developed, and represents the original scope of liturgical theology (see liturgics). The introductions and texts for the revised rites encourage this kind of investigation, since they embody far more of the Church's rich tradition than the liturgical books they replace.

The converse movement toward the liturgy involves the return of theological insight to the Church at prayer. Reflective theology brings forth explanation which, by the very fact that the liturgy continues to be celebrated in the Church, must likewise take on the nature of promise. The truth of theology must be sought in worship, and its function to give faith something to look for in worship needs to be understood well. Theology's return to worship is the final task of liturgical theology.

Bibliography: a. kavanagh, On Liturgical Theology (Collegeville, Minn. 1992). k. w. irwin, Context and Text: Method in Liturgical Theology (Collegeville, Minn. 1994). p. f. bradshaw, ed., "Liturgical Theology" Studia liturgica 30 no. 1 (2000) [entire issue devoted to the papers on "Liturgical Theology" presented at 17th Congress of Societas Liturgica, Kottayam, India, 19–24 August 1999].

[p. e. fink/eds.]