Richard T. Lawrence
The Altar Bible: Digni, Decori, et Pulchri, pp. 386 - 402.
Summary. Richard Lawrence observes that although our Christian tradition teaches that Word and Sacrament are the twin pillars on which the church rests, there is both an iconographic and choreographic imbalance between them in most churches today. The author further comments that the recent progress of scriptural, historical, and liturgical scholarship in all the Christian churches has led to a return to a more balanced emphasis on Word and Sacrament; however, our architecture often stands in our way. Lawrence argues that it is hard to make changes in the popular mindset about the equal importance of Word and Sacrament when the furniture tells people something different. Similarly, in most Catholic liturgies there is a choreographic imbalance, meaning that there is little if any choreography for the liturgy of the Word.
Lawrence asks whether there is a way to restore iconographic and choreographic balance to Word and Sacrament. In considering this question, Lawrence first looks to what the Judeo-Christian tradition tells us about the ritual practices for the use of scriptural texts in liturgy. He comments briefly on the treatment of these texts in the Jewish and Eastern traditions and then examines in more detail the use of the scriptural books in the Western tradition. At the end of his discussion of the historical evidence, Lawrence also points out that the new revision of the General Instruction of the Roman Missal adds to the original 1975 text a new paragraph on the dignity of the sacred books, which provides that liturgical books are to "be marked by true dignity, beauty and distinction (digni, decori et pulchri)."
The last section of Lawrence's essay is a description of what the Church of St. Vincent de Paul in Baltimore did in response to the challenge of restoring the iconographic and choreographic balance to Word and Sacrament. In particular, the parish created an Altar Bible which Lawrence believes in itself, in its reservation, and in its use, will help restore the balance. Lawrence discusses the process of creating the Altar Bible, where and how it is reserved, and how it is used in liturgies. He writes in conclusion that the forty volumes of the Altar Bible of St. Vincent de Paul parish are truly digni, decori, et pulchri.
R. Kevin Seasoltz
Transcendence and Immanence in
Sacred Art and Architecture, pp. 403 - 431.
Summary. Kevin Seasoltz writes that today Western Christians are regularly portrayed as people who are consumers, competitive, and driven by a longing for success. On the one hand, Seasoltz says, we are often intensely individualistic yet on the other we long for community and communion with something or someone who is other and greater than we are. In general Christianity has tried to respond to the human need for self-transcendence and community.
In his essay, Seasoltz considers how best Christianity in the West might respond today through art and architecture to the great human need for an experience of both transcendence and immanence, transcendence and community. He approaches his project by looking at the history of sacred art and architecture with emphasis on the Western tradition.
In conclusion, Seasoltz refers to David Tracy's comment that neither the propensity for transcendence nor for immanence is superior, for both need each other in the Christian tradition. Likewise the experience of transcendence without community is simply not Christian. Thus, Seasoltz urges that the challenge in both liturgical celebration and in the design of church buildings and liturgical art is to keep poised the tension between the experience of transcendence and that of immanence and community.
E. Byron Anderson
Worship and Belief:
Liturgical Practice as a Contextual Theology, pp. 432 - 452.
Summary. Recently, Byron Anderson conducted a series of interviews concerning the formative role of liturgical practice in four United Methodist congregations. In his essay, he summarizes the work with two of the four congregations as a way to explore certain questions and assumptions about the relationship between prayer and belief. At the outset, Anderson comments that the two subject congregations offer a distinctive opportunity for comparisons between practice, theology, and context as well as for questions from the local context to official denominational theologies. Moreover, he claims that this research offers an opportunity to shift our attention in the worship/belief interaction away from the investigation of normative texts to critical reflection on the ritual liturgical practices of specific communities.
After summarizing the information gathered from the interviews, Anderson offers several observations about the relationships between the congregations' liturgical practices and belief systems. Here, he notes that the ongoing liturgical practices in both communities function to embody and express the particular theological and social commitments of each community. In particular, he considers the reflections of each community on its eucharistic practice as providing a partial statement of the community's operative "local" theology.
In conclusion, Anderson writes that the truth and reality that is performed, disclosed and interpreted in Christian liturgical practice does intend a way of life with one another and with God. As the tensive, mutually causative relationship between worship and belief continues, he adds, we continue to be invited to ask how these practices teach us to intend all things to God.
Thomas A. Rand
Set Free and Set Right:
Ritual, Theology, and the
Inculturation of the Gospel in Galatia, pp. 453 - 468.
Summary. Thomas Rand suggests that while Paul's letter to the Galatians is limited in terms of the actual ritual life of the churches in Galatia, it does give us Paul's secondary theological reflection on the primary ritual experiences of a church still in its infancy. Rand's research has led him to identify rituals of freedom, namely baptism and the Agape meal, at the heart of Paul's rhetorical appeal to the churches of Galatia. Specifically, Rand contends that Paul, as part of his strategy to develop cross-cultural koinônia, invoked these rituals not only to demarcate the apocalyptic passage from the old age of the flesh to the new age of the Spirit, but also to inculturate and embody the gospel in the Galatians' communal life.
In support of this argument, Rand begins with a presentation of his hypothesis concerning the context which elicited Paul's letter to the Galatians. He then discusses Paul's theological response to the circumstances of the churches in Galatia, which Rand believes draws upon the common ritual experience shared by the Hebrew and gentile Christians of Galatia to reinforce both their freedom from former ways and their new status of righteousness. In particular, Rand considers both the inculturation of the gospel in the Agape meal, as well as the status of righteousness and baptism.
In conclusion, Rand writes that Paul=s theological reflections in Galatians may be regarded as a kind of early mystagogy, because the content of Paul's letter functions to make meaning of the ritual practices of the Galatian churches after they had already been introduced. Rand adds that Paul's ultimate concern was for Christian formation and that this formation took place through the ritual practices of baptism and the Agape meal. Paul's theological response to the crisis in Galatia offers us a unique insight into the early development of sacramental meaning. Moreover, it raises important questions for us about the theologies of our own liturgical traditions. Rand ends his essay by posing these questions.
Nathan D. Mitchell
The Amen Corner, pp. 469 - 478.
Summary. Nathan Mitchell considers a brief passage from Liturgiam authenticam, the "fifth instruction 'for the right implementation of the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy of the Second Vatican Council'." Specifically, he focuses on paragraph 49 of Liturgiam authenticam, which refers to the characteristics of the orations of the Roman liturgical tradition as "a coherent system of words and patterns of speech." Mitchell begins his discussion by pointing to the contributions of Christine Mohrmann, who scrutinized the characteristics of "a coherent system of words and patterns of speech" and established a science of early Christian linguistics. Mitchell says that Mohrmann's work demonstrates that Latin began its liturgical career not as an "original" but as a receptor language - much as English and other vernaculars are today. He adds that her research must be borne in mind when we read Liturgiam authenticam.
Mitchell then argues that while the words we attempt to translate today still possess their evolved, historical meanings, they have also been "technologized." In other words, translation has become a complex cultural and technological task, as well as a linguistic one. Relying on the work of Walter Ong, Mitchell explains that in our postliterate culture of "secondary orality," technology is no longer surrounds us simply as a tool; rather, it encamps inside us, changing the way we perceive the world and hear its words and messages. Consequently, we no longer "need" public ritual performance as a means of memory, as access to meaning, because secondary orality "is structured on virtually limitless knowledge-storage and retrieval devices." Mitchell proceeds to identify the consequences of this phenomenon for our relation to the speech we use in worship.
In his final remarks, Mitchell contends that what a document such as Liturgiam authenticam fails to consider is the shift from conditions of primary orality and early literacy (the culture within which the "Roman liturgical tradition" was created) to modern conditions of secondary orality (a culture characterized by "technology inside us"). He adds that ours is a conflict of cultures, not a "war of words."
Book Review
O Propheticum lavacrum: Baptism as Symbolic Act of Eschatological Salvation. By Liam Bergin. Rome: Editrice Pontificia Università Gregoriana 1999. Pages, xvi - 315. Paper, $24.00. ISBN: 88-8752-827-X. Review by Paul Turner, pp. 479 - 480.
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