Summary
Introduction
1 The Intelligence of Faith Based on “Rites and Prayers”
2 Paradigmatic Models of Liturgical and Sacramental Science
3 Perspectives on a New Relationship
References
Introduction
Reflection on the method of liturgical and sacramental science (LSS), especially in the last two centuries in the Western cultural context, brings with it, like any other field of knowledge and the condition of scientific reason, the accumulation of data, the construction of paradigms, provisionality, the specialization of fields, methodological delimitation, differentiated approaches, and the possibility of absolutizing what is merely a historical, ritual, semantic, linguistic, phenomenological, speculative-theological, or pastoral aspect.
The interest in reflecting on sacramental liturgical action coincides, it can be affirmed, with the evangelical demand itself to intelligently give reason for the “mirabilia Dei” (wondrous works of God) that happened once for all in the paschal mystery of Jesus Christ. Indeed, the Christian community, from its beginning, in various ways, celebrated, believed, and lived this reality full of faith. Subsequently, this rituality was explicated through Hellenistic categories by the Church Fathers in the patristic era. In the Middle Ages, a distancing between theology-liturgy-sacraments was noted through allegorical and scholastic categories, while the post-Tridentine period was strongly characterized by the disciplinary moment of the Counter-Reformation, the crisis of scholastic theology, the growth of interest in historical studies, the progressive abandonment of the allegorical interpretation of the liturgy, and the need to respond to the criticisms of the Protestant reformers.
In the 17th-18th centuries, the liturgy would find itself with an excessive focus on the rubricist-juridical aspect and, in this context, the interest in and emergence of liturgical science (LS) appeared, especially in the first half of the 19th century in Germany. This was motivated, on one hand, by the “Katholische Tübinger Schule” and the Neo-Scholasticism of a Thomistic address, and on the other, by the ecclesiological perspective and the renewal of the theology of the sacraments through ritual action based on the Christological event. This would gradually trigger a new process in the way of thinking about the liturgical-sacramental reality. From this would arise the reflection and maturation of some constants that would become a true collective effort of ideas, especially in Europe, which would be called the Liturgical Movement. For Ubbiali (1993), this movement would react to the lack of attention that the sacramentary manual reserved for liturgical praxis, and would deepen the relationship between theology–liturgy-sacraments, giving consistency and quality to the intuitions and responses to the “Liturgical Question.” With the deepening of fundamental concepts such as active participation, total thinking, the mystery of worship, and symbolic knowledge, it would strongly contribute to the reflection before, during, and after the Second Vatican Council.
1 The Intelligibility of Faith Based on “Rites and Prayers” (MEDEIROS, 2011, p. 15-42)
The Theology of the sacraments, even before the conciliar event of Vatican II, had nucleated some axes of the intelligence of these sacraments, especially in the fields of ecclesiology and anthropology. In the first place, ecclesiology was guided by Rahner’s perspective (1965). In this view, the Church is read as the permanent symbol of divine salvific action, the visible historical reality in which God gives Himself. In the anthropological sphere, the attention to the human is certainly the primary intention of subtracting the sacrament from its distance from modern culture. In this sense, such reflection produced a clear decision to broaden the anthropological dimension of the sacrament and thus added a proper position to complete the theological discourse already structured and unified in a sacramental key. Specifically in the sequence: Christology (Jesus Christ as the primordial sacrament), ecclesiology (the Church as the fundamental, or radical, sacrament), and sacramentology (the seven sacraments), anthropology was also added (the person and the world, as a natural sacrament).
The properly scientific aspect of the liturgy, in turn, can be said to have found in Guardini (1921) one of the main exponents in the early hours of the Liturgical Movement. He was the first to address the epistemological question, concluding that liturgical science required two complementary levels, which he qualified as historical investigation and systematic investigation. According to him, historical investigation would take place at a diachronic-evolutionary level and would have as its object the study of the development of worship, without which we would fall into gratuitous affirmations. And systematic investigation, at a synchronic level, would have as its object the study of the Church, as the subject of worship, and of its binding and permanent elements. Without systematic reflection, history would be lost in disconnected data.
Currently, we can basically summarize three major methodological trends for the epistemological deepening of the liturgy, as areas from which its specificum as a structured science, with its own methods and laws, can be drawn: the systematic, the historical, and the pastoral.
Consequently, it can be said that these three directions are simultaneously present in the reflection of liturgical research, with their legitimate representatives, in the search for greater epistemological consistency, which is witnessed by a plurality of contemporary liturgical and sacramental theologies. However, the guiding principle must keep in mind that the intellectus fidei has always been, from the beginning, in relation to the liturgical action of the Church. Consequently, theological reflection can never ignore the sacramental order instituted by Christ himself, and on the other hand, liturgical action can never be considered generically, leaving aside the mystery of faith (Sacramentum caritatis, n. 34).
Undeniably, sacramental theology and liturgical theology have grown closer in recent decades, having as a common “locus” the attention to the rite, placing the question of the symbol in its proper context: the ritual action. Therefore, the logical perspective for reflecting on the question of the symbol in a hermeneutical key for understanding the sacraments becomes the ritual action. Certainly, LSS considers that one of the most significant fruits of the Liturgical Movement was the realization that the rite is the form in which the sacrament happens. Here is the “locus” of the encounter with the Lord, of the profession of faith, of synergy, of visibility, of invisibility, and the source of theology as a moment of rational investigation of the faith in light of what is today called the new frontier of the “liturgical question,” according to the contribution of Grillo in his “fundamental liturgy: introduction to the theology of ritual action” (2022a).
Consequently, the concept of form enters contemporary theology as a new category, inaugurating, in the modern sense of the word, the understanding of LS and the process of liturgical reform implemented throughout the 20th century, as stated by J. Ratzinger (2019). This concept is capable of establishing connections with diverse areas that form the whole of liturgical and sacramental reflection.
Thus, contemporary LSS reflection is gradually overcoming inappropriate categories in the definition and understanding of the liturgical-sacramental action of the Church and, at the same time, testing the categories (rite, form, languages, mystagogy) with a view to a reworking of unitary knowledge and with a solid alliance between a sacramentary that discovers the ritual genre and the new liturgical ordines.
2 Paradigmatic Models of Liturgical and Sacramental Science (MEDEIROS, 2014, p. 145-168)
We can gather, from some proposals of contextualized models or paradigms, the horizon of studies on LSS in recent decades. For this very reason, we propose to trace the evolution of the subject under study in the German, Francophone, Spanish, Anglophone, and Brazilian contexts.
2.1 German Context
The contribution of Guardini (1921) on the systematic method of liturgical science was very significant for the study of LSS. In fact, he envisions liturgy as consonant with and integrated into theology, since it is related to the supernatural life, it becomes competent through the action of the Holy Spirit, and is guided by the Magisterium. Furthermore, the theological aspect of the liturgy must always be present in any type of systematic study that is carried out. For Guardini, liturgy as theology has its own method that differentiates it not only from other sciences but also within the theological sphere, and it cannot even be considered as part of pastoral theology, which is elaborated and developed from praxis and enters into a systematic study of the liturgy. We can say that, for Guardini, liturgy is theology, and that is why this perspective of seeing and knowing gathers the content of faith in the cultic manifestation of the life of the Church.
Furthermore, Casel (1941) affirms that the work of salvation of Jesus Christ, present in the liturgical celebration, is not only a dogma to be believed, but is an “actuation of faith” according to a certain symbolically sacramental form, that is, theology is done in the proper sense when one seeks to deepen the knowledge of this work of salvation through the ritual symbol. It is not an abstract knowledge, but the deepening of that “salvific reality” present in the liturgical moment, that is, as salvation in a symbolic-ritual perspective. Thus, for Casel, liturgical theology exists only when the given of faith assumes the dimension of concrete communication of the mystery of Christ to the Church, when there is a dialogue about “God from God.”
Liturgical-sacramental theology, in the German sphere, also sought contact with the human sciences, improving its discourse in search of a more scientific categorization. Evaluating liturgical science twenty years after the Second Vatican Council, Häussling (1982) analyzes the vicissitudes it has gone through, especially in confrontation with the human sciences, with atheism, with the ecumenical reality, and with the challenges of youth liturgies. In addition, Gärtner and Merz (1984) seek to establish principles for an integrative method of LS, starting from traditional paradigms but dialoguing with the human sciences, valuing the aspect of experience, with a view to an empirical-critical method of LS. In turn, Stenzel deepens the theme in reference, discoursing on the liturgy as a theological locus.
On the other hand, Häussling (1982) notes that the liturgy needs dialogue with other theological disciplines, such as dogmatics, exegesis, and moral theology. For him, another cause for the lack of consideration of the liturgy in the theological field is a false idea of what liturgy is, now reformed and understandable. Furthermore, Lehmann (1980) writes about celebration as an expression of faith and considers that the “loci theologici” are the result of a scholastic methodology, and that theological science, over the years, has lost its connection with the liturgy of the Church. Lehmann aligns himself with the position of those theologians who see such collaboration closely linked to practical homiletic theology, pastoral theology, religious pedagogy, and catechetics, and in relation to the theology of the sacraments, especially in relation to the dogmatic perspective and moral theology, the law of the Sacraments, and ecumenism. Vorgrimler (1992), for his part, defends the liturgy as an argument for dogmatics. And he questions some issues concerning the liturgy with the intention of making efforts for greater cooperation between liturgy and dogmatics.
The theory of the sacraments, in Germany, gained ground in the seventies of the last century, according to Seils (1994), to the point of being in common use. In this sense, sacramentary found a new inspiration and underwent a profound change, and this seemed justified by the new expanded attention to the understanding of sacramentality. Such transformations can be substantially traced back to the “Church-sacrament” theology that marked the decline of the manualistic methodology, which was incapable of showing the coexistence of the effective signs of grace with the mystery of redemption. In Bozzolo’s reading (1999), the currents that became most significant from the perspective of a deepening of symbolic identity went in three directions: the sacrament as a symbol in the anthropological perspective of openness to the meaning of existence (Ratzinger (1966) and Kasper (1969)); the sacrament as a “praxis of hope,” that is, as a symbol in social and cultural dynamics (Schupp (1974), Schaeffler (1991), Schneider (1979), and Vorgrimler (1992)); the sacrament as a communicative symbol in the life of the Church (Hünermann (1982), Ganoczy (1984), and Lies (1990)).
According to Gerhards (2002), recent research increasingly postulates the question of method, taking into account the challenges to liturgical science arising from the current cultural and ecclesial context itself, which involve the ecclesial community in its liturgical understanding and participation, the ecumenical question, the historical-genetic-ritual question of the liturgy, the question of rituality, of theological liturgy itself or the theology of liturgy, of liturgical pastoral care, and of the human sciences. Thus, in the German context, there is not a single liturgical science, but various trends with research in the area of philology-history, systematic theology or anthropology, and the practical dimension.
An observation that can be highlighted in this context is the fact of the absence of a literature on the rite. This absence can be considered perhaps due to the lesser incidence of the liturgical debate, or perhaps because they dedicated themselves to the symbol, which is related to the rite. Certainly, such reflection would have offered significant elements and a reorientation of the sacramentalization that occurred in the German environment.
2.2 Francophone Context
In France, post-conciliar theology was marked by an intense dialogue with German theology. However, it also registers its original mark, namely the profound patristic and liturgical renewal, a most fruitful ecumenical dialogue, both with the faithful of the Reformation and with the Orthodox. French theological concern, more properly, turned to Christological questions, the theology of redemption, and the theological project itself intended to address the emerging issues with modern and postmodern culture.
According to Winling (1989), French Catholic theology has a profile that distinguishes it from those of other areas. France was characterized as a center of research and teaching for religious congregations, dialogue with thinkers representing various currents, and the rethinking of an adult spirituality for the laity of Catholic Action. It is worth highlighting the dialogue with philosophy which, however, should not be understood as its service in relation to the elaboration of a systematic theology, but as the fermentation of theology from numerous themes and problems typical of French philosophy that produces “la théologie herméneutique, la théologie de l’alterité de Dieu, la théologie pratique” (hermeneutical theology, the theology of God’s otherness, practical theology), in authors like Duquoc, Chauvet, Moingt who, influenced by the thought of Lévinas (1961), speak of God, not in ontological terms, but in terms of “otherness,” bearing in mind the close link that subsists between Trinitarian theology and the theology of the cross.
In the specifically theological-liturgical field, we have the emergence of the Institut Supérieur de Liturgie in October 1956, with Father B. Botte as its first Director and Father J.-M. Gy in charge of studies. We can say that the Institut intensely lived through two distinct phases: from 1956-1968, and then from 1968 to the present day. The first was characterized by a more historical-positive method; the second was marked by the colloquium organized by the Centre National de Pastorale liturgique, held in Leuven in June 1967, with the theme Liturgie et sciences humaines (Liturgy and Human Sciences), which was the decisive milestone for this second moment of the Institut’s existence. From then on, new sciences such as sociology, psychology, and semiology became indispensable for the study of the liturgy.
It is in this climate of dialogue between the human sciences and liturgy that we find Chauvet, who has been teaching at the Institut Supérieur de Liturgie since 1972, as well as at other Parisian study centers. The deeper question is no longer: how to celebrate the sacraments? But why do the sacraments exist? We can say that Chauvet, as well as several other scholars such as Gy, Didier, Bouyer, Dye, Hameline, Vergote, Dalmais, and Lukken, contributed to the renewal of liturgy and sacramental theology in dialogue with the human sciences.
From the point of view of sacramental theology, three significant stages can be considered: in the first stage, in the 1960s, research between sacramentary and anthropology would be born around the journal La Maison-Dieu, through an integration into the liturgical debate of the results of the human sciences, mainly the sociology of the assembly, the anthropology of symbol and rite, semiotics, history, and psychoanalysis. In the second stage, in the 1970s, several efforts of synthesis appeared, especially the works of Vergote and Didier – the latter had the merit of adopting a decisively anthropological point of view, considering the sacrament on the basis of rituality and symbol. And finally, the contribution of Chauvet (1979), who studies the liturgy from the anthropological dimension of the symbol. Considering that the classical theology of the efficacy of the sacraments is no longer relevant for the people of today, he proposes to face its reality from a symbolic perspective, thus creating the conditions for a new understanding of sacramental theology.
Chauvet’s proposal fully accepts the contribution of the human sciences: from the use of the philosophy of language to the inversion of the relationship between subject and object, which completely revolutionizes previous anthropological conceptions. It refers to the whole problem of the relationship between man/woman and reality: whatever the way of looking at the question, things are significant to the extent that they enter into communication with the existential condition itself and place it directly in question. If life is a problem for the faithful, if nothing is simple for them, it is because nothing is immediate: the kingdom of man/woman is that of mediation. Theological reflection, which has the sacraments as its object of study, should no longer consider them as object-intermediaries, which would act as a bridge between the believing subject and the transcendent God, but as an act of ecclesial language, in which the condition of the faith that is expressed there is realized.
Chauvet’s epistemological position, with regard to the configuration of the sacramental, finds common ground in the new epistemic scenarios of various European countries, but, at the same time, the novelty of his approach has also drawn criticism. In general, in Chauvet’s reflection, we see, without a doubt, an effort to go beyond the understanding of the extrinsicism between signum et res from the point of view of the symbolic and in overcoming what could seem reifying or magical in favor of a real understanding of the sacrament-celebration relationship, where the believer has an indispensable place, as a constitutive element, with their participation, overcoming the separation that can exist between experience and celebrative action.
Recently, Belli, with the result of his research on the “Interest of French Phenomenology for the Theology of the Sacraments” (2013), deepens the ontological and epistemological crisis of sacramental theology in the 20th century, presents an analytical hermeneutical reflection on the “Liturgical Question,” the response given by the Liturgical Movement, and with the contribution of sacramental theology. So that the “quaestio sacramentis” is profoundly rethought and exposed to new questions. The success of such an analysis opens up to the recent contribution of French phenomenology to the study of the sacraments from the perspective of three authors: J.-L. Marion, M. Henry, and E. Falque. Undoubtedly, Belli’s research (2013) offers a contribution in the interdisciplinary methodological determination of the work of reflection on the sacrament in the mediation between theology and philosophy, liturgical-sacramental.
2.3 Spanish Context
Regarding the relationship between liturgy and theology in this cultural context, the first study to be listed is from 1966, during the II Liturgical Congress of Montserrat, in which Vilanova (1966) gives a conference on the fifty years of the theology of liturgy. Vilanova provides a retrospective of the theology of liturgy, taking into consideration, mainly, the orientation given in this field by the pioneers of the Liturgical Movement, such as: Festugière, Beauduin, Cabrol, Gomà, Brinktrine, Oppenheim, Cappuyns, Dalmais, Pinto, and Parscher.
In the post-conciliar phase, López Martín (1982) reflects on the relationship between liturgy and faith, in particular the liturgy as a transmitter of faith, and establishes fields in which he outlines a still not very clear situation regarding this relationship. The first is the theological understanding of the liturgy itself, the second is the place of liturgy in the structuring of theology, and the third is the mutual implication between liturgy and catechesis in the order of the pedagogy of faith. In addition, Fernández (1985) outlines, in a didactic way, the distinction between what is liturgy and what is liturgical theology. The author goes on to state that the sacraments, before being a reflection, are liturgical actions. With this statement, Fernández opens his section on fundamental sacramentology in the journal Phase and clearly indicates what would be the prevailing orientation of sacramental research in the Spanish sphere. In Spain, according to Bozzolo (1999), more than in other cultural areas, the contact between systematic sacramentary and liturgical discipline became so close to the point that it is almost impossible to distinguish the specific competences. It can be added that, between the years 1991-1995, at least five treatises on fundamental sacramentary appeared.
The Liturgical Institute of the Center of Barcelona played an important role in the post-conciliar liturgical scene and, therefore, in the LSS sphere. Emblematic in this context is the collaboration of Borobio (1978), who, although situated in a Rahnerian horizon, in fact, adopts the decisive theses in an anthropological and ritual perspective proposed by French authors. His program finds expression not only in his personal publications but also in the work La celebración en la Iglesia. v. I (1985), coordinated by him, which aims to overcome the traditional separation between liturgy and sacrament. What is surprising in this work is the fact of the peaceful coexistence of such heterogeneous models, that is, the anthropological one with reference to the symbol and the rite, considering the sacraments as a symbolic expression of salvation in the fundamental situations of life, and that model of Rahner’s disciples, which attributes sacramentality to Christ, the Church, man/woman, and the world, before moving on to a sacramentality concentrated in the seven sacraments. And what prevails is not a systematic project between the liturgy and the sacraments, taking into consideration the sacrament from the celebration, but from the theory of the sacrament with a Rahnerian background.
2.4 Anglophone Context
The relationship between theology and liturgy is deepened, both in the Catholic and Evangelical fields. However, the reflection has followed and reacted to what happens, mainly on the European continent. Thus, we do not substantially have a proposal that goes beyond the parameters presented so far.
Taft (1982) presents in an article the synthesis of his conference at the University of Notre Dame – USA on Liturgy as Theology. The author considers both the uncommon evaluation of liturgy as a theological science and that liturgy is an object of theological investigation. Similarly, Lacugna revisits the question of whether the Liturgy can become a source for theology. And Driscoll (1994), on the other hand, seeks to establish a new relationship between liturgy and fundamental theology. He considers that in this relationship there are paths of possible work, partly already established, especially from the liturgical theology of Marsili (1974).
Likewise, Irwin (1994) elaborates a proposal for a liturgical theology and presents some observations on the method used in contemporary liturgical theology. For him, the method of the liturgical act should be articulated with the Word, the symbol, the eucology, and liturgical art. He discusses the contribution with which the theology that derives from the liturgy can carry out a contemporary discussion on the nature of teology. Irwin’s proposal constitutes a deepening, with a view to a global understanding of the liturgy, based on a first liturgy and a second liturgy, that is, a component, always theological-liturgical, that arises from the relationship of the two mentioned above, and which he calls a third theology, that is, a theology that concerns life, spirituality, morality, in relation to the mysteries of God and the Gospel, but experienced and celebrated in the liturgy. This third liturgy is in an intrinsic relationship with the “lex orandi, lex credendi” and brings a doxological perspective.
In summary, we can accept the viewpoint of O’Connell (1965), who considers that post-conciliar American research was characterized, on one hand, by the conciliar discussion and the reception of Sacrosanctum concilium, and on the other hand, by the translation of the works of Rahner and Schillebeeckx. In North America, especially, the starting point for rethinking the new sacramentary was the abandonment of the classic synthesis of De sacramentis in genere and the introduction of the personalist and existentialist perspective, centered on the notion of Christ-sacrament and of Church-sacrament. However, in the 1980s-1990s, there was an excess of new data, according to Levesque (1995), thus making a synthesis impossible to the point that Hellwig (1978) affirmed that sacramental theology, in the strict sense, had disappeared. In Bozzolo’s analysis (1999), a diffuse literature on the concept of the symbol is even detected, assumed as a suitable concept for the interpretation of sacramental reality. However, in relation to theoretical research, the practical-pastoral intention and the choice of a “theological dissemination” of the concepts that were circulating in Europe seem to prevail.
2.5 Brazilian Context
Post-conciliar liturgical reflection in Brazil is clearly marked by the following characteristics: dependence on European theology, in its various strands, but mainly the Central European one; deeply marked by the sociocultural situation in which the Latin American people live; pastorally oriented by the episcopal conferences of the continent, from Medellín, Puebla, Santo Domingo, and Aparecida; by a large number of young churches; by the challenges of ethnic minorities, particularly blacks and indigenous peoples; a theology focused on pastoral challenges, more than involved with university theoretical foundation, despite the constant and growing research in the Latin American context; a theology that lives in the moment, of creativity, anxious to respond to the urgent challenges of the communities and of liturgical-sacramental inculturation.
From a theological-liturgical point of view, much is owed to the creation of the Centro de Liturgia (Center for Liturgy) in São Paulo in 1987 (Adão, 2008). Through it, the Associação de Professores de Liturgia do Brasil (Association of Liturgy Professors of Brazil) was later constituted in 1987. From there, but not only, a markedly pastoral liturgical reflection departed, with a great spirit of animation and of creativity in all fields of liturgical pastoral care.
Undoubtedly, from the point of view of deepening LS, the work of Ione Buyst is truly significant. In fact, Buyst’s liturgical-pastoral activity had as its main goal the participation of the people in the preparation and in the celebration of a popular, prayerful liturgy that was an expression of a faith engaged in the transformation of the Latin American continent, as well as in the ecumenical search for world peace, in the search of an active pedagogy that involved the participation of those involved, and with a scientific methodology that started from the liturgical reality and articulated theory and practice, theology and pastoral care.
Furthermore, it sought to respond to two fundamental motives: first, the peculiarity of the liturgies celebrated, which form the real object of LS and are an expression of the peculiarity of the Church on this continent—the change in the real object requires new methods of approach and analysis. In fact, the liturgy as the “source and summit” of all ecclesial life (SC n.10) accompanies the changes that occur in the way of being or conceiving the Church on this continent. Buyst (1989) writes that the Latin American Church is one that has expressed itself and tried to define itself and its mission through the assemblies of the Latin American Episcopal Conference, which have profoundly marked post-conciliar ecclesial life on this continent. For the author, the Latin American ecclesial model is characterized by the perspective that the Church is born from the popular bases, aroused by the force of the Holy Spirit. The irruption of the poor into the Church, the dizzying growth in the number of ecclesial communities, their dynamism and vitality are considered the work of the Holy Spirit and not just the evangelizing effort of the Church-institution by order of Christ; that is, the ecclesiology of liberation is not based only on Christology, but mainly on a pneumatology (Buyst, 1989).
From this new liturgical practice, emerging in the Church of the poor and conveyed in evangelization, catechesis, and preaching, a new liturgical theology has been emerging, which should be taken up, evaluated, and either founded or rejected by a liturgical theology scientifically elaborated from this first theology lived in the communities. Some topics are already beginning to emerge: the privileged subject, summoned by God to the liturgical assembly, is the poor and oppressed people, gathered in communities; the same people are also the first recipients of the Good News, the gospel announced in the liturgy; the cry and lament of the people, expressed in the prayer of the faithful, have power before God, who hears their cry and comes down to do justice and liberate; the liturgy is community action: the entire community is a priestly people, participating in the priesthood of Jesus Christ; the Christ who is present in the liturgical assembly is the Christ who identifies with the poor; he has compassion on the people, to see and hear their problems, today as yesterday.
The publication of the Liturgy Manual promoted by CELAM, The Celebration of the Paschal Mystery (2004-2007), in four volumes, manifests the degree of theological-liturgical-sacramental maturation on the continent and is elaborated from the celebratory dimension of the paschal mystery of Christ, enriched by the mosaic of cultures, ethnicities, and religious traditions present in Latin America and the Caribbean, in addition to considering the symbolic expression of the body, dance, and dramatization in the liturgy. This pioneering work in this field also posits a greater deepening of the topics addressed from an anthropological perspective, in the sense of an education to the rite and through the rite, and based not only on verbal acts but also on non-verbal ones, as a mystagogical form for a contribution to the intellectus ritus.
In this sense, Taborda enriches the Brazilian theological-liturgical debate with a reflection on a “mystagogical approach to the sacraments” (2004). Such consideration is motivated by the need also postulated by the culture of postmodernity, for attention to the progression from celebration to theology, which leads to recognizing the liturgy as a theological locus. In itself, the path is not new, having been trodden by many, beginning with the Church Fathers. However, what we are pleased to underline is the fact that the Jesuit theologian works with the liturgy as the place of the expression of faith, where revelation becomes accessible to us. The source of theology is the faith of the Church, not only that which is explicit in dogmas and other verbalizations, but also the faith concretely lived in actions, works, symbols, and rites. These expressions of faith or theological loci constitute the first theology, theology in the freshness of its most legitimate and living expression. In it, theology and life merge and are intrinsically united. What theologians and the magisterium do is second theology. These conditions lead the author to work on the sacramental question of baptism and the Eucharist in a mystagogical approach, as a response to current challenges (Taborda, 2004).
2.6 Italian Context
The significant contributions in the Italian area revisit the richness of the Liturgical Movement as well as the theological-liturgical renewal triggered by the Second Vatican Council. Among the names, we can cite in the last four decades: from Cipriano Vagaggini to Zeno Carra, from Salvador Marsili to Ubaldo Cortoni, from Pelagio Visentin to Pierpaolo Caspani, from Emanuel Caronti to Manuel Belli, from A. M. Triacca to Elena Massimi, from Aldo Terrin to Giorgio Bonaccorso, from Silvano Maggiani to Loris Della Pietra, from Roberto Tagliaferri to Andrea Grillo.
The Italian context is undoubtedly privileged, in the sense that it had many good pioneering liturgists of the Liturgical Movement. It found in the Centro di Azione Liturgica an important instrument for the diffusion of liturgical reform in the context of liturgical pastoral care. Furthermore, the Pontifical Institute of Liturgy of Saint Anselm itself, inaugurated in Rome in 1961 with the purpose of training in the commitment of LS, was a competent and audacious partner, offering new horizons to be explored. Another significant reference was the creation of the Associazione di Professori di Liturgia, which through its study themes has sought to respond to the challenges of liturgy in a pastoral and theological key. And more recently, the creation of the Institute of Pastoral Liturgy of Santa Giustina in Padua, which is dedicated to the study of pastoral care, with a significant attention to the anthropological aspect, has qualitatively qualified the liturgical-sacramental debate.
The contribution of various masters marks the consistency of theological reflection in this context. Vagaggini (41965) and Marsili (1971) deepen the place of liturgy in the structuring of theological studies and as a locus theologicus. Visentin (1971) affirms that the liturgy itself has not always known how to take advantage of its status as a locus theologicus and claims that today theological science cannot be done as a closed compartment, something only for specialists in a solely intra-ecclesial environment. He also speaks of a liturgical dimension of dogmatic theology. Similarly, the contribution of Triacca (1986) is characterized by that concern to grasp the integral salvific reality: mysterium-actio-vita. In fact, Triacca passes through the understanding of the diaconal dimension of theology, in a line of rediscovery of the function of the liturgical act itself.
Tagliaferri (1996), on the other hand, centers his research as a phenomenology of the Christian rite. The researcher rereads Sacrosanctum Concilium and notes that the object of liturgical science is the rite. He dedicates himself to the formulation of a proposal he calls a “progetto di una scienza liturgica”, in which he seeks to found his work, considering that the object of LS, investigated in its aspect of mediation, therefore seems to be the rite, which is inscribed in the fundamental sacramental dynamism of Christ and the Church, but which maintains its own anthropological-cultural configuration. We can highlight, in Tagliaferri’s research on LSS, that the liturgy is a Christian rite, maintaining its own originality. This rite must bear the marks of all other rites, that is, it must be symbolic and playful if it wants to remain in the ritual sphere, and have the possibility of transgressing the first meaning; the rite, as such, does not disturb the encounter with Christ at all; on the contrary, it expresses its infinite riches, precisely through its inescapable anthropological involvement; in the end, it reveals itself as the most authentic possibility offered to man to enter into the mystery.
On the other hand, Bonaccorso (1996) carries out his liturgical epistemological approach concerning time, language, and ritual action, in which the liturgy is considered in its expressive and communicative structure, according to the sacramental dimension united to the concept of sign. This author is, therefore, attentive to the universe of semiotic language.
However, it is Grillo (1995) who sheds light on the fact that the ritus has always been necessary for the fides—while the intellectus fidei has developed from the beginning in the Church’s reflection, the intellectus ritus manifests itself as a new type of discourse, which is still viewed with suspicion and fear by today’s theology, as it only brought its demands to the forefront in the last century and has imposed itself on ecclesial attention and practice in the last fifty years. In the ecclesial sphere, there has been a true marginalization of the rite, even with attitudes of presupposition, distancing, and reintegration. The need to reintegrate the rite into the foundation of faith aims to reconstruct, at least theoretically, the global experience of faith in all its presuppositions, which necessarily, though never exclusively, also include specific ritual experiences.
More recently, Della Pietra (2012) examined the question of the liturgical rituum forma as a source of Christian life and highlighted the possibility of reflection for the implementation of a true “reform.” In fact, in the historical course of theological reflection and celebrative practice, the change in the concept of forma radically innovated the understanding of the sacrament and its efficacy structurally linked to its ritual aspect: this new perception, which significantly rehabilitates the rituum forma, can no longer be neglected or forgotten by the theology of the sacraments, by spiritual experience, by ordinary and extraordinary pastoral care, and by the mutual relationship between theological disciplines.
Such a conceptual framework was also employed in the research of both Paranhos (2017) and Buziani (2021), resulting in the recognition of the intrinsic correlation between sacramental theology, liturgy, and the human sciences. Without a courageous renewal of LSS, liturgical reform loses its meaning and closes in on itself, leaving space for nostalgia and improvisation, as unequivocally underlined in his reflection on the celebrative form and the theological form.
In his recent publication, Eucaristia, azione rituale, forme storiche e essenza sistematica, Grillo (2019) proposes a Manual in which he focuses on the original ritual action, through the systematic interpretation of the meaning and the historical, parallel, and rooted development between the actions and their interpretations. This cross-referencing of levels allows for the coherent restitution today of an intelligence of faith implicated in and nourished by the Eucharistic phenomenon. It recognizes the reality of the ritual intelligence of the faith of which the Eucharist is the source, precisely by operating per ritus et preces. In this sense, the proposal of Grillo’s Manual (2019) makes a qualitative leap from a rigid separation between the theological and ceremonial meaning of the rite, in the Eucharistic sphere, to a construction of a theology of the rite and the discovery of ritual action, thus restoring the value of the sacrament’s form.
3 Perspectives on a New Relationship (MEDEIROS, 2019, p. 598-603)
The current and open approaches for a new relationship between liturgy and sacramental theology, between ritual action and the meaning of faith, between liturgy and the life of the Church, between phenomenology and liturgy undoubtedly mark a scenario of paradigmatic change, that is, the epistemological passage from a theological-liturgical-sacramental perspective generally of signi et causae to a new approach generally of symboli et ritus, as a convergence initiated by the Liturgical Movement, deepened by Sacrosanctum Concilium and which has been maturing in the last two decades in relation to LSS.
The recent rereading of the relationship between liturgy and rite has made us aware of the question of the presupposition of the rite by classical theology, of a distancing from the rite by modern theology, and of a reintegration of the rite by contemporary theology for the recovery of the immediate presupposition with regard to theological mediation.
Indeed, it must be admitted that between the genre of ritus and the genre of signi there is no authentic substantial alternative, but only a conceptual difference: this difference, however, constitutes a mandatory and not at all optional or accessory passage for contemporary theology. Therefore, if one of the new aspects of understanding the sacraments is the possibility of understanding them in the rite, it is necessary to better clarify what consequences this difficult evolution may have for theology.
Certainly, the new ritual practice inaugurated by the liturgical reform, founded by a new systematic sacramental theology, is at the same time the principle of a new systematic elaboration, with the intertwining of theory and praxis, illuminated by the awareness of the “linguistic revolution” that allows us to deepen the ultimate value of the systematization of active participation.
The paradigmatic change that this transformation brought to contemporary theological sensibility, which we have not yet integrated into our liturgical-sacramental thinking, has nevertheless led to the passage to the new consideration of the sacrament in the sphere of the rite, as a form of reappropriation of theology through one of the presuppositions of the Christian experience of the God of Jesus Christ, and no longer the traditional LSS approach, which placed the sacrament only in the sphere of sign-meaning. The limit of this tradition was the understanding of the sacrament that the “rite could be decoded and transcribed into a discursive language, which allows for its easier understanding” (GRILLO, 2022b). Therefore, if one of the new aspects of understanding the sacraments is the possibility of re-understanding them in the sphere of the rite, it is precisely because the sacraments are not signs to be read, but actions to be performed, and it is up to theology to make the ritual moment a decisive interaction of the relationship between God and humanity, between grace and history, between mercy and ethical practice, between revelation and faith.
Conclusion
We can say that, among the various approaches to LSS considered above, certainly for the Latin American context, the approaches foreseen by the works of Maggiani (2002), in his proposal for a reading of a liturgical Ordo from a linear reading, performative analysis, and symbolic-functional analysis through which the liturgical text exists not only as a “text,” but is a text characterized for “action,” that is, the written text is to be translated “into action,” become significant and stimulating for research. The Liturgy Manual, vol. II: The Celebration of the Paschal Mystery, from CELAM (2007), with various collaborators, values the ritual form of the sacrament and the proposal of Buyst (1989) with his itinerary of how to study liturgy. Taborda (2004), starting from the celebration to the theology of the sacraments with a mystagogical approach, responds to postmodern challenges without submitting to them, but works with the grand narrative of the history of salvation, the valorization of the sacred, ecclesial tradition, and for the encounter with the mystery in the sacramental signs. Grillo, in his recent proposal of a Manual on Eucharist, based on ritual action (2019), inaugurates a new period aiming for a unitary scenario between liturgical and sacramental action.
The journey taken, in a diachronic and synchronic way, has made us touch the provisionality of the method. The liturgy and the sacraments are means. Not ends. Thus, LSS is oriented towards a goal while the sacraments live from/in the source, like fish in the river, which is the celebration itself. And the celebration will always be a means, through which the faithful celebrate, live, and think essentially the mysteries of Christ’s salvation in the actuosa participatio.
Damásio Medeiros – Unisal-Pio XI, São Paulo. Text received on 05/20/2022; approved on 09/25/2022; posted on 12/30/2022. Original Portuguese text.
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