Sacred Liturgy: The Source and Summit of the Life and Mission of the Church by Various

Sacred Liturgy: The Source and Summit of the Life and Mission of the Church by Various

Author:Various [Various]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Spiritual & Religion
ISBN: 9781681494128
Publisher: Ignatius Press
Published: 2014-05-29T05:00:00+00:00


14

Liturgical Catechesis and the New Evangelization

NICOLA BUX

The Meaning of the Sacred Liturgy

The basis for the relation between catechesis and liturgy is the fact that through the liturgy Revelation is transmitted “in its solemn or ordinary form”, (John Paul II, Catechesi Tradendæ, 52), making it possible to encounter Jesus Christ, that is, to have the experience of faith; a human being cannot encounter Him merely through the word, but also in gestures laden with His divine presence.1 Just as the words and the gestures in Sacred Scripture cannot be divided, so too the Word cannot be separated from the Eucharist, catechesis from the sacraments, adoration from communion, because that would mean separating Christ’s divine nature from His human nature, as though the Word had not been made flesh. The Catholic Faith is proposed in the sacramental encounter, which is made up of gestures and words, of signs, beauty, lights, images and splendor, as is particularly evident in the Eastern liturgies. The encounter with the Lord occurs in the mysteries according to times and manners that are different for each person—an experience that Paul describes as a process of perceiving the form and of rapture, we might say of aesthetics and ecstasy: “And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being changed into his likeness from one degree of glory to another; for this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit” (2 Cor 3:18).

The constant search for the sacred delineates the ample extent of the mystery: man can be caught up and transported to it through contemplation or more simply can adhere to it with his intellect and will, thanks to revelation. There are some signs of the marvelous exchange between heaven and earth, between the divine and the human that was inaugurated by the Incarnation of the Word. Jesus Christ, “the fairest of the sons of men” (Ps 45:2), the paradox of the one who is the fairest and at the same time “had no form or comeliness that we should look at him” (Is 53:2): he is, according to the famous remark by Dostoevsky, the “beauty [that] will save the world”.2

Nothing succeeds better in establishing this contact than the art created by faith and the face of the saints which is to be sought every day, as the Didache exhorts us. For the purpose of learning to see and to know the divine beauty, according to John Damascene, “gnosis” or concepts that create idols are useless; what is necessary is wonder: one can say that the understanding of the Christian mystery begins with adoration. Mystical theologians from Dionysius the Areopagite to John of the Cross started with the form of being so as to arrive at the interior spirit, according to the method of the Incarnation of the Word: “the true light that enlightens every man was coming into the world” (Jn 1:9); they showed the convergence, in a certain way, of mysticism and aesthetics. God revealed Himself, manifested His form to mankind; we,



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