CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA

LITURGY AS THEOLOGICAL EVENT:

REFLECTION ON IRWIN’S CONTEXT AND TEXT

BY

NATHAN D. MARCH

DR. MARK M. MOROZOWICH

TRS 640 – INTRO LITURGY & SACRAMENTS

FEBRUARY 16 2004

Kevin Irwin in his book Context and Text: Method in Liturgical Theology, in an effort to deepen the renewal promulgated by Sacrosanctum Concilium addresses Mark Seale’s assessment that, “any revival of the liturgical movement must seek to reopen the dialog with systematic theology.”[1] His aim in the first two chapters of the book is to explore the relationship between liturgy and theology and to propose a method for doing liturgical theology. He begins the book with a historical overview of Prosper of Aquitaine’s formulation lex orandi, lex credendi, which reveals the nature of the relationship between theology and liturgy as dialectic: theology influences liturgy and liturgy is a source for theology.  He notes that history shows that too much emphasis on one side of the formulation can result in liturgical fundamentalism or liturgical proof-texting.[2] 

Irwin suggests that emphasis on liturgy as event can set the framework for a new method in liturgical theology.[3] By shifting the focus away from an emphasis on just the liturgical texts, his proposed method attempts to establish a hermeneutical method which gives them their due weight and refrains from isolating them from their native setting.[4] This effort to see liturgy as more than just the liturgical texts marks a sharp shift from the comparative method promoted by Baumstark and Taft. 

Irwin’s basic premise in chapter 2 is that liturgy is fundamentally orthodoxia prima, a theological event.[5]  He defines liturgy as:

  An act whereby the believing Church addresses God, enters into dialog with God, makes statements about its beliefs in God and symbolizes this belief through a variety of means including creation, words, manufactured objects, ritual gestures and actions. (Irwin, 44)

He uncovers the notion of liturgy as primary theology, as the direct encounter with God and only secondarily as reflection on the act of liturgy.[6]  In this respect, the term orthodoxy, is primarily a reference to “right praise” and only in a derived sense does it mean “right teaching”.[7]  Therefore, theology about liturgy or theology drawn from liturgy is always indirect and secondary.  Irwin cites Lukken as maintaining that the liturgy is quite properly the first source and norm of faith from which correct teaching is derived.[8] Further reflection on liturgy as theological act uncovers theologia tertia, or the essential relatedness of liturgy to living the Christian life.[9]  Thus he concludes that what is intrinsic to the formulation lex orandi, lex credendi is that the rule of prayer reflects both the rule of belief and the rule of right living.[10]           

Irwin’s approach departs from the comparative methodology proposed by Taft which made no attempt to relate liturgy and theology. Proponents of the comparative method sought to study liturgical texts with the certainty attainable in the exact sciences.[11]  Underlying their method is a particular notion of the relationship between history and tradition.  One of Bradshaw’s principles is that the text must always be studied in context, sitz im leben.[12] Taft understands the context of a given text to be situated within a liturgical history.  He states, “history is a science not of past happenings, but of present understanding…liturgical history, therefore, does not deal with the past, but with tradition, which is a genetic vision of the present, a present conditioned by the past.”[13]  Taft wants to advance the understanding of the liturgy and this means recognizing that the work of history is always of the present and never done.[14]  The aim of the comparative method is to free the historian from the presuppositions of the present in order to understand the past in its own terms.[15]  Only by liberating oneself from the prejudices of the present can a more objective account of the origin and growth of liturgy become apparent.[16]  In this way, Taft sees himself as a liturgical scientist, standing outside as an objective observer who accumulates scientific liturgical data. 

Taft notes that the only way to understand liturgy is to understand it in motion.[17] In this regard, he states, history frees us from absolutizing the past or present by revealing the changing patterns, the relativity, of our practice and doctrine.[18] Taft’s aim is purely historical, he does not consider it the role of historical analysis to determine which present liturgical practices should or should not be.  In his opinion, to do so would be to confuse history and theology.[19]  What is essential is the commonality of traditions that reveals the inner structure of the liturgy since the structure outlives the meaning.[20]

The hermeneutical method proposed by Irwin understands that the ecclesial and cultural settings in which liturgy takes place (context) influences the way people experience and interpret the liturgy (text).  Moreover, the text necessarily influences the Church’s theology, spirituality and life (context).[21]  Thus context is text and text shapes context.  Irwin affirms the usefulness of historical study of the liturgy by admitting that part of the context of the liturgical act is preconditioned by an evolution of liturgical forms and an evolution of the understanding of the liturgy.[22] Although Irwin considers Taft’s description of the importance of history for method useful in liturgical studies and liturgical theology, the notion of liturgy as theological act calls into question some of the presuppositions of the comparative method.[23]

If liturgy is theological act and context is text, the liturgical rites can only be adequately understood and interpreted theologically in relation to their experienced context.[24]  Additionally, since text shapes context, theology about liturgy necessarily shapes the experience of those who participate in liturgy.[25]  In this respect, to what extent can a historical critical study of the liturgical rites, as intended by Taft, be free of the act of liturgy itself to engage in objective scientific analysis?  To what extent can one be a detached observer of liturgy?  Since reflection about liturgy as theological act is secondary, all knowledge and understanding that could be attained outside the act itself would be indirect.  Certainly, the desire of the comparative method proponents for scientific certainty would necessitate direct first order knowledge.  Furthermore, since liturgy is also related to right Christian living as defined by congruence with the mystery of God experienced in the liturgy, to what extend can one have direct first order knowledge as a detached observer, without conforming one’s life to it?[26] 

It seems that an understanding of liturgy as theological act precludes any notion of detached observation or liberation from contemporary prejudices. It seems that for any direct knowledge of the liturgy the encounter of God with man is presupposed.  Furthermore, the encounter with the self-emptying transformative love of God defines appropriate Christian response.  Mediator Dei remarks about participation at liturgy, “It is necessary that the faithful offer themselves as sacrifice”.[27] Detachment from the encounter, would also seem to go against Sacrosanctum Concilium’s exhortation that, “Christ’s faithful, when present at this mystery of faith, should not be there as strangers or silent spectators.”[28]