Aidan Kavanagh, in On Liturgical Theology, unequivocally states that liturgical theology is primary theology . In other words, the worshipping community expresses its theology through liturgy; theology is not imposed on liturgy secondarily. “….Liturgical worship….is itself fundamental to and constitutive of the faithful community and also of the ways in which that community reflects upon itself theologically.” In addition, he situates himself firmly in Prosper’s ut legem credendi lex statuat supplicandi school of liturgical theology, not the oft-misquoted lex orandi lex credenti. Before discussing the rationale for his understanding of liturgy as primary theology, Kavanagh outlines the biases he brings to the study of liturgical
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In his view, then, the history of liturgical development has been littered with pitfalls. He bemoans the fact that beginning in the Middle Ages, the emphasis was placed on the symbolic meaning of liturgical acts and events without recourse to structure, so that by the 16th century “right doctrine” had replaced “right worship.” He notes that Elizabeth I’s Act of Uniformity of 1549 established a single liturgy, outlined in The Booke of the Common Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments, and other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church, after the Use of the Churche of England as normative. This was followed by the Council of Trent’s establishment of the Roman Canon in 1614. The wide availability of printed documents certainly hastened these developments; Kavanagh did not see either as positive. “Orthodoxia, right worship, in both translations and in the mentality which produced them, has become orthopistis, right believing, or orthodidasascalia, right teaching, and both are by the context centered upon church officials.” The result, according to Kavanagh, and not a salutary one, is that liturgy ceased to be primary theology, effectively reversing lex supplicandi legem statuat …show more content…
Stripping rite and symbol from liturgy in favor of the written word altered its function for the believing community. He cites baptism and the Eucharist as examples which reveal the way Christians understand their faith and find themselves transformed in the presence of God in the assembled body at worship each and every time they gather together. This, he says, is primary liturgical theology: the living out of Gospel imperative by the believing community through its worship. Liturgy, he argues, “exists first of all not be to read or studied but to be done” because it is in the doing, that the worshiper is constantly meeting God and being met by God. It is in the Word proclaimed, the mystery of the sacraments, and the community’s response of petition, praise and thanksgiving, that liturgy is revealed to be of God and about the believers’ relationship with and to
In his view, then, the history of liturgical development has been littered with pitfalls. He bemoans the fact that beginning in the Middle Ages, the emphasis was placed on the symbolic meaning of liturgical acts and events without recourse to structure, so that by the 16th century “right doctrine” had replaced “right worship.” He notes that Elizabeth I’s Act of Uniformity of 1549 established a single liturgy, outlined in The Booke of the Common Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments, and other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church, after the Use of the Churche of England as normative. This was followed by the Council of Trent’s establishment of the Roman Canon in 1614. The wide availability of printed documents certainly hastened these developments; Kavanagh did not see either as positive. “Orthodoxia, right worship, in both translations and in the mentality which produced them, has become orthopistis, right believing, or orthodidasascalia, right teaching, and both are by the context centered upon church officials.” The result, according to Kavanagh, and not a salutary one, is that liturgy ceased to be primary theology, effectively reversing lex supplicandi legem statuat …show more content…
Stripping rite and symbol from liturgy in favor of the written word altered its function for the believing community. He cites baptism and the Eucharist as examples which reveal the way Christians understand their faith and find themselves transformed in the presence of God in the assembled body at worship each and every time they gather together. This, he says, is primary liturgical theology: the living out of Gospel imperative by the believing community through its worship. Liturgy, he argues, “exists first of all not be to read or studied but to be done” because it is in the doing, that the worshiper is constantly meeting God and being met by God. It is in the Word proclaimed, the mystery of the sacraments, and the community’s response of petition, praise and thanksgiving, that liturgy is revealed to be of God and about the believers’ relationship with and to