Abstract
Phenomenology enriches our awareness of the robust relationship between the appearances of things and those things in themselves. Through this modern philosophical tool, the manner of appearance of things is discov- ered to have an ontological density often ignored if not denied prior to the work of Edmund Husserl in the early twentieth century. According to Robert Sokolowski ‘manifestation in all its forms is a dimension of being’ (Eucharistic Presence, p. 32): in other words, the appearance of a thing is an aspect of the being of the thing itself. Such observations bear strikingly on the field of liturgical theology, inasmuch as formal worship constitutes both a funda- mental moral action and at the same time a set of what might be called aesthetic gestures or acts, often evaluated in terms of solemnity, beauty, simplicity vs. elaborateness, and the like. Applied to worship, then, phenom- enology keeps both of these aspects in play. Another benefit of the phenom- enological approach is its power, in virtue of the bridge (re)forged between the thing and its manifestation, to turn ‘mere metaphors’ into analogies. Consequently, one may begin to explore in new ways the relationships between the phenomenon of Christian worship and other phenomena of group activity, such as education. This article mounts such an exploration, by first describing the historical experience of teaching an introductory class on Christian worship, then evaluating that experience through the lens of Sokolowski’s phenomenological theology. The project is framed within the context of the opening statement of paragraph three of Sacrosanctum Concilium, which asserts that the sacraments have, among others, a dimension ‘pertaining to instruction’. The paper aims to shed light on the question, how do Catholics in the pew learn what Joseph Ratzinger has referred to as ‘the right way to give the faith its central form of expression in the liturgy’?
Notes
1 ‘Sacramenta ordinantur ad sanctificationem hominum, ad aedificationem Corporis Christi, ad cultum denique Deo reddendum; ut signa vero etiam ad instructionem pertinent’ (Second Vatican Council, Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium (4 December 1963), n. 59).
2 See Joseph Ratzinger, Feast of Faith, trans. by Graham Harrison (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1986), p. 66; Joseph Ratzinger, The Spirit of the Liturgy, trans. by John Saward (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2000), especially chapters 1 and 2.
3 It is precisely this dual ramification of the single term ‘worship’ that pleads for a phenomenological analysis of the complex reality to which that term refers: inasmuch as phenomenology enriches our awareness of the robust relationship between the appearances of things and those things in themselves. As will be seen shortly, the current paper aims to satisfy this plea, in a constructive, if limited way.
4 Though the author has very much in mind the American Catholic scene, one may at this historical moment surely venture the same question in universal terms.
5 The Spirit of the Liturgy, p. 8; my emphasis.
6 To press the metaphor, setting two lenses at the wrong ‘distance’ from one another will damage, rather than enhance, perception of the object. Given such a risk, it is hoped that the procedure employed here will not result in mutual interference between these two curious ocular devices.
7 Robert Sokolowski, Eucharistic Presence: A Study in the Theology of Disclosure (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1994), p. 32. From these brief descriptions one might surmise — correctly — that the phenomenological enterprise is closely akin to the field of (both philosophical and theological) aesthetics. In the latter case the subject of inquiry is aisthēsis — perception or experience. Insofar as one necessarily has an experience of a thing or things, the relationship between the experience and the thing experienced inevitably becomes as central to the investigation as is the relation between the thing and its appearance for phenomenology. Sokolowski appeals to the thought of Hans Urs von Balthasar to illuminate the kinship between aesthetic and phenomenological modes of inquiry: see Eucharistic Presence, pp. 205–06.
8 For the close parallel between aesthetics and phenomenology, see note 7 above.
9 Sokolowski’s actual words have already been cited above. See note 7 for the citation.
10 Eucharistic Presence, p. 7.
11 Eucharistic Presence, p. 8.
12 Eucharistic Presence, p. 6.
13 Eucharistic Presence, pp. 139–41.
14 Eucharistic Presence, p. 144.
15 Eucharistic Presence, p. 191.
16 Perhaps the more familiar terms for this brand of theological discourse would be dogmatic or systematic theology.
17 Eucharistic Presence, p. 201.
18 Cf. Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, I–II, q. 111, q. 1, corp.
19 Eucharistic Presence, pp. 207, 208, respectively.
20 This line of reasoning has implications, by the by, for the recovery of Catholic higher education — if such is possible — from the death grip of the Kantian model of the modern university — whether openly embraced or half-heartedly dissembled — according to which all intellectual endeavour is conducted on analogy to the natural sciences, their methodologies and divisions.
21 Notably Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium (21 November 1964; cf. n. 55); and Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World, Gaudium et Spes (7 December 1965; cf. n. 77).
22 The Feast of Faith, p. 66.