On Liturgical Theology

Not going to repeat other reviewers. Being relatively well read, this book is VERY impressive. Fr. Kavanaugh's vantage point is high and his view comprehensive. This book is going to frame my thoughts for some time.

Aidan Kavanaugh's modern classic On Liturgical Theology is the book version of his 1981 Hale Lectures at Seabury-Western Theological Seminary, an Episcopal/Anglican seminary in Illinois. This lecture series is rather prestigious and has historically had a number of great scholars participate, eventually turning their lectures into equally great books. The Hale Lectures are not focused just on Episcopal/Anglican issues, however; from their earliest days they had an ecumenical edge, and this is continued with the present volume. Kavanagh's major point in this book is that liturgy is "first theology" - that is, orthodoxy is defined be liturgical worship, not by what is written in tomes of academic theology that often have little to do with the corporate life of the Church Catholic. This book comes rather late in the mid-20th century's "ecumenical movement" which was also joined to the "liturgical movement" of the same century (indeed, these two overlapped quite heavily). Thus, by the time that Kavanagh delivered this particular thesis in these particular lectures, he wasn't saying anything new as such. Rather, it is best to think of this little book as summarizing in a succinct fashion the major trends and movements in the liturgical and ecumenical movements of the mid-20th century. To many, these conclusions are so obvious as to not even need to be argued any more, but merely a few decades ago, this was not the case - and we do well to keep this in mind. The new historiography of Christian liturgy set forth by the liturgical movement of the 20th century was nothing short of absolutely revolutionary. Some readers might be rather surprised to find that Kavanagh spends quite a lot of time discussing philosophy and the social sciences, particularly in the first part of the book, which is entitled "Liturgy and World." The second part of the book, "Liturgy and Theology," is actually where he begins to write about liturgical theology. I think that what Kavanagh is implying here, however, is that first comes nature - world - and that this is then completed by grace - theology, conceived of first and foremost as worship (rather than as abstracted propositions, etc.). What unites nature/world with grace/theology is liturgy. Thus, no matter how one wishes it to be, within Kavanagh's framework we are all liturgical beings at our very core, whether in the world or in the Church as well (73). The real upshot of this, however, is for those who are in the Church, for they must recognize that they are in the world first. Being in the world thus necessitates considering academic insights and understandings, even when this is less than fully comfortable. All of the academic rigor that is found in these early chapters comes to an open apex when Kavanagh delves deeply not into just what it is that the liturgy has historically involved, but what it is that liturgy actually does. In fact, this latter question pertaining to what liturgy does is what seems

I couldn't recommend this book more highly! For my money, nobody has explained how God meets World in and through the Church at worship better than Fr. Kavanagh. Many think that any theology is (and is about) words--a logocentric enterprise. For Kavanagh, on the other hand, the Logos (Christ) is the true dynamo of theological enquiry ... and that only finds its true genesis in the liturgy: "The liturgy is nothing more nor less than the Body corporate of Christ Jesus, suffused with his Spirit and assembled in time and place, doing its best by doing the world as the world issues constantly from God's creating and redeeming hand....[L]iturgy's tombs and crosses, blood and altars, keep us anchored in the brutal reality of who we are." An almost transcendent delight overflows his writing because he summons us to the mystery only to be encountered in the midst of a people worshipping their God. Here, the world is made new; here, we meet our God and receive Presence by grace.