On Liturgical Theology

by Aidan Kavanagh

Nearly everything that theologians write on liturgy, Father Kavanagh notes, is often called liturgical theology, although on closer examination such works appear to be either dogmatic theologies about the liturgy or systematic theologies making use of liturgical data. None truly reflects how liturgy shapes theology or is theology or even relates to theology.

This work is Father Kavanagh's effort to substantiate the existence of a truly liturgical theology. It will raise almost as many questions as it answers, but it will also further insight into theology and liturgy as it assays their relationship.

243 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1984

Reviews

[Clay · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must read for those who on Sunday have ever asked, “What is it we’re doing? How are we to do it? Why that way?”

“The darkness is only the way mortal eyes and minds register a dazzling clarity which is so bright that it overloads creaturely circuits and threatens to burn them out. For as we approach the core of liturgical structures and endeavor, what we encounter there is not data or issues but the Presence of a Holy One who must mask itself in Word and flesh and sacrament and sense out of respect for our weakness if we are to be able to sit at table with it as ‘friends.’”