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Liturgical Mysticism
David W. Fagerberg
Emmaus Academic (2019). 200 pp.
David W. Fagerberg of the University of Notre Dame is our generation’s Alexander Schmemann or Aidan Kavanagh when it comes to liturgical theology. Fagerburg unlocks for us the depth of the triune God’s activity in, through, and by the liturgy, the liturgical community, and the liturgical life.
This present volume culminates his previous works: Theologia Prima: What is Liturgical Theology? (Hillenbrand Books, 2012) and On Liturgical Asceticism (The Catholic University of America Press, 2013). He sums up the relationship of liturgical theology, liturgical asceticism, and liturgical mysticism in this way:
Liturgical asceticism kneads both body and soul with that resurrection power; liturgical mysticism looks fixedly at the mystery, who is Christ risen; and liturgical theology illuminates our world and our place in it. Liturgical mysticism is the Trinitarian mystery, mediated by sacramental liturgy and hypostasized as personal Liturgy, to anchor the substance of our lives (149, emphasis original).
Where liturgical asceticism has to do with the disciplined, lifelong, consistent apprenticing of the mind and heart to devotion to God, liturgical mysticism connects what is happening in our lives to the triune God. Fagerberg puts it precisely:
To my ears, this is a fine definition of liturgical mysticism: the Paschal mystery hypostasizing in our hearts. Liturgy’s business is to celebrate the Paschal mystery, and when it does, the mystery hypostasizes in us, descends to us, takes up its home in us, becomes the substance of our lives . . . Christ’s God-manhood is the prototype of the icon we are mystically becoming (78).
Fagerberg awakens us to the power of the mysteries of God when the gathered worshipping community prays to the Lord, praises God, hears the Words of Institution, celebrates and receives the Eucharist/Lord’s Table/Communion, sees and touches and receives the baptismal waters. This is far from the individualistic, quick fixes that pass for “worship” with smoke, lights, and screens where we watch our clocks to get to the fellowship hour. Fagerberg is calling our attention to the dense texture of the relational dynamic between the triune God relating with and engaging believers in worship, to believers responding in their lives as the mind and heart of Christ are being inscribed upon believers, and to the people we are becoming to the glory of God. In this way, all of life—the entirety of our life—is worship, is liturgical, is as Jacob’s ladder, a continuous heaven-earth descent and ascent.
Neal D. Presa is an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA) and the interim associate vice president for admissions and a faculty member at New Brunswick Theological Seminary in New Jersey. He also helps lead the World Council of Churches Central and Executive Committees. He’s the author of numerous books and is a member of the St. Augustine Fellowship of the Center for Pastor Theologians.
