55.4.3 (1) Sacramentology

Theological Studies
55 (1994)
CURRENT THEOLOGY
SACRAMENTAL THEOLOGY: A REVIEW OF LITERATURE
INTRODUCTION
The aim of this review, offered in several parts,* is to give an over-

view of studies in Roman Catholic sacramental theology, with enough
bibliographical references to facilitate further inquiry in the major
Western languages.1 Because of the extensive literature in the field,
though contributions on the theology of individual sacraments are
many and important, it was decided to focus on methods employed in
doing sacramental theology and on general theory. Furthermore,
given the enormous number of titles, the years 1980 and 1993 have
been taken to set the terms of reference.2 The survey covers mainly
European, North American, and Latin American contributions, with
some reference to works from Africa and Asia.
* The sections dealing with Postmodern Approaches, Feminist Theology, African and
Asian Contributions (Sections 3 through 5), and the Conclusion were written by David
N. Power, O.M.I. Section 1, The Post-Rahnerian Formulation, is by Regis A. Duffy,
O.F.M., and Section 2, on Liberation Theology, is by Kevin W. Irwin. All three authors
contributed to the Introduction.
1
Though the interchange among Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant theologies is
important, the field is so large that it was decided to concentrate here on specifically
Roman Catholic contributions, even while recognizing that these have been enriched by
contact with other traditions, Christian and Jewish.
2
A number of review articles have appeared during that period in different languages.
In alphabetical order, these are: Dionisio Borobio, "Cristologia y sacramentología," Sal-
manticensis 31 (1984) 5-47; Henri Bourgeois, "Bulletin de Théologie Sacramentaire,"
Recherches de Science Religieuse 72 (1984) 291-318; 75 (1987) 379-414; 78 (1990)
591-624; 82 (1994) 103-31; Kevin W. Irwin, "Recent Sacramental Theology: A Review
Discussion," The Thomist 47 (1983) 592-603; 52 (1988) 124-47; 53 (1989) 281-313;
Lothar Lies, "Trinitätsvergessenheit gegenwärtiger Sakramententheologie?" Zeit-
schrift für katholische Theologie 105 (1983) 290-314; Luis Maldonado Arenas, "Los
movimentos de la sacramentología," Revista Española di Teología 51 (1991) 43-55;
Joseph Martos, "Sacraments in the 1980s: A Review of Books in Print," Diakonia 22
(1991) 130-42; Domenico Sartore, "Alcuni recenti trattati di sacramentaria fondamen-
tale: Considerazioni di un liturgista," Rivista Liturgica 75 (1988) 321-39; Arno Schilson,
"Erneuerung des Sakramententheologie im 20. Jahrhundert," Liturgisches Jahrbuch 37
(1987) 18-41; idem, "Symbolwirklichkeit und Sakrament: Ein Literaturbericht." Li-
turgisches Jahrbuch 40 (1990) 26-52; Arno Schilson/Dario Zadra, "Symbol und Sakra-
ment," in Christlicher Glaube in Moderner Gesellschaft, vol. 28 of Enzyklopädische Bi-
bliothek (Freiburg/Basel/Wien: Herder 1982) 86-150; A. Schmied, "Perspektiven und
Akzente heutiger Sakramententheologie," Wissenschaft und Weisheit 44 (1981) 17-45;
A. M. Triacca, "Ter una trattazione dei sacramenti in prospettiva liturgica: Approccio ad
un sondaggio di opinione," Rivista Liturgica 75 (1988) 340-58.
657
658 THEOLOGICAL STUDIES
Disciplinary Complexity
The complexity of current sacramental theology may be seen from a
brief inspection of the new bibliography published at the Gregorian
University Press by Maksimilijan 2itnik3 for the period between 1960
and 1988. A look at the indices in the fourth volume shows how intri-
cate the discipline has become and how much it draws on other fields
of research. Under "Sacraments in General," beside traditional issues
such as matter and form, institution and causality, one finds such
items as rite and ritual, festival, symbol, iconography, anthropological
dimension, and sociology. In the general index of entries there are
headings on women, feminism, family, and popular religion, as well as
on liturgy and each of the seven sacraments of Catholic tradition.
Such a bibliography is witness to the fact that there is no easy
distinction between liturgy and sacrament. To take but one example,
one cannot study the sacraments of initiation without reference to the
liturgical year and to the rites of the catechumenate. Thus manuals
such as L'Eglise en Prière,4 Gottesdienst der Kirche,5 Anamnesis,6 La
celebración en la Iglesia,7 by including individual sacraments under
the general heading of "Liturgy" place them in what is their proper
context, not only for purposes of history but also for theological reflec-
tion. Furthermore, along with historical, liturgical, and theological
considerations, this permits the study of sacraments as rituals, in
which there is a considerable interaction of corporal, visual and verbal
expressions, all having a relation to cultural experience and tradition.
An interesting study along these lines is provided by the Institute of
Pastoral Liturgy in Padua, Italy which has published three series of
books reflecting an interdisciplinary, praxis approach to liturgy and
sacraments. The first series includes explorations of the experience of
God in worship and liturgy as an act of communication,8 studies of how
3
Maksimilijan Zitnik, Sacramenta, Bibliographia Internationalis, 4 vols. (Rome: Pon-
tifìcia Universitas Gregoriana, 1992).
4
L'Eglise en Prière; ET: The Church at Prayer: An Introduction to the Liturgy, ed.
Aimé Georges Martimort, introd. Gerard S. Sloyan, trans. Matthew J. O'Connell, 4 vols,
in 1 (CoUegeville: Liturgical, 1992).
5
Gottesdienst der Kirche: Handbuch der Liturgiewissenschaft, ed. Bernard Meyer et
al. (Regensburg: Pustet, 1983- ).
6
Anamnesis: Introduzione storico-teologica alla liturgia, ed. Salvatore Marsili (Turin:
Marietti, 1983- ).
7
J. M. Canals et al., La celebración en la iglesia, dir. Dionisio Borobio (Salamanca:
Siguemi, 1985; 2d ed. 1988).
8
All books are published under the auspices of the Abbey of Santa Giustina under the
general title of Caro Salutis Cardo and are published by Edizioni Messagero Padova.
SACRAMENTAL THEOLOGY 659
the proclaimed Word is interpreted in the act of liturgy,9 and studies of
specific topics such as Eucharist and ecumenism, the theology of con-
firmation, and the role of the ordained minister in liturgy.10
The second, most comprehensive series includes two volumes by Pe-
lagio Visentin entitled Culmen et Fons comprising a veritable ency-
clopedia of liturgical study. The first volume describes in detail how
the paschal mystery of Christ is celebrated in the Church through the
sacraments, the liturgical year, and the hours. Methodologically, the
liturgy itself serves as the fundamental theological source for this
exposition.11 This guides the work of the second volume concerning the
process and progress of the reform of the liturgy (especially in Italy)
and how the liturgy enlivens the inner dynamic of the Christian life.12
A complement to this magnum opus describes the praxis method of the
Santa Giustina Institute. It contains essays by distinguished Italian
liturgical scholars such as Salvatore Marsili, Luigi Sartori, Franco
Brovelli, and Domenico Sartore.13 These authors deal with the rela-
tionship between liturgy and contemporary theological discourse, pas-
toral theology,14 the interdisciplinary approach to the study of litur-
gical celebration, and the relation of liturgy to catechesis. Other titles
in this series include a rather complete assessment of the liturgical
reform and the theology of ordained ministry.15
Of the two titles in the third series of Santa Giustina publications,
the first, by Giorgio Bonaccorso, is a most helpful, synthetic mono-
This first series is entitled "Contributi" and includes Liturgia, soglia dell'esperienza di
Dio? ed. A. N. Terrin (1982), Communicazione e ritualità: La celebrazione liturgica alla
verifica delle leggi della communicazione, ed. L. Sartori (1988).
9
Dall'esegesi all'ermeneutica attraverso la celebrazione, ed. R. Cecolin (1991), and two
in preparation: La parola ispirata genera l'eucologia: L'eucologia rigenera la parola, and
La parola nella dinamica celebrativa.
10
Eucaristia sfida alle Chiese divise, ed. L. Sartori (1984), Celebrare confermazione:
Rassegna critica dell'attuale dibattito teologico sul sacramento, ed. A. Cechinato (1987),
and Sacerdozio e mediazioni: Le varie forme di mediazioni nell'esperienza della Chiesa e
il ministero ordinato, ed. R. Cecolin (1991).
11
Culmen et Fons: Raccolta di studi di liturgia e spiritualità, ed. R. Cecolin and F.
Trolese, voi. 1 (1987); the subtitle is Mysterium Christi ab Ecclesia Celebratum.
12
Also published in 1987, this second volume is subtitled (Lex orandi) e (JLex credendi).
13
Una liturgia per l'uomo: La liturgia pastorale e i suoi compiti, ed. P. Visentin, Α. Ν.
Terrin and R. Cecolin (1986).
14
The term "pastoral" here means reflection on the activity and life of the Church; it
is not to be confused with that which is "practical," meaning what is immediately
applicable for use in liturgy.
15
La riforma liturgica in Italia: Realtà e speranze, ed. P. Visentin (1984); Infondi lo
Spirito degli Apostoli: Teologia liturgico-ecumenica del ministero ordinato, ed. E. Lodi
(1987).
graph on method in liturgical study.16 The contemporary postconciliar

era sets the framework for this study of the theological foundations
and elements of the liturgical reform, the value of contemporary his-
torical, theological, and pastoral studies of the liturgy, and the way
epistemology and semiotics relate to liturgical study today. Through-
out, actual liturgical celebration and the present state of the liturgical
reform ground Bonaçcorso's theological reflections. While very modest
in size and scope, this volume could be considered a primer to the work
and method of the Padua Institute and a valuable tool for those seek-
ing for ways to study sacraments from liturgical, theological, and phe-
nomenological perspectives.
Though it is not presented as a formal sacramental theology, Kevin
Irwin's book Context and Text17 presents a methodological approach to
the study of sacramental and liturgical texts which is important to
sacramental theology. It is not enough to write about sacraments and
about what they do. One has to be able to analyze and understand
them and their efficacy from within their own expression and frame-
work. Irwin's book is divided into three parts, under the headings:
Relating liturgy and theology; Context is text: theology of liturgy; and
Text shapes context: liturgical theology. It is the second part that is
most pertinent to sacramental theology, for in it he "proposes a method
for articulating a theology of the act of liturgy dealing with Word,
symbol, euchology and the liturgical arts."18 By examining these ele-
ments in concrete and specific examples, Irwin shows how the liturgi-
cal act itself generates an understanding of sacrament and of partici-
pation in it. As he himself comments, studies of the imagination and of
liturgical performance could add to this comprehension of sacrament
from within the act itself.
Methodological Approaches
Given this apprehension of sacramental complexity, in current sac-
ramental theology the influence of language studies,19 ritual studies,20
16
Introduzione allo studio della Liturgia (1990).
17
Kevin W. Irwin, Context and Text: Method in Liturgical Theology (Collegeville:
Pueblo/Liturgical, 1994).
18
Ibid. xi.
19
One thinks of such names as J. L. Austin, Paul Ricoeur, Emile Benveniste, and
Jacques Derrida, quite often cited in sacramental theology.
20
For a survey of studies in English on ritual, its function, and its roots, see Liturgy
Digest 1/1 (Spring 1993), a publication of the Notre Dame Center for Pastoral Liturgy,
edited by Nathan Mitchell. For a broader survey, with bibliographical references, see the
double issue Enjeux du Rite dans la Modernité, of Recherches de Science Religieuse
78/3 (1990) 322-447, and 78/4 (1990) 481-589, edited by J. Moingt. Note especially the
and hermeneutical theory is evident. These studies are, however, wo-
ven into sacramental theology in a variety of ways. This can be ex-
plained only by noting the diversity of methodological approaches.
Overviews
In the realm of sacramental theology, there are some works that are
overviews, useful in informing readers about ideas, concerns, and in-
terests that have become common in this literature over a period of
time. Thus Carlo Rocchetta21 opens his book with a look at the anthro-
pological foundation of sacrament, with reference to literature on sym-
bol and on rite, and relates these concepts to humanity's relation to
creation and to history.
In a section entitled "Anamnesis of the Faith of the Church," he goes
back to the biblical and patristic roots of sacramental theology with
much attention to the notion of mystery. Here the influence of Odo
Casel is apparent.22 Rocchetta then gives an overview of the history of
sacramental theology, with a look at the patristic period, a section on
the pertinence of scholastic theology, a presentation of manual theol-
ogy, and finally a look at contemporary issues and trends. In the last
part of the book, he attempts a systematic theology centered around
the notions of mystery and celebration.
In the conclusion to his 1990 survey of the relation between the
study of symbol and sacramental theology, Arno Schilson23 remarks
that much sacramental theology has retrieved the importance of root-
ing its thought in actual celebration rather than in abstract concepts.
article by Jean-Yves Hameline, "Eléments d'anthropologie, de sociologie et de musico-

logie du culte chrétien" 397-424.
21
Carlo Rocchetta, Sacramentaria fondamentale: Dal "mysterion" al "sacramentum,"
Corso di teologia sistematica 8 (Bologna: Dehoniane, 1989). Designed for seminarians,
the work serves to keep them abreast of studies and developments. It is a kind of new
breed of manual theology, which is helpful, since it surveys the field, takes in the history
of sacrament and sacramental theology, shows the main points of interest in current
systematic and pastoral theology, and does not try to subject all opinions to a narrow
critique. Another way to deal with complexity is to practically eliminate general sacra-
mental theology in favor of the study of each sacrament in particular, looked at from an
ecclesial and not merely personal perspective. This is the option taken in the collective
work, Initiation à la pratique de la théologie, vol. 3 (Paris: Cerf, 1983) which has only
twenty pages on general sacramental principles, with twenty-eight devoted to a treat-
ment of baptism as incorporation into Christ and the Church, and twenty-six to a treat-
ment of the Eucharist as sacrament of ecclesial communion.
22
The fullest and most important study of Casel, which places his work in relation to
later developments in sacramental theology, is that of Arno Schilson, Theologie als
Sakramententheologie: Die Mysterienlehre Odo Caséis (Mainz: Grunewald, 1992).
23
See above, note 1.
As he has done elsewhere, he indicates the influence of Odo Casel and

Romano Guardini on this trend, and hence the importance of mystery
to a theology of celebration. He further notes the necessity of a history
of sacramental theology, which incorporates accurate and historically-
minded studies of such things as scholastic theology and church coun-
cils, since this is the only serious way to keep in touch with tradition.
He further notes how much has to be done in attaining a proper un-
derstanding of symbol and its anthropological foundations, of the na-
ture of symbolic communication, and of the methods for the interpre-
tation of symbols. In all of this, he sees the importance of relating
symbol and rite to social reality, something that he believes has been
helped especially by Latin American theology and by the critical-
praxis outlook of some German scholars.
As these overviews show, studies on ritual, language, feast, symbol,
and the like are the commonplaces of most of current sacramental
theology. At the same time, the understanding of the place of sacra-
ment in the Church and in the economy of grace is quite divergent. The
differences are in large part understandable in light of different fun-
damental approaches or theological methods that dictate the way in
which the ritual and the symbolic is integrated into theology.
Major Influences
Because from the point of view of object, the study turns out to be so
broad and so complex, to give some general sense of what is going on
in sacramental theology it seems most helpful to decipher the funda-
mental methodological approaches taken in the study of the field. Be-
fore distinguishing current approaches, however, it is necessary to
point to abiding influences from works prior to the decade under sur-
vey.
Turn to mystery is a common background. This can be found in a
Caselian retrieval of the nature of the liturgy as mystery, or in Henri
de Lubac's contrast between the symbolic approach of the Church Fa-
thers and the concern with rational explanation, in keeping with philo-
sophical demands, of scholastic theology.24 In both cases, liturgy is
viewed as an act of the Church which offers participation in Christ's
mystery, and the nature of the Church is considered as a communion
whose symbolic expression is found in sacrament.
Besides the influence of this approach to liturgy and sacrament as
celebration of mystery, two other strong influences have to be noted as
background to the development of sacramental theology since 1980.
24
Henri de Lubac, Corpus Mysticum: L'Eucharistie et l'Eglise au Moyen Age (Paris:
Aubier, 1949).
The first is the theology of Karl Rahner, with his notion of Realsymbol
and his anthropological starting point.25 As a comprehensive notion
and method for all theology, this clearly had special relevance to sac
rament. Rahner grounds his concept of symbol in its capacity to realize
what is essential in a being. Without symbolic acts and their revela
tory character, human persons would not be able to actualize their
human nature. In the very act of transcending their limits, human
beings are engaged in an existence shaped by symbolic activity. In
turn, the human encounter with God is premised on the symbolic pos
sibilities of created reality. The Church, recalling Christ's humanity as
the perfect symbol of God's redemptive love and action, continues this
symbolic presence especially in its sacramental praxis. It is the Church
as the visible manifestation of grace which provides the understanding
of the sacramental sign as a cause of grace, since grace is given by
being signified.
The second influence is that of Hans Urs von Balthasar and his
aesthetic theology, with the complementary positions of Henri de Lu-
bac and Louis Bouyer.26 Though this method has not been applied to
sacramental theology as often or as comprehensively as the method of
Karl Rahner, it clearly has application there. In von Balthasar, sac
raments are treated most fully in the first volume of Herrlichkeit27
There are also some pertinent pages in Theodramatik,28 to say nothing
of articles scattered throughout his writings.29
Two aspects in particular of his understanding of sacrament con
tinue to exercise an influence. First, in keeping with the soteriology
which focuses on the cross of Christ as the manifestation of divine love
in its very concealment of the Godhead and on the kenosis of Christ's
descent into hell, Balthasar explains the sacraments as the Church's
communion with Christ in this mystery. Second, in explaining the
mystery of the Church he exploits especially the bride/bridegroom im
agery of salvation through Christ. Thus he finds the Church's form in
the complementarity of Mary's spirituality to the pastoral office, ex-
25
Karl Rahner, "The Theology of the Symbol," in Theological Investigations 4, trans.
Kevin Smyth (Baltimore: Helicon, 1966) 221-52.
26
Louis Bouyer, Eucharist: Theology and Spirituality of the Eucharistie Prayer, trans.
Charles Underhill Quinn (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame, 1968).
27
In English translation, The Glory of the Lord: A Theological Aesthetics 1: Seeing the
Form (San Francisco: Ignatius, reprinted 1989) 556-82. The original German is from
1961.
28
Theodramatik Π/2: Die Personen in Christus (Ëinsiedeln: Johannes, 1978) 311-30,
388-410.
29
For an overview, see the article by M. Miller, "The Sacramental Theology of Hans
Urs von Balthasar," Worship 64 (1990) 48-66.
pressed especially in the office of Peter. All Christians are called to

model their lives on that of Mary in her relation to Christ, and through
him to the Father and the Spirit. On the other hand, the continued
presence of Christ the bridegroom in the Church is represented by
ordained ministers, who act in persona Christi, in their teaching, sac-
ramental, and pastoral charge.
The starting point is the exact opposite of the anthropological. The
role of the aesthetic in revelation and the Word's disclosure of the
inner life and love of the Trinity are fundamental to a discussion of
sacrament. The form or Gestalt of revelation is determined by the
coming forth from the Trinity of the Word as manifestation of God's
agape or love, that embraces humanity and the world. It is in the
wholeness of the revelation that any of its parts is understood.30 The
sacraments are placed against the background of the reality of the
Word Incarnate, in the mystery of his Incarnation, kenosis or self-
emptying, and glorification. In this schema, the centrality of the Eu-
charist emerges very clearly, as well as the categories of presence,
sacrifice, self-abandonment, and ecclesiality in explaining it. The Eu-
charist belongs within the mystery of the cross. It was at the Last
Supper that Jesus completed his kenotic condition, in anticipation of
his descent into hell, by giving himself in symbolic embodiment as
bread to be chewed and wine poured out. This is ever available to the
Church, where Christ is present in love and self-giving, and the
Church is taken into his sacrifice, sealed in the reception of the bread
and wine. Complementary to this way of explaining the Eucharist, von
Balthasar sees the Sacrament of penance as the model for an under-
standing of all the sacraments, inasmuch as it is an exemplary in-
stance of the encounter in Christ between the sinner and the forgiving
God.31
Current Approaches
Against the background of these influences which have acquired an
almost classical status, five different approaches in recent writings are
30
Balthasar himself summarizes his aesthetics in this way: "Our Aesthetics was con-
cerned with God's epiphany—characterized as the manifestation of his kabod (glory)-
amid the innumerable other appearances in nature and history, and it also had to
discuss the conditions which are required for this glory to be perceived. But insofar as
everything was included under the idea of "glory," the formal standpoint remained
purely theocentric, even where . . . God's glory was manifested as a covenant with man,
ultimately resulting in the interior response of redeemed man "to the praise of the glory
of his grace (Eph 1:6)" (Theo-Drama: Theological Dramatic Theory 2: Dramatis Perso-
noè: Man in God [San Francisco: Ignatius, 1990] 21. The original German isfrom1976).
31
Seeing the Form 580-81.
SACRAMENTAL THEOLOGY—POST-RAHNER 665
distinguished in this survey, allowing for variations within each cat-

egory:32 (1) development of the turn to the subject, as it was adopted by
leading Catholic theologians, which embraces interdisciplinary meth-
ods; (2) liberation theologies, with their particular concern for praxis;
(3) theologies which integrate the postmodernist critique of the West-
ern metaphysical tradition and its influence on theology, allowing,
however, for considerable diversity in the positions which emerge from
this; (4) feminist critique and retrieval of sacramental celebration; (5)
theologies coming from Africa and Asia relating sacraments simulta-
neously to culture and to liberation.
1. THE POST-RAHNERIAN FORMULATION
In presenting this approach to sacramental theology, it is helpful to
distinguish between works that belong more clearly in systematics and
those which make broader use of interdisciplinary methods.
Systematic Theologies
To weigh the pervasive influence of Rahner's formulation of Real-
symbol and symbolic causality, one has only to review the trinitarian
grounding of sacrament in the work of Theodor Schneider, Lothar Lies,
and Edward Kilmartin. Schneider begins, in Rahnerian fashion, with
the historical and embodied person who is confronted with revelation's
offer of salvation and its corollary, encounter with the living God as
revealed in Christ.1 It is this Christological rather than trinitarian
frame of reference which provides Schneider with a basis for his dis-
cussion of the epicletic and ecclesial dimensions of sacrament and its
historical sevenfold expression. This may be explained by Schneider's
main concern, which, in contrast to Lies and Kilmartin, is a theological
discussion of each sacrament rather than a larger theoretical discus-
sion of sacraments in general. In any case, Realsymbol forms the back-
ground for his treatment of the sacramental encounter with God in
Christ.
Lies also begins with the human existential situation as an encoun-
ter that entails a transcendental and freely willed openness to love. In
this encounter, the Trinity is "person in person while we have defined
the human being as embodied person."2 The Incarnation has further
specified the nature of sacramental encounter and deepened our un-
32
There is of course overlapping, and there is no intention in what follows to reduce
theologies to watertight categorizations.
1
Theodor Schneider, Zeichen der Nähe Crottes: Grundriss der Sakramententheologie
(Mainz: Grunewald, 1987).
2
Lothar Lies, Sakramententheologie: Eine personale Sicht (Graz: Styria, 1990) 57.
derstanding of created reality. Lies cites the Council of Florence's af-

firmation that the Trinity is the creator of this reality, both spiritual
and corporal, in order to insist that this same reality bears the traces
of its trinitarian origins.3
Lies then reexamines anamnesis, epiclesis, and koinonia from the
existential situation of the human being encountering the Trinity in
freedom and love. Just as the human person knows herself in relation
to others, so this is a model for encountering the Trinity. Taking his
leadfromAugustine, Lies then reinterprets the meaning of human life
from its radical and primary source, the life of the Trinity. Human
symbols that reveal the meaning of life are ultimately tied to the life
of the Trinity. The trinitarian characteristic of total union and distinct
persons, understood in terms of freedom to love, revalues human rela-
tions and their anthropological symbols. Thus, the forgiveness sym-
bolized in the sacrament of penance and reconciliation cannot be fully
appreciated apart from the shared and loving freedom of the Trinity.
Finally, the trinitarian community provides both the criterion and
assurance for the possibility of union with others that will not destroy
what is unique to each person. In effect, Lies works out many of the
trinitarian and symbolic implications of Rahner's thought so as to shed
new light on sacramental symbols and their anthropological connec-
tions.
Kilmartin is perhaps the most thorough in his discussion of how the
triune God's self-communication to humanity grounds liturgical ex-
pression. He sees the effort to demonstrate how a theology of liturgy
might be articulated as a theology of the economic Trinity as a crucial
theological task.4 Kilmartin first postulates the need for a trinitarian
grounding of symbol: 'The Word is the 'real symbol' of the Father. A
real symbol exists when there is unity of being between the symbol and
the symbolized."5 The articulation of such a theology also presupposes
a trinitarian anthropology, Christology, pneumatology, and ecclesiol-
ogy, since our knowledge of the Trinity is grounded in the work of the
Spirit, as seen in the Christ event.
After reviewing some contemporary models in trinitarian theology
and Christology, Kilmartin asks: If God has indeed formed new per-
sonal relationships with creatures by which they are capable of per-
sonal communication with God, how does their response to God's offer
3
Ibid. 140-41.
4
The work of Catherine M. LaCugna, God for Us: The Trinity and Christian Life (San
Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1991) should also be noted here, especially her discus-
sion of the liturgical connections (111-42).
5
Edward Kilmartin, Christian Liturgy: Theology and Practice 1: Systematic Theology
of Liturgy (Kansas City, Mo.: Sheed & Ward, 1988) 106.
of self-communication affect God? Ascending Christology and the be-
stowal model of the Trinity would suggest that "the prayer of Jesus is
the historical revelation of the trinitarian dialogue." The prayer of
that High Priest for us elicits the Father's offering the Spirit to enable
the response of faith, in and through a purely divine act."6
In turn, the prayer of the Church shows the union of the liturgical
community with their High Priest. When the Church implores the
Father in union with Christ and in the power of the Spirit to bestow
that same Spirit of sanctification, not only the dialogical structure of
liturgy but also the "christological-Trinitarian dimension of christian
liturgy in all its forms" is effectively manifested.7 Kilmartin's ultimate
position is that there is only one liturgy, that of the fully realized
economic Trinity as the heavenly liturgy, and its earthly realization in
the worship of the pilgrim people of God.8
In brief, although Lies and Kilmartin have different approaches to
developing the trinitarian implications of Realsymbol and symbolic
causality, their starting point is the original insight of Rahner that the
triune God is the foundation of all symbolic reality and efficacy.
Interdisciplinary Concerns of the Subject Model
The human situation in which worship and sacrament find their
scope offers both help and hindrance to the fruitful and knowing par-
ticipation for which Vatican II called. The human sciences share with
theology some common concerns about that situation. Thus the need
for some interdisciplinary dialogue in liturgical and sacramental the-
ology has been recognized for some time. The work of individual theo-
logians who have attempted to incorporate this dialogue into their
work will be discussed shortly. But first we need to look at projects in
which the interdisciplinary element is a major feature.
A particularly interesting example of such an effort is the North
American series Alternative Futures for Worship, a seven-volume work
published under the general editorship of Bernard Lee.9 An introduc-
tory volume dealt with the classical notions of general sacramental
theology from psychological, sociological, and systematic points of
view. Each of the seven sacraments was treated in interdisciplinary
fashion in the other volumes by a team of experts from different fields
working together.
Behind this effort there were certain convictions. First, that liturgi-
cal reform is a continual process. Second, that good theology reflects as
6 7
Ibid. 172. Ibid. 174.
8
Ibid. 196-97.
9
Alternative Futures for Worship, ed. Bernard Lee (Collegeville: Liturgical, 1987).
well as clarifies the faith experience as it is lived out in the world, so

that studies, for example, on human development are germane to sac-
rament. Third, that both theology and the human sciences have a role
in interpreting and "constructing" the world in which we live. Fourth,
that providing alternative ritual forms for the sacraments serves to
concretize the insights shared by theology and the human sciences.10
The new rites are not intended for use but serve as a means of explor-
ing in imaginative ways the meaning and possibilities of the sacra-
ment under discussion. While individual volumes may vary in the
originality of insight and applicability of the praxis suggested, the
overall project is impressive in its scope and its method.
A more traditional approach to interdisciplinarity is taken in a vol-
ume of the German series of liturgical studies Gottesdienst der Kirche:
Handbuch der Liturgiewissenschaft}1 Since, as the subtitle indicates,
verbal and nonverbal forms of liturgical expression are of interest,
individual authors deal with the forms of human expression found in
music and word, natural elements and technical means, liturgical gar-
ments and insignia, and liturgical space and its furnishings. The use of
interdisciplinary work is uneven. A. Sequeria, for example, relies on
the religious phenomenology of Mircea Eliade, Gerardus van der
Leeuw, and Mary Douglas, and on the anthropology of Frederik
Buytendijk, Desmond Morris, and Johan Huizinga, as well as on a
daunting bibliography on movement and dance. Karl-Heinrich Bieritz,
in dealing with the use of word, employs the works of Hans Georg
Gadamer, John Langshaw Austin, John R. Searle, and Umberto Eco;
but Rupert Berger uses few interdisciplinary resources in treating of
the liturgical elements of bread, wine, oil, and water. While the con-
tributors to the volume are generally theologians, a noted exception is
the musicologist and conductor, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, known for his
advocacy of "authentic" performance. As a result, the volume is rem-
iniscent of some work done in the seventies12 and is more the product
of theologians familiar with literature in the human sciences than a
work of interdisciplinarity in the full sense of the term.
10
Each volume on a particular sacrament offers alternative rituals which represent
both the process and the eventual consensus of the team of experts contributing to the
volume.
11
Gestalt des Gottesdienstes: Sprachliche und nichtsprachliche Ausdrucksformen, ed.
Rupert Berger (Regensburg: Pustet, 1990).
12
Two well-known examples are Werner Jetter, Symbol und Ritual: Anthropologische
Elemente im Gottesdienst (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1978), and Alois Hahn
et al., Anthropologie des Kults: Die Bedeutung des Kults für das Überleben des Menschen
(Freiburg im Br.: Herder, 1977).
13
In his later work on sacraments, pursuing his earlier insistence on
personal participation in liturgy,14 Karl Rahner emphasized the rela-
tion of sacrament's symbolic expression to the presence of God in the
world and in ordinary life, believing that this makes sacraments ac-
cessible even to those who would claim no religious sense. Michael
Skelley has taken this insight into sacrament as the liturgy of the
world and contextualized it within Rahner's larger concerns: the ex-
perience of transcendence, the reality of the human person as embod-
ied spirit, the nature of grace as God's self-communication, and the
experience of God.15 Skelley draws out Rahner's seminal ideas on the
nature of basic sacrament and on the exhibitive character of the Word
of God. His achievement is to synthesize Rahner's sacramental con-
cerns expressed over four decades and to remind us of the pervasive
influence of this thought.
In an earlier work, now translated into English, Herbert Vorgrimler
likewise pursues Rahner's insight into the nature of symbol and into
the worship of the Church within God's world.16 He explains sacra-
ment as a relational event within an intentional field, and he appeals
for its understanding to such disciplines as depth psychology, the phi-
losophy of language, cultural anthropology, communications theory,
ethnology, and social psychology. Nonetheless, these disciplines do not
greatly affect the way in which Vorgrimler systematically outlines a
contemporary sacramental theology in what is meant to be a general
introduction to the subject.
Complementing his work already discussed, Edward Kilmartin has
also argued for the anthropological dimension of sacrament, but bases
his work on an older classical view that God created this world to share
divine goodness.17 Worship is primarily directed toward the fulfill-
ment of creatures in sharing this goodness. Sacramental rites are en-
hanced in their doxological and rhetorical language with images in-
spired by all dimensions of human living. In particular, anthropology's
emphases on the body as primary symbol of the human person and on
13
See "On the Theology of Worship," in Theological Investigations 19 (New York:
Crossroad, 1983) 141-49.
14
For example, "Considerations on the Active Role of the Person in the Sacramental
Event," in Theological Investigations 14 (New York: Seabury, 1976) 161-84.
15
Michael Skelley, The Liturgy of the World: Karl Rahner's Theology of Worship
(Collegeville: Liturgical, 1991).
16
Herbert Vorgrimler, Sacramental Theology, trans. L. M. Maloney (Collegeville: Li-
turgical, 1992).
17
Edward Kilmartin, "Theology of the Sacraments," in Alternative Futures for Wor-
ship 1.123-75. Kilmartin here appeals to the thought of Irenaeus of Lyons.
the role of interpretative word are crucial for understanding the hu-
man situation, and they challenge the theologian to deal with human
complexity in discussing symbolic action.
Pursuing this line of thought, Kilmartin defines symbolic compe-
tence as "the capacity of a Christian to link traditional liturgical sym-
bols and interpretative word with one's adult personal symbols."18
Like Vorgrimler, he points to the human sciences as underlining the
Christian conviction that the experience of the holy is found in human
situations in which ultimate meaning is raised: "the profane is always
potentially holy if its deepest meaning is penetrated."19 The phenom-
enological approach is particularly apt for sensitizing contemporary
people to the importance of their human experience as symbol of the
transcendent.
Non-Rahnerian Approaches to Sacrament and Subject
Some works on the interdisciplinary character of sacramental the-
ology are less directly related to the work of Karl Rahner, while they
are still concerned with the participation of the subject in sacrament.
Theodor Schneider in his outline of sacramental theology speaks of
sacrament as a "communicative experience," employing an expression
much used among German theologians.20 This dynamic concept of in-
terchange derived from a sociological model of knowledge grounds the
social group's development and continuity. It reflects the work of
Jürgen Habermas who has long influenced German theological circles.
Among Habermas's pivotal concerns has been the question of com-
municative action in society.21 Helmut Peukert applied Habermas's
method to foundational issues, arguing that theology is concerned with
the reality of the limits of experience and with the types of communi-
cative action that might serve as responses to these concerns.22 Nor-
bert Mette advanced the dialogue with his discussion of praxis in prac-
tical theology within Habermas's perspective of authentic communi-
cation as an essential factor in honest and transforming praxis.23
The notion of communicative competence resonates with sacramen-
18 19
Ibid. 143. Ibid.
20
Zeichen der Nähe Gottes. For the various ways in which communication models
have influenced liturgical and sacramental theologians, see Franz Kohlschein, "Symbol
und Kommunikation als Schlüsselbegriffe einer Theologie und Theorie der Liturgie,"
Liturgisches Jahrbuch 35 (1985) 200-18.
21
See Jürgen Habermas, The Theory of Communicative Action, 2 vols., trans. Thomas
McCarthy (Boston: Beacon, 1984, 1987).
22
Helmut Peukert, Science, Action, and Fundamental Theology: Toward a Theology of
Communicative Action, trans. James Bohman (Cambridge, Mass.: MIT, 1984).
23
Norbert Mette, Theorie der Praxis (Düsseldorf: Patmos, 1978).
tal and liturgical concerns, since it deals with linguistically mediated
actions and behavioral expectations. In Schneider's work, once the
sacraments are viewed as such communicative actions that enable the
community to appropriate what it celebrates, then a highly dynamic
conception of sacramental experience is possible.24
Josef Meyer zu Schlüchtern offers another example of the use of this
model to reexamine the relationship between Church and sacrament.25
After reviewing some of the classic positions (Rahner, Ratzinger, Sem-
melroth, Boff), he builds on the work of Peukert, Mette, Arens, Hüner-
mann, and others, demonstrating how the dynamic notion of commu-
nicative action permits a more accurate notion of the actions of the
Church and the work of the Spirit of Christ in the sacramental par-
ticipation of the gathered and symbolizing community.
Alexander Ganoczy in his outline of sacramental theory offers a
communicative model of sacrament, based on a different approach
than that of Habermas.26 He appeals more directly to the ordinary
ways of human response and behavior. On this basis, he criticizes the
familiar encounter model of Edward Schillebeecksx, because it ne-
glects the legitimate anthropological requirements of such a model. A
communications model has to insist on the principle of interaction and
on its corollaries (reaction, reciprocity, reception, and nonreception),
while giving more weight to the notion of Christ as the mediator who
has overcome the radical breakdown of communications between God
and humankind. Within this development, the sacraments are under-
stood in terms of verbal and nonverbal communication in which Chris-
tians participate in the communicative process of the faith community
which in turn is undergirded by the self-communication of God.
Ganoczy then turns to the intrinsic nature of symbol as communi-
cative and looks at some of its components. It may be viewed as a
linguistic structure in which verbal and nonverbal information is con-
veyed and participants are both "senders" and "receivers" who employ
universal, communal, and personal codes of communication. Commu-
nication theory also makes a helpful distinction between analogical
communication charged with affect and digital communication which
24
Besides the work of Schneider, see Rolf Zerfass, "Gottesdienst als Handlungsfeld der
Kirche," Liturgisches Jahrbuch 38 (1988) 30.-58.
25
Sakrament Kirche: Wirken Gottes im Handeln der Menschen (Freiburg im Br.:
Herder, 1992).
26
An Introduction to Catholic Sacramental Theology, trans. William Thomas and
Anthony M. Sherman (New York: Paulist, 1984). Ganoczy relies principally on the work
of Hans-Dieter Bastian, "Wie christlicher Glaube funkioniert," in Kommunikation
(Stuttgart-Berlin: Kreuz, 1972). For an overview, see Arno Schilson, "Symbolwirk-
lichkeit und Sakrament," Liturgisches Jahrbuch 40 (1990) 26-52.
is principally conceptual. As Ganoczy points out, Vatican II called for

both types of participation. Finally, since symbols are always for a
particular person, group, or culture, and belong to historical time,
there is always the risk of forgetting the venerable axiom liturgia
semper reformando,.
Another notable effort at the interdisciplinary mode is Bernard
Cooke's The Distancing of God: The Ambiguity of Symbol in History
and Theology.27 The focus of the book is that God's presence is either
facilitated or blocked by symbolic activity and thought in different
historical periods. The major thesis of the book is thus indicated by its
title. Cooke scrutinizes three types of presence: a kairotic presence
linked to sacred places, persons, and times; an englobing presence
which facilitated participation in the divine; and the indwelling of God
with humans, exemplified in Christ's relation with God and with hu-
mans. Cooke's analysis of the patristic, medieval, and post-Tridentine
periods would seem to support his assertion that there is a gradual
weakening of the symbolic world in which participation flourishes.
In the final four chapters of the book, Cooke concisely summarizes
some of the discussion of the social sciences about symbol to support his
assertion that the distancing of God from human experience is being
reversed in our time. He points to the impressive depth of ecclesial
theology and to some of the gains of the liturgical reforms, especially
the concern with more active participation and symbolic thinking
about human living in Christ. From his fruitful dialogue with the
human sciences, I would point to several corollaries: the importance of
ritual action in complementing symbolic causation; the connection of
sacramental causation with subjective awareness as well as with ob-
jective symbols; the import of psychological structures for the meaning
linked to sacramental symbols; the careful analysis of symbolic events
and the function of ritual in creating social structure, which is consid-
erably clarified by the methodologies of the social sciences.
Another important example of contextualizing the discussion of
symbol is David Power's work on the symbolic nature of liturgy.28
Power begins his study by examining the contemporary situation, em-
phasizing that "the symbolic belongs to the public forum of life lived in
society and community."29 Citing both cultural dissonance and rapidly
changing economic situations, he draws out their corollaries for any
27
Bernard Cooke, The Distancing of God: The Ambiguity of Symbol in History and
Theology (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 1990).
28
David N. Power, Unsearchable Riches: The Symbolic Nature of Liturgy (New York:
29
Pueblo, 1984). Ibid. 5.
symbolic system. With irrefutable logic, Power then argues that faith
is premised on conversion in the way of relating to symbols. It in turn
entails a welcoming of the transcendent and its radical critique of our
cultural, social, and political world.
In a wide-ranging analysis of symbol, Power insists on the impor-
tance of multiple possibilities of meaning in symbols. Here his use of
Ricoeur, Langer, and others is both clarifying and insightful.30 His
analysis of symbolic language results in some stimulating insights on
the nature of liturgy, summed up in the sentence: "The liturgy is an
action wherein the testimony of God is heard and appropriated, the
experience of the community is transformed, and a godly presence
disclosed."31 This concise definition includes the nature of proclama-
tion about Jesus Christ through the use of appropriate root metaphors
and the appropriation of this testimony in both lamentation and
thanksgiving.
Finally, among the many valuable conclusions that Power draws
from his unfolding of the riches of symbol, his criteria for validating
sacramental practice are especially important. He calls for an integra-
tion of the language of ritual, myth, and metaphor, as well as for more
attention to the cultural experience of our age. He then insists on the
criterion of "the celebration's relation to the orthopraxis of gospel free-
dom and solidarity with the suffering."32 This last criterion tests the
real connections between liturgy and ethics, between the experience of
the cross and the suffering of this world.
A more recent publication, more related to the thought of Bernard
Lonergan than to Rahner's, is the two-volume work of Donald Gelpi,
which culminates his study of sacraments over a period of time.33 This
is his most serious effort to construct a systematic theology of sacra-
ment in which an interdisciplinary approach is employed as a struc-
tural element. In the first volume, inspired by the implicit demands of
the RCIA model, Gelpi sets forth a carefully wrought theology of con-
version which serves as a consistent frame for discussing individual
sacraments in the second volume. Besides the work of Bernard Loner-
gan, he refers to liberation and liturgical theology in constructing this
model of conversion.
Gelpi first outlines five forms of conversion, namely, affective, intel-
30
For a dînèrent approach using some of these same sources, see Iso Baumer, 'Inter-
aktion—Zeichen—Symbol," Liturgisches Jahrbuch 31 (1981) 9-35.
31 32
Power, Unsearchable Riches 146. Ibid. 213.
33
Donald Gelpi, Committed Worship: A Sacramental Theology for Converting Chris-
tians 1: Adult Conversion and Initiation; 2: The Sacraments of Ongoing Conversion
(Collegeville: Liturgical, 1993).
lectual, moral, religious, and sociopolitical. He takes liturgy's presen-

tation of the Paschal Mystery and foundational theology's preoccupa-
tion with primordial sacramentality into consideration, interpreting
them within a comprehensive and challenging notion of conversion,
concretizing this by autobiographical references. As a result, he poses
the question: How ought a community of thoroughly converted Chris-
tians to worship sacramentally? In his delineation of the different di-
mensions of conversion, Gelpi exhibits a wide-ranging familiarity with
related human sciences. It is sociopolitical conversion which provides
the testing point for the other forms of conversion, since it authenti-
cates them by deprivatizing them. At the same time, personal conver-
sion "authenticates the activity which sociopolitical conversion in-
spires by supplying political activists with sound norms for judging
between responsible and irresponsible institutional policies and exec-
utive decisions"34 Not surprisingly, sociopolitical conversion is seen as
the form most resisted, especially in a culture such as ours where
privatized values are taken to be normative. On the other hand, the
practical result of such conversion is a transvaluation of all social,
political, and personal reality.
Having profiled the complexity of conversion, Gelpi proceeds to re-
view the scriptural and systematic traditions which provide the basis
for the notion of conversion. What sets this review apart is a wide
familiarity with recent scriptural exegesis and the creative reading of
traditional concepts such as the theological virtues and the different
forms of grace. Much in the style of Rahner and Lonergan, Gelpi does
not usually footnote his sources, but he gives comprehensive bibliog-
raphies at the end of his second volume. He then develops and tests his
insights by treating "the social dynamics of sanctification" and "the
socialization into the family of God" which entails an exposition of his
trinitarian and Christological foundations for sacrament. Gelpi's
strength here is his systematic interweaving and recapitulation of ear-
lier insights on conversion with these larger questions. The final chap-
ter of the first volume returns to the question of the catechumenate
and integrates the previous material into a fresh perspective on this
institutionalized form of conversion.
Conclusion
To sum up this survey, we may note how the systematic presenta-
tion of sacrament in Rahnerian perspective relates to the life of the
Trinity, while on the side of the human subject interdisciplinarity is
34
Ibid. 1.45.
SACRAMENTAL THEOLOGY—LIBERATION 675
important. There is a growing rigor in the methodologies employed
and wider familiarity with subspecialities within the human sciences.
This has revitalized the areas of sacramental thinking that had be-
come rather abstract and analytical and gives promise of further cre-
ative insight.
University of Notre Dame REGIS A. DUFFY, O.F.M.
2. LIBERATION THEOLOGY
The early works of liberation theologians on sacramental theology
followed up on some of Rahner's insights by weaving together the
theology of the Church and the theology of sacrament in a way that
fitted the Latin-American economic and political situation. We shall
first consider two of these early authors.
Juan Luis Segundo
Already in 1971, the Uruguayan Juan Luis Segundo raised serious
challenges to the conventional liturgical and sacramental practice of
the time, particularly regarding triumphalism in cult and church life,
in the face of serious economic and social injustices. In The Sacraments
Today,1 he argues for a more authentic sense of community in litur-
gical celebration, a chief means toward which is the formation and
fostering of base communities.2 He urges a positive interpretation to
the "secularization" process to retrieve the necessary prophetic and
life-challenging aspects of liturgy.3 He thus rejects the dualistic sepa-
ration of sacred from profane and describes liturgy as truly liberating
of persons from "demons" such as inequitable land and wealth distri-
bution regrettably inherent in the social structures of underdeveloped
countries.4 Segundo critiques consumerist approaches to the use of
sacraments and demonstrates that a sacramental system can in prac-
tice support systemic social exploitation.5 Consequently he argues
forcefully for deeper exploration and appreciation of the prophetic di-
mension of liturgy as celebrating what has not yet been accomplished,
in that all of life is not yet pervaded by Christ's liberative Pasch.6
The book's structure and use of magisterial sources clearly reflect
the beginnings of the move from the conventional post-Tridentine con-
1
Originally published as Los sacramentos hoy (Buenos Aires: Carlos Lohle, 1971);
English transi, by John Drury (Maryknoll: Orbis, 1974).
2
Ibid. 10, 32-40.
3
Ibid. 15-20. In this connection see Luis Maldonado, Secularización de la Liturgia
(Madrid: Marova, 1970).
4 5
Ibid. 98. Ibid. 34-37, 53-62, 100-4.
6
Ibid. 36, 80-82, 98.
cerns about the institution of sacraments, their efficaciousness, and

the number seven. The magisterial sources on which he mainly relies
are the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy and the Pastoral Constitu-
tion on the Church in the Modern World of Vatican II, as well as the
documents from the (1968) Medellin Conference of the Latin American
bishops. In addition to these, Evangelii nuntiandi of Paul VI and the
Final Document from the (1979) Puebla meeting of the Latin Ameri-
can bishops' conference will influence later sacramental writings that
take up the issues raised by Segundo.
Leonardo Boff
Somewhat later than Segundo's book are two works by Leonardo
Boff of Brazil, in which Boff articulates the sacramentality intrinsic to
sacraments and what might be called a sacramental ecclesiology. In
the brief essay Sacraments of Life, Life of the Sacraments: Story The-
ology,1 his aim is to disclose the way sacraments express the interplay
among human beings (especially how they view life and communicate
human life), the world, and God. Boff writes in order to "recapture the
religious richness contained in the symbolic and sacramental universe
that inhabits our daily life." Since sacraments are "basic constituents
of human life . . . faith sees grace present in the most elementary acts
of life."8 Throughout, sacraments are viewed sub specie humanitatis, to
use BofFs term. Sacramental language is essentially evocative, self-
involving, and performance-oriented. Sacraments refer to sacred mo-
ments and places in order to disclose the sacredness of everyday life,
and to engage participants in acts of redemption here and now. They
also aim to induce conversion and to change human praxis. In simple
language that is often autobiographical, Boff discloses how persons
(his father and his school teacher), nature (light), and things (bread,
house) can be sacramental, often linking these narratives with prin-
ciples of sacramental theology (such as their symbolic substructure).
The concluding chapter summarizes in a systematic way what he has
articulated for popular consumption.
BofFs style and purpose in Church: Charism and Power: Liberation
Theology and the Institutional Church9 are similar. In arguing for a
"church born of the people's faith" Boff asserts that the base commu-
nity is a new and original way of living Christian faith, of organizing
7
Originally published as Los Sacramentos da Vida e a Vida dos Sacramentos (Pi-
etropolis: Vozes, 1975); English transi, by John Drury (Washington: Pastoral, 1987).
8
Ibid. 7.
9
Originally published as Iglesia: Charisma epoder (Pietropolis: Vozes, 1981); English
transi, by John W. Diercksmeier (New York: Crossroad, 1985).
the community around the Word, around the sacraments (when possi-
ble), and around new ministries exercised by lay people. His broad
notion of sacramentality from the previous book informs his opinion
that "the wider understanding of sacraments [views them] as signs of
a grace that is offered constantly and [is] present to humanity, rather
than as the instruments of a preexisting grace."10 This allows for "the
rise of a rich ecclesial sacramentality (the entire Church as sacrament)
with much creativity in its celebrations and a deep sense of the sa-
cred—all belonging to the people."11 In a pivotal section where he
explores the meaning of sacramentum as uniting the dialectical no-
tions of "identity" and "non identity," Boffs reliance on Rahner and
Schillebeeckx is apparent. He writes that "identity is affirmed through
the sacrament: grace is present in the mediation, the parousia of the
mystery is made present... shining forth through a word, made sym-
bolically corporeal through a gesture, and communicated through a
community." Yet nonidentity is also affirmed in sacraments, because
"God and his grace are not imprisoned within this or that sacramental
expression. There is an absence in the sacrament, despite the presence
of grace. Mystery is revealed in the sacrament but it is still a mystery.
One cannot identify the mystery with the sacrament; there is noniden-
tity."12 For Boff, the category sacramentum serves to sustain his dia-
lectical thesis throughout the book, and from this most traditional
Catholic category he is able to articulate the role of sacraments in one's
faith life and the role of the Church as serving the kingdom in the world.
Segundo Galilea
That neither the interpretation of sacramentality nor the experience
of base communities is without ambiguity in experience and appreci-
ation is clear from some important Latin American writings on "pop-
ular religiosity" which deserve attention at this point.
The most important Latin American voice taking popular religiosity
seriously as a theological and ecclesial phenomenon is that of Segundo
Galilea.13 His studies assert the givenness of manifestations of "pop-
10 u
Ibid. 16. Ibid. 9.
12
Ibid. 78-79.
13
Especially helpful are Galilea's essays, "Religiosidad Popular," in Religiosidad pop-
ular y pastoral (Madrid: Cristianidad, 1979) 16-92; 'The Theology of Liberation and the
Place of Folk Religion," in Concilium 136: What is Religion? An Inquiry for Christian
Theologyy eds. Mircea Eliade and David Tracy (New York: Seabury, 1980) 40-45; and
parts of El Camino de la Espiritualidad (Bogota: Ediciones Paulinas, 1982), English
transi., The Way of Living Faith, by John W. Diercksmeier (San Francisco: Harper and
Row, 1988).
ular religiosity/Catholicism"14 as persistent and lively facts of life

which reflect and espouse genuine Christian values about life and
death and solidarity with the divine. Forms and expressions of popular
religiosity tend to be devotional, affective (if not sentimental), sym-
bolic, and ritualistic.15 What might be called an innate "sacramental-
ity" is seen in popular Catholicism's use of sacred places, objects, and
rituals to invoke God and the saints. Galilea repeatedly asserts that
popular religion is a fact and need of oppressed people.16
Chief among the questions which liberation theologians raise in this
regard is the question, "Is folk religion freeing?" Initially, Galilea as-
serts, theologians and pastoral workers (from the 1950s on) judged it
negatively, because, rather than liberating the poor from exploitation
and oppression, folk religion fostered resignation to their status in the
name of faith and providence. Later, many argued positively that
within popular religiosity the poorfindtheir own voice, their own faith
expression, and that by thus appropriating their own world and their
own resources, they thereby sow the seeds of a conscious eschatological
hope and liberation. Others offer the more cautious assessment that
this liberating potential of popular religiosity needs to be proven. Ga-
lilea urges that popular religiosity be respected as a given and be used
as a tool in evangelization and liberation. He argues that such evan-
gelization should not aim to change external practices so much as to
infuse them with deeper meaning and Christian values. Evangeliza-
tion is a complex and ambiguous task, one that must respect the given-
ness of people's religious and devotional lives and not seek to transmit
gospel values in a "pure" form. Evangelization can allow Christian
attitudes to emerge from popular religious practices and can also
deepen the kind of interiority which external expressions are to foster.
Evangelization presumes the value of base communities in fostering
the evangelical life, and it fosters the inherent link between popular
religion and liberation theology. Drawing on Puebla's final document,
Galilea asserts that in undertaking evangelization in Latin America
14
While distinguishing these terms, asserting that "popular religiosity" is wider than
"popular Catholicism" (Religiosidad Popular 20-21) Galilea uses the terms inter-
changeably. Similarly helpful are the distinctions he makes between popular religion in
urban and rural settings (ibid. 28-43) and his observation that at least two approaches
of liberation theologians should be distinguished: (1) that of Argentina along with parts
of Chile and Brazil, and (2) that of Mexico, El Salvador, and other parts of Chile and
Brazil ("Theology of Liberation" 42-44).
15
Religiosidad Popular 20-27.
16
For what follows, see Galilea, "Theology of Liberation" 40-44.
one must be conscious of the need to reinterpret the expressions and
symbols of the popular religion in a spirit of liberation.
Francisco Taborda
Evangelization and liberation are chief components of the current
and more substantial work on sacraments undertaken by two more
recent authors, Francisco Taborda and Antonio Gonzalez Dorado.
Francisco Taborda of Brazil argues that the notion of feast is allied
to that of sacrament to bring out the emancipatory possibilities of the
sacramental commemoration and celebration of Christ's pasch.
Taborda aims to review and refashion sacramental theology in the
light of the concrete situation of Latin American Catholicism which
finds its identity in the liberating historical praxis of freeing the poor
from their poverty.17 The division of the book into three parts reflects
Taborda's aim and scope. In part 1 he sketches the present situation
regarding faith in Latin America, insisting on the transformation of a
society that is presently unjust. In Part 2 he establishes from an an-
thropological perspective the meaning of and relationship between cel-
ebrating and living the phenomenon of "the feast." In Part 3 he elab-
orates on the notion of the feast and the sacraments as celebrations of
the memorial of the Lord; "feast" is a point of juncture between en-
gagement in Christian sacraments and the Christian life.18
Early on Taborda forcefully asserts that "feast" carries with it the
implication of action in historical and human praxis. Thus his highly
reasoned (rather philosophical) understanding of "feast" implies how
one lives one's faith in human life. He believes that in Latin America
today the requisite expression of this praxis is liberation.19 In this
expression the pivotal term "praxis" is modified by "faith," "commu-
nal," and "of/in the Lord," all of which are used to preserve the Chris-
tian spirit and meaning of that pivotal term.20
17
Originally published as Sacramento, praxis e festa (Sao Paulo: CESEP, 1987) trans,
into Spanish by Alfonso Ortiz Garcia, Sacramentos, praxis y fiesta (Madrid: Ediciones
Paulinas, 1987) which edition is cited here. Also translated into German, Sakramente:
Praxis und Fest, Bibliothek Theologie der Befreiung (Düsseldorf: Patmos, 1988). In
addition, see Taborda's articles "Sacramentos, praxis e festa: Critica e autocritica," Per-
spectiva Teologica 21 (1989) 85-99; and "Vida Crista e sacramentos," Perspectiva Teo-
logica 21 (1989) 227-36.
18
Taborda explains in the Introduction (14) that another helpful way of appreciating
sacraments is to see them as symbols and inherently symbolic. But he argues that for
him "feast" is a more precise and less polyvalent term to describe sacraments.
19
Sacramentos, praxis y fiesta 25-27. 20 Ibid. 25, 34-39.
That human life is more than praxis leads to an appreciation of the

book's thesis: that humans need to celebrate the feast. Here Taborda
relies principally on the work of Peter Hünermann from the Univer-
sity of Münster, as well as on Hugo Rahner and Johan Huizinga.21
Where he relates his understanding of feast with notions of symbol his
reliance on Karl Rahner, Paul Ricoeur and Jose Maria Castillo is ap-
parent and acknowledged.22 For Taborda, there can be no historical
praxis without engagement in symbolic language and symbolic ges-
tures, some of which are Christian sacraments. The nature of the hu-
man person demands a balance between praxis and the feast. He con-
tinually reasserts his thesis that engaging in liberating praxis in Latin
America today means working for a more just society. He argues that
the aim of human life is not to free the human person from work or
praxis or working for a more equal society. Rather it is to free partic-
ipants to engage in the work of constructing a more human world, free
from labor that is alienating or the result of violence or coercion. Sac-
raments appreciated as feasts convey many meanings. In a situation of
inequality, a sacrament could be the impetus toward praxis for a just
society. But at the same time it could be the means of reinforcing
society's inequities and inequitable structures.
In the last part of the book Taborda merges his understanding of
sacraments, feast, and praxis with Christian revelation and sacramen-
tal celebration. Relying on the work of Leonardo Boff he describes the
infrastructure of sacraments as containing narrative and symbolic lan-
guage, as kairoi within the chronology of time and life, as intrinsically
Christocentric and as expressive memorials of Christ's Paschal Mys-
tery in and for the Church. Classic expressions from Catholic doctrine
on sacraments are apparent here (e.g. significando causant), and the
Tridentine exposition on sacraments frames part of his discussion (e.g.
ex opere operato). However, in these sections he emphasizes the sym-
bolic interaction intrinsic to sacraments through which they may be
said to "cause" and he sustains the gratuity of divine initiative as
foundational for sacramental engagement.
Antonio Gonzalez Dorado
Taborda's method and thesis as well as the way he contextualizes his
treatment of sacraments within Latin America today have been influ-
21
Ibid. 42-43, n. 1.
22
Ibid. 62-89, and nn. 1 and 4. Of particular note is José Maria Castillo's Símbolos de
libertad: Teología de los sacramentos (Salamanca: Sigúeme, 1981) because of its intrinsic
worth and its current influence in Europe and Latin America.
ential on the work of other theologians, not least on Los Sacramentos
del Evangelio23 by Antonio Gonzalez Dorado. This sizable volume is a
substantial contribution to the series of basic texts of which it is a
part.24 The synthesis it achieves is framed within the contemporary
Latin American context, and listens seriously to Puebla's plea for a
theology of liturgy and sacraments that takes into account the human
and ecclesial context of Latin America, the preferential option for the
poor, and the contemporary church project of liberating evangelization
to bring the Church to a new birth.25 For Gonzalez Dorado, this in-
volves, among other things, engaging in direct criticism of decadent
sacramental practice, evaluating the link between church renewal and
the liturgical reform, and examining the relationship between sacra-
ments and the contemporary culture, popular religiosity, and ecu-
menism. He does not separate or oppose evangelization and sacramen-
talization. Rather he prefers to emphasize that liturgy and sacraments
are to be celebrated in the context of pastoral life lived in harmony
with the liturgy, especially its evangelizing function.
Gonzalez Dorado's work is comprehensive. In ten chapters he deals
with sacraments in history, sacraments as symbols of faith, the origin
and evangelizing mission of the sacraments, sacraments for the up-
building of a more evangelizing and evangelized Church, sacraments
and the witness of the gospel, sacraments and the evangelizing cult,
the purpose and effects of sacraments in history, ministers as dispens-
ers of the mysteries of God, the relationship of sacraments to the com-
mitment to witness to the gospel, the necessity of sacraments, and the
sacrament of solidarity. Each topic is treated historically, based on
sources such as the Scriptures, Tertullian, Augustine, Aquinas, and
the contemporary magisterium—with special attention to Paul VFs
Evangelii nuntiandi and the texts from Medellin and Puebla. Gonzalez
Dorado explains that he uses Tertullian, Augustine, and Aquinas be-
cause of parallels between their time and now. Tertullian is pertinent
because of the similarity of the age of the martyrs and today's oppres-
sion in Latin America; Augustine, because his task of explaining sac-
raments to the uneducated is similar to the contemporary challenge;
and Aquinas, because his time resembled our own in its profound eco-
nomic, political, and social change. He acknowledges his reliance on
23
Los Sacramentos del Evangelio: Sacramentología fundamental y organica (Santa Fe
de Bogota: CELAM, 1991).
24
Entitled 'Teología para la Evangelización liberadora en America Latina/' the series
is published under the auspices of CELAM and is written as basic texts for seminarians
and future evangelizers in Latin America.
25
Ibid. 18-19. The germane paragraphs from Puebla are nos. 916, 940, 942.
Schillebeeckx, Rahner, Congar and Borobio,26 as well as on Segundo

and Boff. Throughout he treats the rites phenomenologically, is atten-
tive to their liturgical structure and content, and tries to determine
their theological meaning.
Among his more helpful methodological contributions is the way
Gonzalez Dorado contextualizes familiar statements from theologians
and the magisterium to determine precisely what was meant by what
was said. He weaves issues from contemporary Latin American reli-
gious and sacramental practice with the traditional themes he treats.
For example, the chapter on sacraments in history utilizes the theolo-
gians already cited as sources and then treats the evolution of sacra-
mental practice in Latin America from colonial times to today.27 And
he consistently and helpfully treats the interrelationship of theology
and pastoral need, the relationship of anthropology and sacraments,
sacraments as expressive of the wide reality of mysterion, understood
as God's will for universal salvation and liberation, and the relation of
contemporary theologians and the magisterium to pastoral issues of
the day.
Gonzalez Dorado's sacramentology is Christological and ecclesiolog-
ical, with an emphasis on soteriology. This is complemented by treat-
ment of the Spirit's role in sacramental celebration and in the life of
the Church.28 Classical categories of sacramental theology receive
fresh perspectives here, for example, symbolic causality as a way of
discussing ex opere operato. When discussing the number seven Gonza-
lez Dorado articulates his fundamental understanding of sacraments
as festive encounters of the Christian community with Christ and the
Church. In Latin America today the "essential value" of sacraments is
found in their being moments of "liberating evangelization,"29 a
phrase which recurs throughout the book.
Among the more challenging and creative sections are those con-
cerning ministers as dispensers of the mysteries of God and the re-
quirement that those who celebrate sacraments witness to the gospel.
The term "minister" is relative, since Christ is the eternal High Priest
who is the agent of all sacraments, acting through both a ministerial
and common priesthood. Gonzalez Dorado prefers the terms diakonia
and oikonomos to describe sacramental ministers of Christ whose
prime function in ministry is to integrate sacraments, life, and wit-
26
The first of Dionisio Borobio's three-volume work, La celebración en la Iglesia (Sala-
manca: Sigúeme, 1985-), is frequently cited and quoted, evidencing Gonzalez Dorado's
concern to treat liturgy and sacraments together.
27 28
Ibid. 89-108. Ibid. 414-26.
29
Ibid. 255-56.
ness. For him the classical term for sacramental power, potes tas, is best
understood as the power to serve.30 With regard to intentionality in
sacraments he argues that the category of effective intentionality re-
spects human freedom and stresses that "intention" is a deliberate
human act in relation to a specific object. He believes that the major
issue in Latin America today is the divorce between faith and life and
the incoherence between participation in sacraments and the absence
of a vital faith life among participants.31
Discussing contemporary ecumenical issues, Gonzalez Dorado ac-
knowledges the commonality of baptism, and that many of the prob-
lems connected with Eucharist reflect the deeper issues regarding or-
dination. He reiterates a main theme of the book when he asserts that
the crucial dialogue among churches not only deals with sacramental
issues but has to do with working toward the liberation of the poor and
the oppressed for whom sacramental activity is a source of universal
salvation and liberation.32
Many of the book's main themes are reprised in the final chapter on
the necessity of sacraments. Sacraments are an essential part of the
sharing in the good news and in the salvation God intends through
Christ. They celebrate and effect the gospel here and now, and are
intrinsically related to the wider world and its salvation and sanctifi-
cation in God.33 In his conclusion, he offers a moving description of how
sacraments, by their interior dynamism, transform and enliven faith
that is weak or dead into a living faith that is vital and strong. Finally,
he makes a plea for proper sacramental practice as exemplified in
Mary's Magnificat, which he argues is the credo of believers and the
canticle of liberating evangelization, the subtheme of this book.
Conclusion
This survey shows how earlier works on sacramental theology in-
troduced the theme of liberation into sacramental theology through a
critique of sacramental practice and sought to probe the idea of sacra-
mentality. Writings on popular religiosity added fresh accents to the
themes of liberation and symbolic expression. This broadening of the
field of investigation has been systematically incorporated into the
work of recent writers.
Some writers on the northern continents have developed a relation
with this theology. Though not fully worked out in relation to sacra-
ment, one can spot its influence in the approach to memory, including
liturgical memory, in Schillebeeckx and Metz. Some comments found
31
Ibid. 449-62. Ibid. 465-77.
33
Ibid. 484-89, 577. Ibid. 538-77.
throughout Schillebeeckx's Christ indicate some attentiveness to the

liberation themes articulated here. Schillebeeckx states, for example,
that Jesus' words and praxis reveal "God's countenance turned toward
[humanity], the countenance of God who is concerned for all, especially
for the humble of the earth, all those who are crucified."34 Regarding
sacramental liturgy specifically, he argues that sacraments are "an-
ticipatory, mediating signs of salvation, that is healed and reconciled
life. And given our historical situation, at the same time they are
symbols of protest serving to unmask the life that is not yet reconciled
in the specific dimension of our history."35 He adds, "there is in Chris-
tian symbolic action a powerful historical potential which can inte-
grate mysticism and politics."36 At the same time sacraments are cru-
cial, if the Christian praxis of liberation is not to degenerate into an
"alienating claim of self-liberation."37
Catholic University of America KEVIN W. IRWIN
3. POSTMODERN APPROACHES
Postmodern critique is rooted in Heidegger's critique of Western
metaphysics and in Nietzsche's critique of the will to power. A critique
of ontotheology negates the analogy of being and all thought of God as
foundation of created being or as first cause, since this is to think of
God within the limits of human concept, even when it is modified by
the via negationis and the via eminentiae.
In sacramental theology, neither the thought of God as primary
cause nor the Rahnerian understanding of sacrament as symbol of the
Church suffices, for both risk confining the mystery within the hori-
zons of human consciousness. Two works of postmodern theologies of
sacrament that in different ways look for a new starting point in the
language of revelation are examined here.
Sacrament of God's Salvific Event: Louis-Marie Chauvet
Applying a postmodernist critique of the Western metaphysical tra-
dition to sacramental theology, the French theologian Louis-Marie
Chauvet1 intends his work to be not only a theology of sacrament in
34
Christ: The Experience of Jesus as Lord., trans. John Bowden (New York: Seabury,
1980) 768.
35 36
Ibid. 836. Ibid.
37
Ibid. 768. Particularly illustrative is the text of the "Eucharistie Thaiiksgiving"
(848-51). For a brief sketch of liberation theology, see 758-62, 893-94.
1
Louis-Marie Chauvet, Symbole et Sacrement: Une relecture sacramentelle de l'ex-
istence chrétienne (Paris: Cerf, 1987). This book was preceded in 1979 by Du symbolique
au symbole (Paris: Cerf, 1979) and is complemented by quite a large number of articles
SACRAMENTAL THEOLOGY—POSTMODERN 685
the traditional sense, but a symbolic theology of the whole order of

salvation, looked at from within sacramental practice. To speak of the
symbolic rather than simply of symbol avoids taking any symbol as
adequate to the expression of the divine or fixing the gaze on symbols
rather than on the one who approaches humanity through the sym-
bolic.
Chauvet's major work, Symbole et Sacrement, is divided into four
parts, under the titles: (a) from metaphysics to the symbolic, (b) the
sacraments viewed from within the symbolic web of ecclesial faith, (c)
symbolization of Christian identity, and (d) sacramentary and trini-
tarian Christology.
The first and foundational part sets the method for the rest of the
book. Following a Heideggerian critique, Chauvet criticizes in partic-
ular the use of the notion of causality. It debases the gratuitous and
personal character of divine grace celebrated in sacraments. The rela-
tion of mutual and reciprocal gift between lovers is a much better
analogy for grace and sacrament than is that of the making or produc-
ing of things through instrumental causes. Language itself is instru-
mentalized when sacramental theory and practice is dominated by the
notion of causality. Human communities must learn to see themselves
as addressed and possessed by the language which they inherit rather
than as the users of language systems to meet their programmatic
purposes. As an alternative to metaphysical explanations, Chauvet
appeals to studies of language and ritual to fill out this Heideggerian
axiom. This he places within the framework of a Church which acts as
a community of grace and of interpretation, maintaining its institu-
tionally expressed commitment to originating event and to biblical
word within the ritual practice of paschal memorial. In his section on
the ecclesial symbolic web, he attends especially to the use of Scripture
within liturgy, to symbolic rites, and to the ethics that develop within
this context. The Bible has a primary and dominant role, since Chau-
vet follows the trend in the study of language which gives some pri-
macy to writing over speech. Meaning is not constituted in the pres-
ence of self to self, nor of thought in speech, but to be clearly and firmly
established it needs the distanciation of writing. Ethical decision and
on different aspects of sacrament and liturgy. The book has been extensively reviewed,
particularly in French. Worthy of particular mention are the critiques offered by Dio-
nisio Borobio, "El Modelo Simbolico de Sacramentología," Phase 189 (1992) 229-46;
André Haquin, "Vers une nouvelle théologie des sacrements/' Ephemerides Theologicae
Lovanienses 66 (1990) 355-67; Yves Labbé, "Réceptions théologiques de la postmoder-
nité: A propos de deux livres récents de G. Lafont et L.-M. Chauvet/' Revue des Sciences
Philosophiques et Théologiques 72 (1988) 397-426; Ghislain Lafont, review in Ecclesia
Orans 5 (1988) 231-35.
sacramental celebration have in common the constant effort to retrieve

into the present what has been set down in the Bible. Hence ethical
practice serves as a gauge of adequate sacramental practice.
In his further discussion of sacrament Chauvet gives importance to
the twofold basis of rituality and "institution." This latter word is
given a human and dynamic meaning rather than a juridical one.
What Chauvet points to in using the word is that there is a developed
and sanctioned tradition of sacramental practice which cannot be
treated in an arbitrary way, even though it is always open to critique
and renewal, and must be given diversified expression in different
situations. Chauvet uses Emile Benveniste's distinction between semi-
otic entities and semantic entities to explain this. In a language sys-
tem, the semiotic elements are finite and determined. Whoever wants
to refer to something has to remain within this code. The semantic
elements are the various possibilities of expressing reality that cre-
ative use of semiotic elements allows. Thus it is within the code of
sacramental rites that sacramental celebration and sacramental re-
newal take place, but in a creative way. Hence through the notions of
institution/church and instituting/instituted rite, Chauvet deals with
the given of the sacraments and with their constant creativity.
In the fourth part of the book, Chauvet gives his Christological and
trinitarian perspective on sacrament as gift.2 The starting point, in
keeping with language's priority, is the lex orandi, which gives pri-
macy to the proclamation of the Pasch. According to this proclamation,
God gives his love to humanity in the self-effacement of the divinity on
the cross of Christ.3 Through the power of the Spirit and in the me-
morial of the cross, God continues to reveal himself as the other in
human bodiliness, where he continues to efface himself. As sacramen-
tal celebration unfolds, it shows the presence of this self-giving and
self-effacing God in the body of the Church which lives for others, and
in the bodies of the suffering and despised of the earth whom in
Christ's name and Spirit it serves. It is in the symbolic web of sacra-
ment that this divine presence as other is manifest, as it is also in
sacrament that the Church is configured to the Christ of the Pasch.
In an earlier part of the book, Chauvet had treated the relation
between word and rite in terms of an idea of antiritual. This discussion
of ritual is related to the word of the cross/Pasch, and to the anamnesis
2
Chauvet, Symbole et Sacrement 459-548.
3
On this point, there is only a passing reference in Chauvet to von Balthasar. The
principal influence is that of Breton, but he draws also on Jürgen Moltmann and Eber-
hard Jüngel.
and epiclesis whichflowfromthe word, showing the nonidentity of God

or of Christ with the ritual, indeed introducing an element of the
antiritual, and breaking the pattern of the theophanic. Lest the idea of
divine manifestation in visible symbol overshadow proclamation,
there has to be the measure of antiritual in sacrament.4
This postmodern sacramental theology then makes its own uses of
language and ritual studies, inclusive of an appeal to the antiritual
factor in ritual development. Chauvet thus both explains how ritual
functions in sacramental theology from a socio-anthropological per-
spective, and how the appeal to the metaphoric word in sacrament is
ever necessary in keeping memorial of Christ's Pasch. But it would be
wrong to think that Chauvet substitutes his explanation of rite's func-
tioning for causality. He knows the difference between phenomenology
and ontology. The phenomenology opens up the ontological question,
but does not replace it. When we appreciate the nonadequation of
symbol and rite to mystery, or even the split in consciousness which
symbol induces, the relationship to mystery has to be explained by an
ontology which avoids causality but keeps the reference to reality and
the sense of gratuity alive.
Yves Labbé and Ghislain Lafont5 criticize Chauvet for his "closed
world" of words and rites, but it may be responded that Chauvet es-
pouses an ontological perspective which comes from the neoplatoni-
cally inspired meontology of Stanislas Breton.6 This eschews analogies
in speaking of God while at the same time relating revelatory event
and ecclesial life in all its forms to the Onefromwhom/which all things
proceed and to which/whom they return by an inner dynamism of
attraction.
In his own work, Breton posited the need for writing in the very
constitution of revelation.7 There is a double epistemological and on-
tological imperative to this. First, writing distances what is said from
what is thought, but communication and transmission are impossible
without it. Interpretation, however, must take this distancing into
account. God's Word is necessarily made known in words that fall short
4
Symbole et Sacrement 313-17, 361-63.
5
Ghislain Lafont's own work, Dieu, le temps et l'être (Paris: Cerf, 1986), is of some
interest to the issue of sacramental theology, since he has a section on the Eucharist. See
the English translation, God, Time and Being (Petersham, Mass.: St. Bede's, 1992)
134-72.
6
See Stanislas Breton's theological works, Ecriture et Révélation (Paris: Desclée,
1978); and Le Verbe et la Croix (Paris: Desclée, 1981). See Chauvet, Symbole et Sacre-
ment 74-78, 214-16.
7
Breton, Ecriture et Révélation.
of the mystery and require interpretation, not merely speculative but

practical. Second, when something in human history is established
through an event, the event receives its power within human affairs
through narrative, which may be primarily oral but which has to take
on written form, where it is enriched by interplay with a variety of
other genres. This necessarily means a distance between the event and
later time, a distance at times experienced almost as an absence. The
Christ event is present to the Church through narrative and its varied
interpretation. Breton likes to speak of "trace" rather than represen-
tation8 and this carries over into Chauvet. God acts in human time, but
what is left is the trace of the divine action. On the basis of the traces
found in the Scriptures, the Church "writes itself" through its preach-
ing, its theology, its ritual, and its ethics. This allows for the histori-
cality of Christian expression and practice, for the presence of the
Church as sacrament of Christ in divergent historical and cultural
conditions, without having recourse to a theory of divine or instrumen-
tal causality. The cross has a critical role in the life of the Church, not
only in its prophetic challenge but also in the way that it calls into
question explanations offered in myth and in metaphysics.
This thinking seems to be behind Chauvet's stress on the role of the
Scriptures in sacramental action and serves the praxis orientation of
his theology. In line with the various ways in which the Church, in-
spired by the revealed word, "writes itself," without critical and pro-
phetic witness Christian sacrament has no point of insertion into the
life of the ecclesial community. In giving expression in sacrament to
what is the trace of God's action in Christ, and the memory of the trace,
the Church remains open to the critique of the cross.9
Sacrament and Aesthetics of Love: Jean-Luc Marion

By way of contrast with Chauvet, in Jean-Luc Marion10 the post-
modern critique of the metaphysical tradition gives ground to a sac-
8
Breton, Le Verbe et la Croix 133-37.
9
The hermeneutical work of Paul Ricoeur could also find a place in this approach
which does more justice to his project, since it would draw on the important difference
between manifestation and proclamation, on his critique of the institutional, on his
reading of the New Testament as a language of reversal, and on his own ontological
project of the Other. This liberates his work from the hands of those who have not noted
much beyond his dictum that "the symbol gives rise to thought," or his appeal in early
work to the language studies of J. L. Austin.
10
Jean-Luc Marion, God without Being, translated from the French by Thomas Carl-
son (Chicago: University of Chicago, 1991).
ramental theology which relies heavily on the idea of openness to the
iconic.
While his work is primarily philosophical,11 Jean-Luc Marion essays
a sacramental theology centered on the Eucharist that evades what he
sees as the entrapment of the language of Being on the one hand and
the resort to the retrieval of the subject on the other. Marion assents to
the Heideggerian proposition that Western metaphysics has obscured
the manifestation of Being, but believes that Heidegger keeps the
question of God trapped in Being and ontotheology, by continuing to
explore the issue of difference rather than acknowledging distance.
Even in refusing to talk of God, Heidegger locks God into the confines
of human predication. Inevitably, this gives rise to the deconstruction-
ism of such as Jacques Derrida.
According to Marion, the language of perception (Husserl) only pre-
sents things as seen by the I, and the language of Being and beings
(Heidegger) only presents the distance between Being and beings, and
the call of Being to beings, the call to recognize the difference. This is
not enough to allow God and creatures to enter into exchange. It is not
that one cannot talk of God and creatures in terms of Being, but rather
that this becomes a fixation (an idolatry) on the intermediate point
where the difference occurs. The language of causa sui in regard to
God, or of causality in regard to God's work, fixates the gaze outside of
the mystery of revelation. It is more important to perceive negatively
that God is nothing of anything that is created.
What then bridges the distance? Only the divine initiative, God's
advent in self-giving, in agapic love, in the drama of Christ's self-
giving, self-emptying, as the drama of his relation to the Father who
pours himself out in love through the Son. This is what is expressed
and realized in sacrament and Eucharist within the communion of the
Church. The response of the "faithful" is confession of faith, praise,
thanksgiving, and this has to be the basic language of theology. Hence
Eucharist is the hermeneutic site for all interpretation of revelation.
Marion underlines the iconic of divine Love incarnate in Word, re-
siding in the Church in the hermeneutic site of the Eucharist. God is
revealed in agape, in gift. God is named not from Being,12 but from the
cross. Even the word God has to be written with a Cross though the
centre (Ged), since it is in the gift of love on the Cross that God comes
11
"Of the Eucharistie Site of Theology" is presented in the main part of the book
(139-58). The rest of his thoughts on sacrament belong "Hors Texte." (161-82).
12
On this score, Marion criticizes the meaning given to the expression "I AM WHO I
AM" in Thomas Aquinas (ibid. 77-83).
to us and in face of this no human predication can stand. It is in the

distance between God and the world, on the space opened up through
the very efforts at mythical and metaphysical expression, that the
drama of agapic manifestation is played out.
There are three important words for Marion which have implica-
tions for sacramental theology: idol, icon and gift/giving (donation).
First is the distinction between idol and icon. The understanding of
idol begins in the realm of the visible, but for Marion its influence on
Western thought is tied up with the idolatrous quality given to concept
and metaphysical systems. The making of artefacts into idols comes
from the fact that the gaze of the beholder stops at an expression of the
divine instead of seeking to see beyond it. In metaphysics, concepts of
God can exercise the same fascination.13 The idol is brilliant with what
it shows of the divine, but it retains for itself the admiration of the
beholder instead of deflecting attention to the origin. The naming of
God, concepts about God, predications of God's action, all then become
important. The result is that the divine is regionalized, tied to what is
manifested or said of it. The icon on the contrary presents itself as the
face that endows the visible with the inexhaustible invisibility of God.
It does not offer itself to human conceptualization but invites the one
who sees it to bypass it, to venerate what is revealed through it and
towards which it invites the gaze and desire.14 Here we have the mys-
terious initiative of the divine, of which the icon par excellence is the
Word incarnate in whom the gift of divine agape is given to us. It is
given however not to be spoken of, to be conceptualized, but to be
received and worshipped. Response to the gift is not discourse but
gratitude and jubilation. Gift can be spoken of in terms of appropria-
tion of the gift, or in terms of distance of the giver, but both ways of
speaking falsify the giving. It is simply to be praised for what it is, as
manifested in the cross of the Word incarnate, divine agape. God does
not offer himself as an object to our vision, but as one who in silence
looks upon us. 15 Thus we do not come to know God through represen-
tations, but by consenting to abide beneath God's light. To know God,
then, is to let oneself be known by God, to cease to appropriate the gift
given, or the giving, or to distance it, but to receive it purely as gift.
In this approach Marion gives priority to the Johannine discourse on
13
Application of the distinction to visual representation, especially images and paint-
ing, is made in Marion's La Croisée du visible (Paris: La Différence, 1991).
14
Playing with words, Marion writes, "le visible fait le visable," the visible presents
that toward which the beholder is invited to aim. In the same vein, he writes: 'The icon
makes visible only by giving rise to an infinite gaze" (God without Being 18).
15
See J.-L. Marion, "De la 'Mort de Dieu' aux Noms Divins: L'Itinéraire Théologique
de la Métaphysique," Laval Théologique et Philosophique 41 (1985/1) 33.
Word and Love, and all biblical revelation is integrated into this ico-
nicity. What he finds in John is the primacy not of the written word but
of the Word made flesh. The written word has to deflect attention from
itself to the Word made flesh, to the person of Christ, who intervenes
in person in the life of the Church only at the Eucharistie moment. In
face of the obscurity of language or concepts, we are not to appeal to the
retrieval of the subject. For Marion this is a false turn in theology and
in the interpretation of the Eucharist in particular, as though what it
gave us were some kind of collective ecclesial consciousness, developed
in response to the word of Christ and through a process of keeping
memory.
There is a role for the sacrament of penance in bringing about iconic
conversion, since it releases in us the power to speak a properly ideo-
logical word,16 which is that of prayer, praise, silence, in face of the
gift, of the divine regard upon us. The core of Marion's sacramental
theology however is succinctly worked out in a couple of pages, where
he writes of the Eucharist as the place for a hermeneutic.17 As he puts
it, "the Christian assembly that celebrates the Eucharist unceasingly
reproduces this hermeneutic site of theology."18 Following out the Em-
maus narrative in Luke 24, he traces the enactment of the eucharistie
celebration as it brings us into the presence of the Word and brings the
gift of the Word in person to the Church. The law and the prophets, the
logia of Christ himself, are read, and in being read are related to
Christ's death, so that they are transgressed or passed through in order
to bring the hearers to the manifestation of the Word in person that
takes place in the event of the cross. The homily of the priest who does
this hermeneutic for the community carries over into the eucharistie
rite where the Word though visibly absent makes himself recognized
in the breaking of the bread in the action and words of the priest whom
the Word characterizes as his person. It is through the priest then who
does the hermeneutic and then assumes the role of the person of the
Word that the Word assimilates the community to himself, in which he
acts through the priest. Because the priestly role is primarily that of
the bishop, the teaching role is also primarily episcopal.19
This position is complemented in an essay on Christ's Ascension by
16
Marion calls the sacrament of penance "la condition de possibilité de la parole
théologique quant à Dieu" (ibid.).
17 18
God without Being 151-52. Ibid.
19
In what Marion says of the bishop as the primary theologian in the Church (ibid.
156-58), one has to note his underlining of theo in theology. He is emphasing the fact
that because of the bishop's action in the Eucharist in persona Christi, he is the one to
keep believers in touch with the Word and its manifestation, other theological tasks
assumed by others being secondary to this.
Marion's discussion of blessing,20 where he deciphers the role of the

entire Church in expressing in itself the praise of God, in acknowledg-
ment of the gift of love, and in living out as it were the fraction of the
bread and wine in the self-gift of its members in imitation of Christ. On
the other hand, since this spirituality is given its central, live-giving
and iconic form in the sacraments, and most especially in the Eucha-
rist, Marion's affirmation of the role of the bishop or priest as repre-
sentative of the Word Incarnate in sacramental celebration is con-
firmed. The life of the Church must be anchored to the Eucharist, in
which the Word incarnate "appearances" through the person of the
bishop, speaking in his name and power within the community of faith.
The Word of God present in the flesh and in the action of the Eucharist
"crosses out" every idol, sensible or conceptual, by which humans pre-
sume to speak of God, and so theology has to be such as to let the Word
speak in its fleshly and sacramental manifestation, rather than en-
gaging in metaphysical or anthropological discourse.
In a lengthy disquisition on transubstantiation,21 offering a non-
metaphysical interpretation, Marion focuses the transparency of the
gifts of bread and wine in letting agape show forth. In much that
theology has said of transubstantiation, he finds the risk of idolatry, of
attaching sight and attention to the symbol rather than that to which
it is meant to draw attention. On the other hand, he rebukes those who
through such terms as transignification bring attention to the commu-
nity of the Church. For Marion, an authentic theology of real presence
highlights three things: the gift of love, given within human time; the
mystical reality of the Word's kenotic commitment, anticipating es-
chatological glory; the ecclesial body which is real only as a commu-
nion with Christ. Everything then centers on the bishop or presiding
priest, who because he attains the Word in person in the celebration is
the one to interpret the words of the Scriptures. In line with this, he
explains the nature of memorial and its relation to the present. Since
it is done in the name of a past event and in the eschatological impa-
tience for the future of the return of Christ, memorial takes the present
outside of the ordinary way of living time and makes it ecstatic, that is
open to the gift of agape. Memorial is not a simple matter of remem-
bering something from the past. In virtue of this past event, whose
trace is left in the words of Scripture, it gives the actual presence and
gift here and now of the same Word who is the icon of the Father, now
sacramentally active in the person of the priest who acts in the com-
20
J.-L. Marion, "Le don d'une présence," in Prolégomènes à la charité (Paris: La Dif-
férence, 1986) 149-78.
21
God without Being 163-67.
SACRAMENTAL THEOLOGY—FEMINIST 693
munity. The word which this evokes is the word of praise, doxology,
even silence, for this is the proper response to the gift.
What Marion has done in this sacramental theology is to eschew the
turn to the subject, with postmodern skepticism about such a possibil-
ity. He has also espoused the Heideggerian critique of Western meta-
physics, but made the Heideggerian critique itself subject to criticism
for entrapping talk of God into the language of being. He then avoids
a Derridean deconstruction of subjective interpretations by his use of
the notion of icon. While he allows for a plurality of theologies having
to do with human faith and action, he refers them all back to the icon
of the Eucharist and the role of the bishop to do the hermeneutic,
precisely because he presides in the person of the Word.
Conclusion
Marion and Chauvet share in common the rejection of metaphysical
and causal explanations of sacrament, the emphasis on gift and divine
self-giving, and the centrality of the cross as an act of divine self-
effacement. They differ in the way that they understand the place of
the sacrament in the Church. Marion is similar to von Balthasar in his
idea of the form, comprising Scripture, ecclesial office and sacrament,
that is in place from scriptural times, and that represents an aesthetic
whole. Chauvet adopts the idea of revelation events as God's trace in
human life. He then uses language and ritual studies to explain the
historicity and historical becoming of the Church through sacramental
celebration and attends more to the hidden quality of God's self-
giving.22
Catholic University of America DAVID N. POWER, O.M.I.
4. FEMINIST THEOLOGY
The turn to the subject, liberation theology, and postmodernity, all
occur in some way within the works of feminist theologians. In a recent
chapter of a book, Susan Ross concludes by noting that in the area of
sacramental theology feminist writing is concerned with the human in
the mystery of the Incarnation, with the place of gender in the working
of symbols, and with the connection between sacramental praxis and
social justice.1 While this is a good summary of interests, feminist
22
Chauvet, Symbole et Sacrement 222-23, actually refers to Marion's understanding
of the icon, as he differentiates it from the idol, hut in order to accentuate the hidden
quality of divine gift and manifestation.
1
Susan A. Ross, "God's Embodiment and Women: Sacraments," in Freeing Theology:
theology is by no means to be taken as a methodologically uniform

field. It is harder to keep the distinction between Catholic and Prot-
estant, or between Christian and Jewish, between Judeo-Christian
and such interests as the retrieval of Goddess religion, simply because
there is so much shared among women, even in rite, beyond institu-
tional divisions.2
In treating of sacrament, feminist theology, as a form of liberation
theology, is concerned with fundamental views of reality and with the
shaping of views and practices by patriarchy. To elaborate a radically
new way of thinking about and celebrating sacraments, it addresses
the critique of ideologies, the retrieval of what has been hidden or
submerged, the critique of language and ritual behavior, and praxis.
Ritualization, participation, and observation belong together, pre-
cisely because feminist theology is trying not simply to understand
what sacrament is or how it works, but to discover what it might
become when freed from ideologies, opened to new inspiration, encom-
passing new experiences, and nourished by new memories.
More than anywhere else, in feminist writing the boundary between
liturgy and sacrament has all but disappeared. First, the concern is
with ritual action and symbolic language that within communities
revitalize the Christian tradition from a feminist perspective and draw
upon it even while drawing on other religious traditions. Second, while
writers often treat of the Church in a comprehensive way and look to
a future of celebration within communities of equal discipleship, there
is a very particular locus of discourse that is Women-Church or a
community of women giving voice and role to women. Third, the meth-
odological approach that is emerging is a very practical one, mixing act
and reflective discourse in a distinctive way. The foundations of reflec-
tive discourse are posited in creative ritual act, through what one
might call the process of ritualization par excellence.
Sacrament and Woman-Subject
The bulk of the writing is found among American scholars, but even
there a difference exists between those who look primarily to Ameri-
can feminists as dialogue partners and those who look to French fem-
inists. Quite interestingly, most of the specific French contribution to
an understanding of sacrament does not come from theological writ-
The Essentials of Theology in Feminist Perspective, ed. Catherine Mowry LaCugna (San
Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1993) 185-209.
2
For a reasonably representative collection of essays, see Women at Worship: Inter-
pretations ofNorth American Diversity, ed. Marjorie Procter-Smith and Janet R. Walton
(Louisville, Ky.: Westminster/Knox, 1993).
ings but from feminists, such as Julia Kristeva, who are interested in
religious expression as cultural heritage and look for ways to overcome
its male domination.
Retrieval of Women-Subject
On the side of American feminist influence, the tactic is that of the
retrieval of women-subject, with a critique of patriarchal paradigms in
language, rite, and institution, and a theological reconstruction of li-
turgical history. In a recent essay, Mary Collins has outlined five prin-
ciples of feminist liturgy.4 The foundational principle is "the ritualiz-
ing of relationships that emancipate and empower women." This leads
to the retrieval and the affirmation of what has been lost or forgotten.
A second principle is that there are no elites to lead or order the
liturgy, but the responsibility is community-centered and belongs
within intentional groups. Third, the ritual action seeks "to transform
patriarchal schemes of redeemed and redemptive relationships."
Fourth, rites develop a fresh repertory of symbolic speech and action.
And fifth, feminist liturgy is more interested in producing liturgical
events than in producing liturgical texts.5 This of course makes theo-
logical reflection more challenging. Since it has to consider ritualiza-
tion as a process, there can be less dependency on standard texts than
is the case even among male scholars who insist on the primacy of
reflection on celebration or liturgical action in sacramental theology.
In previous work, Collins herself brings together the study of tradi-
tional liturgical language and a feminist reconstruction.6 There is a
strong contribution to a renewed sacramental theology in the theolog-
ical reconstruction of women's roles in the early Church and of the
emergence of patriarchy done by Elizabeth Schüssler Fiorenza,7 but
this has to be carried over into history. In an essay on hermeneutics,
Schüssler Fiorenza shows how celebration belongs to theological
3
The most prominent American discussion with French feminism is that of Rebecca S.
Chopp, The Power to Speak: Feminism, Language, God (New York: Crossroad, 1991). See
also Transfigurations: Theology and the French Feminists, ed. C. W. Maggie Kim et al.
(Minneapolis: Fortress, 1993).
4
Mary Collins, "Principles of Feminist Liturgy," in Women at Worship 9-26.
5
There is of course a host of texts in print, and a legion of mimeographed pages, but
among feminists one could not find the idea of an editio typica to regulate all celebra-
tions.
6
Mary Collins, 'The Public Language of Ministry," Official Ministry in a New Age, ed.
James H. Provost, Permanent Seminar Papers 3 (Washington: Canon Law Society of
America, 1981) 7-40; "Liturgical Language," in The New Dictionary of Sacramental
Worship, ed. Peter E. Fink (Collegeville: Liturgical, 1990) 651-61.
7
Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, In Memory ofHer: A Feminist Theological Reconstruc-
tion of Christian Origins (New York: Crossroad, 1984).
method by enumerating the four kinds of hermeneutics native to fem-

inist theology: a hermeneutic of suspicion, a hermeneutic of proclama-
tion, a hermeneutic of remembrance and historical reconstruction, and
finally a hermeneutic of ritualization and celebration, which she also
calls creative actualization.8 These four methods are intertwined, the
last one allowing women a means of retrieving the power of their own
creative imagination and its emancipatory power.9
Diagnostics of Ordination Practice
The question of ordination provides a diagnostic of what needs
changing in sacramental practice and sacramental outlook. It is not a
mere matter of women seeking ordination. It is rather that policy and
thought on ordination represent an understanding of the sacramental
and of grace which is discriminatory and male-dominated. As Susan
Ross summarizes the matter, sacramental theology cannot assume the
prevailing understandings of human experience or of the symbolic and
ritual expressions of Christ and of the divine.10 Even while the dis-
tinctive nature of women's experience is affirmed, it also has to be seen
as a locus of grace, power, and revelation, which requires not separa-
tion but diversity in sacramental ministry and representation. How
the historical Jesus is remembered and how the presence and action of
the risen Christ is represented is a central issue and means the inter-
weaving of feminist Christology with sacramental theology.11
Contributions from French Feminism
French feminists contribute in seeking the depth structures of tra-
ditional Catholic sacramental symbolism, which they see infected by
patriarchy. They do not simply critique the assumptions of universal-
ity and patriarchy undergirding Western culture and religious tradi-
tions, but they are also skeptical of modernity's claim to a retrieval of
the subject. They nonetheless search for new ways of reading texts and
for ways of speaking that empower women and all who are the victims
of patriarchy.
8
Elisabeth Schüssler Fiorenza, ''Women-Church: The Hermeneutical Center of Fem-
inist Biblical Interpretation," in herBread Not Stone: The Challenge ofFeminist Biblical
Interpretation (Boston: Beacon, 1984) 1-22.
9
For concrete suggestions for celebrating according to feminist models, see Rosemary
Radford Ruether, Women-Church: Theology and Practice (San Francisco: Harper & Row,
1985).
10
Susan Ross, "God's Embodiment and Women."
11
See Elizabeth A. Johnson, "Redeeming the Name of Christ," in Freeing Theology
115-38.
While the interest in religious discourse of French feminists is pri-
marily that of students of culture, they offer specific critiques and
suggestions for renewed speech within Christianity, which can offer
pragmatic and creative dialogue to feminist theologians.12 The one
whose work seems most amenable to providing creative impulse to
sacramental theology is Julia Kristeva.13
Kristeva relates to the postmodern critique of logocentrism and its
supposed claims that language and concept can give adequate or direct
representations of reality or of the self. From this point of view lan-
guage and representation are always at odds with the signified. Tak-
ing this critique up in her own way, Kristeva allies herself with those
who see no direct retrieval of the subject, no direct presence of the
subject to itself. She makes a detour to the retrieval of the "subject in
process" through the analysis of sign and symbol, as well as a recon-
struction of the work of the imaginary in construing a world. This is
especially important in retrieving the feminine imaginary from within
patriarchal cultures and civilizations.
Kristeva specializes in psychology and language studies and their
impact on the social contract.14 Elements of her work affect the un-
derstanding of Christian sacrament.15 Her critique of patriarchy and
her search for new and empowering modes of women's speech are in-
tegral to this. Probing Jewish monotheism and then Christianity, she
looks for the ways in which they have addressed the tendencies and
tensions of human consciousness within religious paradigms. She is
critical of Christian history for the ways in which the Church has
subjected women, often in its ritual as well as in its spirituality. How-
ever, her analysis is such that it unearths the creative power of Chris-
tian symbolism, as well as its destructive aspects, and she draws on it
for the possibilities of women-speech that belongs in public discourse.
The challenge to sacramental practice and theology is whether there is
that in its history and its symbolism, and especially in its origins,
which can be retrieved despite the long history of patriarchy.
12
On this dialogue, see Transfigurations: Theology and the French Feminists.
13
For English-language readers, there is a fine collection of her essays, The Kristeva
Reader, ed. Toril Moi (New York: Columbia University, 1986), which gives a list of
works by Kristeva, including English translations where these exist (20-21). To this
listing must be added the book, Soleil noir: Dépression et mélancolie (Paris: Gallimard,
1987).
14
For what this means to social and culture development, see her essay "Women's
Time," in The Kristeva Reader 187-213.
15
See Cleo McNelly Kearns, "Kristeva and Feminist Theology," in Transfigurations
49-80. Though French feminists are not mentioned, for similar interests, see Susan
Ross, "God's Embodiment and Women."
Kristeva's distinction between semiotic and symbolic16 is helpful.

The semiotic is expression that is corporeal in its roots, that is imag-
inatively associative and drive-patterned, and so less reflectively con-
scious. The symbolic is expression that is rational, socially negotiable,
and much more overtly conscious, since it has to do with social rela-
tions and social power. Communities and societies constitute their so-
cial covenant by symbolic expression, which means that it leans heav-
ily on shared significations but also is negotiable as power patterns
change. For Kristeva, both types of expression are necessary even
though in tension. Communities have to live the thin but dangerous
dividing line between them, negotiate their interaction in the interests
of freedom. To discover a power of expression within this tradition that
contributes to the life of the subject in process, and especially woman-
subject, requires what she calls analytic listening and aesthetic prac-
tice. The first allows the interpreter to attend to the intersection of the
semiotic and the symbolic. The second allows for the retrieval of the
power of the semiotic which has been suppressed when subordinated to
the symbolic and social code.
Discourse and language have high significance for Kristeva, for only
in access to language can the human person express and resolve drives
and orientations. The problem with public discourse is that it may not
allow all of society's members their expression, or that it may privilege
male discourse, disempowering women in that which is most intimate
to themselves. For Kristeva, the preaching and actions of Christ in his
approach to persons expresses strong interiorization which goes be-
yond the legalism, ritual, and taboos which she finds in the prevailing
Jewish religion of his time. While subsequent Christian symbolic dis-
course emphasizes the interiority of sin rather than external defile-
ment, it has not retained creative and liberating power.
The depth structure of woman's religious expression is important to
Kristeva. Feminine expression has not been muted, but it has either
fostered subordination to the male, or has sought outlet that is mar-
ginal to the symbolic covenant, sometimes even in psychologically
hurtful ways. In particular, Kristeva critiques the role of creedal ex-
pression in ritual and the role of the symbol of sacrifice.17 Both touch
16
This is helpfully explained in the two essays: "From Symbol to Sign," and "Semi-
otics: A Critical Science and/or a Critique of Science," in The Kristeva Reader 34-88. As
McNelly Kearns comments, this distinction between the semiotic and the symbolic "can
be very confusing to Anglo-Americans, for whom the term symbol carries a good deal of
the connotations of materiality, associative meaning, and sensuality that Kristeva
would place on the side of the semiotic" ("Kristeva and Feminist Theology" 65).
17
Much of the thought pertinent to sacrifice, reconciliation, and Eucharist is found in
on something necessary to the communal, but they have turned up in
ways that are oppressive of women. Because of its formal nature, creed
gives primacy to rational and public expression. If it dominates rite, it
suppresses the imaginary and the creative.
Kristeva finds much in the language of sacrifice that is important,
but she understands sacrifice primarily as something violent and sup-
pressive, used as a ruse for forbidding certain pleasures and for keep-
ing other ruptures and instincts to socially disruptive violence in trim.
In Christianity, interpretation of Christ's death as sacrifice and its
ongoing inclusion in the language of Eucharist and spirituality antic-
ipate and prevent the violent action of sacrifice, serving thus as a
taboo. In the process, however, it has sanctioned but suppressed the
consciousness of a rupture between affirmation of God and human
creativity, between spirit and body, and between the male and the
female. Of women in particular, it has exacted an inner rupture with
their own bodies,18 forbidden both the fruits of motherhood through
union with the child whom in imitation of Mary they are compelled to
"sacrifice," and the enjoyment, or jouissance, rooted in the body. In
effect then, the eucharistie rite serves as a taboo which anticipates
resort to social violence and checks resort to new sacrifices of persons,
deemed necessary to the social order. But it has done this largely by
subjugating women to a male-dominated symbolic, allowing her in the
social process no place other than that of motherhood, and even then
denying her the pleasure of motherhood through the demands of sac-
rifice. While Kristeva seems to acknowledge that this may be creative
for mystically inclined women, it has been harmful to those whom she
calls "ordinary women" because it allows them no social belonging
except through their motherhood and then deprives them of enjoying
even that.
A further area where depth structure can be examined is in the
language of confession and forgiveness. There are deep ruptures in the
human psyche that have to be both acknowledged and healed. They
have to do with our very finitude and our transgression of relations,
both personal and social. The sacrament of reconciliation19 offers a
forum for creative healing and empowerment in relation to the divine
which transcends gender and social discriminations. Kristeva summa-
rizes the expression of this sacrament in the phrase: "I am mortal and
the collection of essays edited in English translation as Powers of Horror: An Essay on

Abjection (New York: Columbia University, 1982) 1-132.
18
For concrete examples, see Caroline Walker Bynum, Holy Feast and Holy Fast
(Berkeley: University of California, 1987) 189-218.
19
Besides Powers of Horror, see Soleil noir: Dépression et mélancolie 194-226.
I speak." The first set of words allows the person to voice both the
ruptured and the disruptive that is in the self. The second set of words,
"I speak," come from the reconciled self who has been able to bring
deep instincts and feelings to expression, in psychological terms bring-
ing the attachment to the Mother into the relationship with the Fa-
ther. She has a kinder appreciation of Augustine than is often common
today, because at least he allowed that concupiscence and sin is in the
body, and not simply in a willful transgression of law or offense against
God. The problem with interiorization is that it can suppress the in-
stinctive, rather than integrate it. At least Augustine allows us to
name the instinctual, even if we have to regret it and renounce it.
Discourse, however, if it integrates, can be freeing and reconciling.
Addressed to the Other, it can receive back, as it were, an acceptance
and love of the total self. If God is deemed to be offended when we give
unbridled rein to instincts, it is freeing if words of pardon bless rather
than suppress these instincts even while generating a creative power
that is more spiritual but not less fleshly. From the experience of
pardon then, the mortal can say "I speak."
While the relation to the divine is vital to the process of healing and
reconciliation, sacramental theology could follow through with Kriste-
va's insights, showing that ecclesial reconciliation is necessary, recon-
ciliation between persons who have offended and those who have given
offense. The very need for ecclesial ritual recognition of fault, giving of
pardon, and reconciliation, before patriarchy can be overcome,
emerges. This gives a new historicity to sacraments, recognizing the
particular role that they have to play at given moments in the forging
of the nexus between the semiotic and the symbolic.
The Eucharist can function creatively as a rite of taboo, anticipative
of sacrifice, if it is taken as such and does not promote psychotic sup-
pression but rather moves to liberating discourse. It allows partici-
pants to find the reconciliation and creative juncture between "the
body of the mother" and the "law of the father," to negotiate the line
between the semiotic and the symbolic creatively. The symbolism of
the body, rather than sacrifice, is at the heart of the Eucharist, which
is a sacrament of eating and drinking the body and blood of the Lord,
of taking Christ into our own bodies. Through the excessive emphasis
on the symbolism of sacrifice, the ritual can downplay and even negate
the bodily. If the deeply bodily is integrated into discourse, the sacra-
ment elevates the body into the symbolic, all corporeality elevated,
spiritualized, and sublimated, allowing place for jouissance and aes-
thetic expression. The formula over the bread, "This is my body," are
the words of Christ who appeared in the flesh and continues to do so in
20
this sacramental way. They are put out of focus if they are taken as
masculine words, repeatable only by males, for they are now Christ's
words over all that is earthly, cosmic, and human, over all flesh and
the relations of flesh. They embrace both the drive-patterned and the
socially-patterned, reconciling them within the one body and offering
freedom and voice to all so consecrated.
English-language writers add nuances to Kristeva's contribution,
whose psychologized historical inquiries might otherwise suggest the
almost complete muting of an authentic woman's voice. For example,
while some of the medieval eucharistie language may at times have
provoked psychological tensions in women, in other cases it was given
a more positive reading that allowed women creative affirmation, even
if this was in some respects marginal to ecclesial structures.21 An
English writer, Mary Grey,22 has further suggested that woman's self-
expression in the Christian tradition is not as definitively or solely tied
to the maternal, as Kristeva assumes.23
On the subject of appropriate sacramental language, McNelly
Kearns looks for a more positive use of creed within rite, provided it
allows a more doxological expression of faith.24 In looking at Christian
culture, Kristeva has focused on rite and its inhibiting power. That is
why she finds that in the contemporary world there is more creative
power in artistic language and expression, and that this has to become
the social or symbolic discourse of the age. In that, women are to have
a primary role, since the social must integrate the feminine which has
been suppressed. From an entirely different angle, Catholic theology
has also focused too much on rite, even if doing so in its concern with
efficacy. An understanding of sacrament today attempts a better inte-
gration of word and sacrament. Even now, perhaps not enough has
been done to get beyond the signifying power of sacramental words to
the doxological thrust of the prayer that completes the sacramental
canon. Sacrament in its very inner constitution is not only proclama-
tion and ritual ordering, but it is prayer and praise. In this concern
with a discourse that goes beyond the ritual and the conceptual,
20 « Q ^ T o l l i s pedata Mundi...," in Powers of Horror 118-120.

21
For example, Gertrude of Helfta; see Bynum, Jesus as Mother: Studies in the Spir-
ituality of the High Middle Ages (Berkeley: University of California, 1982) 170-209.
22
Mary Grey, " 'Yet Woman Will Be Saved Through Bearing Children' (1 Tim 2.16):
Motherhood and the Possibility of a Contemporary Discourse for Women," Bijdragen 52
(1991) 58-69.
23
Much more has to be said too about the meaning of sacrifice in Christian usage than
Kristeva takes into account.
24
"Kristeva and Feminist Theology."
Kristeva's critique and aspiration converges with the postmodernist

concerns of Chauvet and Marion when they attend to the doxological
aspect of sacrament.
Conclusion
In sum, feminist theology opens up the field of sacramental studies
to the experience of women and in the process introduces new meth
odologies and new perspectives on symbol which change the way of
reading sacramental tradition. It also gives new ways of interpreting
practice and of incorporating insights from other sciences. With the
distinctive contributions from American and from French feminism,
there is room for continuing creative dialogue.
5. AFRICAN AND ASIAN CONTRIBUTIONS

This part of the survey has to be brief, but omitting it would be to
ignore an important part of the dialogue between local churches, North
and South. It is an extensive, though largely unsystematized litera
ture, not readily accessible in its totality on the American Continent.
In the ten-year bibliography of African, Asian and Latin American
works put out as Theology in Context between 1984 and 1994,1 there
are few entries in the index under the word sacrament. It is necessary
instead to search under such rubrics as rite, symbol, culture, Inkultur
ation, religion, popular religiosity, to find an emerging sacramental
theology which relates very specifically to cultures and their religious
sense, as well as to justice and the Church's option for the poor.
The discussion on both continents embodies fresh perspectives on
sacramentality, with much attention given to symbols, their cosmic,
biotic, and oneiric roots, as well as to their social, familial, and cultural
2
roles. The approach is generally practical. Rites are not attributed a
1
Theology in Context: Information on Theological Contributions from Africa, Asia,
Oceania, and Latin America, 11 vols. (Aachen: Institute of Missiology, Missio, 1984-94).
Some of the periodicals that touch on this field are: Au Coeur de Γ Afrique, Bulletin of
African Theology, Cahiers de Religions Africaines, African Christian Studies, East Asian
Pastoral Review, Revue de Théologie Africaine, Télema, Word and Worship. For a good
overview of African approaches, see Médiations Africaines du Sacré: Actes du Troisième
Colloque International du Kinshasa 1986 (Kinshasa: Facultés de Théologie Catholique,
1987). For examples of two Asian perspectives, see East Asian Pastoral Review 19 (1982/
3), issue entitled "Sacraments and Culture," and Jeevadhara 18 (July 1988), issue en-
titled "Liturgy of the Church in the Indian Context."
2
See François Kabasele Lumbala, "Symboles africains et célébration liturgique," Thé-
ologie Africaine: Bilan et Perspectives: Actes de la dix-septième semaine théologique de
Kinshasa 1989 (Kinshasa: Facultés Catholiques, 1989) 109-128: Eugene E. Uzukwu,
Liturgy: Truly Christian, Truly African, Spearhead 74 (Eldoret: Gaba, 1982). For a
SACRAMENTAL THEOLOGY—AFRICA AND ASIA 703
general efficacy, but their power is tested in specific situations, where

the purpose is the nurturing of life, socialization into community, com-
munion with the dead or with spirits, reconciliation or healing. Such
an approach has affinities with feminist theology, itself well repre-
sented among Africans and Asians,3 since it means a process of prac-
tical ritualization as a ground for theological reflection when this plays
the mediating role between gospel and culture, or Christian sacrament
and culture.
In short, more fundamental than a sacramental system of seven
sacraments in the emerging inculturation of Christian worship is a
basic sacramentality that relates to the religious sense inherent in
cultures, and expresses humanity's relation to earth and cosmos, as
well as to ancestors and the living dead. It integrates the rituals of
life-rhythms and body-rhythms, and attends to the role of various me-
diators in communities of peoples. With this view of sacramentality,
the question is not one of adapting traditional sacramental rites to
cultures, nor of finding African and Asian ways of expressing given
sacramental meanings. The history of sacrament has to live in dialec-
tic with a symbolic and ritual expression which takes shape in cul-
tures, rooted in an ancient religious sense, within communities that
profess faith in Jesus Christ and the Church of his disciples. Since
sacraments were brought to African and Asian peoples in the forms of
Western culture and with little regard for the peoples' own heritage,
sacramental theology has to include a critique of past practice and
theology, even while attempting to retrieve the power of its core sym-
bols.4 Essential to this critique is the challenge to complicity between
sacramental rite and social power, both ecclesial and civic.
Christian presence and action in a society in need of change, espe-
cially in the interests of the poor, emerges as a sacramental question.
methodological approach to African theology that affects the theology of sacrament and
worship, see Justin S. Ukpong, "Towards a Renewed Approach to Inculturation Theol-
ogy»" Journal of Inculturation Theology 1 (1994/1) 8-24. For the pertinence of ancestor
veneration to sacrament and worship, see Charles Nyamiti, "African Ancestral Vener-
ation and its Relevance to the Christian Churches," African Christian Studies 9 (1993/3)
14-37.
3
In this field, see for example The Will to Arise: Women, Tradition, and the Church in
Africa, ed. Mercy Amba Oduyoye and Musimbi R. A. Kanyoro (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis,
1993). For a review of Asian women's sensitivity to poetics and celebration, see Chung
Hyun Kyung, "Who is Jesus for Asian Women?" in Asian Faces of Jesus, edited by R. S.
Sugirtharajah (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1993) 223-46.
4
Looking at the ritual of the Independent Churches in Africa, or sects and cults on
both continents, is found to be a rewarding study, since these bodies have done more to
wed traditional ritual with Christian gospel than mainstream churches, and since they
express the actual messianic hopes of their members.
Prophetic in its action, the Church has to be prophetic in its ritual. As

Jean-Marc Eia5 states it, prophetic memory localizes grace under the
shadow of the cross, by relating the commemoration and witness of
victims to Christ's memory. In being taken into Christian sacrament,
African symbolism is not to be retrieved in a romantic way, but in its
openness to the concrete realities of world and people. Rites function to
make the Church a true sign of hope for those who risk living in
despair. Eia finds that Christian churches often failed in this regard.
Their seeming powerlessness to reveal and express the liberating
power of the gospel has provoked the appearance of black messianisme,
signs of a certain hope in the midst of misery, sickness, and oppression.
The challenge to the Church is to relate sacramental rites to the hopes
and struggles of human liberation, in which it is itself truly engaged.
Liturgy can be the language of a prophetic church when it keeps mem-
ory in Christ of the forgotten, the oppressed, and the victims of history.
The cry for justice in this kind of sacramental theology has a focal
point in discussion of the eucharistie elements. Not only does retention
of Mediterranean substances prevent a bodying of Christ in local cul-
tures, but it subjects the sacrament to the laws of global market and
foreign capital. Thus Sidbe Semporé6 in face of famine on the African
continent finds in this a sign of the unjust distribution of goods which
contradicts the very essence of eucharistie memorial, making it an
affront to those who starve or who subsist on minimal nourishment.
Attempting to summarize a theological method of sacramental re-
flection that undergirds ritual change in these young churches, one
could say that what is emerging is a method of contextualization.
Through this method, it is possible to discover the mediation of rite in
transforming or stabilizing the human, as well as ways of integrating
cultural ritual forms into the proclamation and memory of Christ, in
dialectic with sacramental history. It also makes it possible to discern
and give focus to sacrament's liberating power. It is in brief a sacra-
mental theology which is a reflection on the practical, contextual, and
empirical role of rites and language in mediating Christ's grace and
presence, and it is rooted in an understanding of the place of rite and
symbol in traditional religions and cultures of the African and Asian
continents.
5
Jean-Marc Eia, African Cry, trans, from the French (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1988).
6
Sidbe Semporé, "The Famine in Africa," trans,fromthe French, Concilium (1993/3);
The Spectre of Mass Death, ed. David Power and Kabasele Lumbala (London: SCM; and
Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1993) 9-12. For an Asian perspective on Eucharist and justice,
see Tissa Balasuriya, Eucharist and Human Liberation (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1977).
CONCLUSION
From this survey of literature on sacraments, it is clear that they are
treated currently in a much wider liturgical, ecclesial, and theological
context than was formerly the case. Even those who still adopt a neo-
classical notion of sacrament, work out the categories of explanation in
a new perspective and with more attention to the ecclesial and anthro-
pological dimensions of word, sign, and celebration. The literature
shows that sacramental theology can no longer be done without an
interdisciplinary approach. Though this is used in a variety of ways,
sacramental understanding and practice require insights provided by
other sciences into rite and symbol, language forms and expressions,
human communications, and liberative praxis.
Rather than start with a set notion of sacrament, many begin with
the Church's sacramental practice and look for ways of interpreting
this, even critically. In this latter vein, some examine particularly the
laws of celebration, with emphasis on the axiom lex orandi lex ere-
dendi, while others look at the relation of sacrament to a larger eccle-
sial praxis, and indeed to issues of a full human liberation and em-
powerment. For liberation theology, feminist theology, and African
and Asian contributions, this involves a critique of sacramental prac-
tice and sacramental thought, done from different angles, in view of
their renewal. These theological approaches in order to understand
sacramentality also look outside formal sacramental rites to other cel-
ebrations and ritual experience, whether these be found in women-
church, popular religiosity or cultural religious rites.
Whether because of the critique of traditional approaches and cate-
gories, or because of attention to practice, there is considerable recon-
sideration of the ways in which sacraments need to be explained.
Whatever the considerable differences in sacramental theologies that
result, it is with a deep sense of faith, faith that Christ and the Spirit
are active in the community of disciples in truly human forms, that the
task of theological reflection has been variously undertaken.
^ s
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Theological Studies

The aim of this review, offered in several parts,* is to give an over-

graph on method in liturgical study.16 The contemporary postconciliar

article by Jean-Yves Hameline, "Eléments d'anthropologie, de sociologie et de musico-

As he has done elsewhere, he indicates the influence of Odo Casel and

pressed especially in the office of Peter. All Christians are called to

distinguished in this survey, allowing for variations within each cat-

derstanding of created reality. Lies cites the Council of Florence's af-

well as clarifies the faith experience as it is lived out in the world, so

is principally conceptual. As Ganoczy points out, Vatican II called for

lectual, moral, religious, and sociopolitical. He takes liturgy's presen-

cerns about the institution of sacraments, their efficaciousness, and

ular religiosity/Catholicism"14 as persistent and lively facts of life

That human life is more than praxis leads to an appreciation of the

Schillebeeckx, Rahner, Congar and Borobio,26 as well as on Segundo

throughout Schillebeeckx's Christ indicate some attentiveness to the

the traditional sense, but a symbolic theology of the whole order of

sacramental celebration have in common the constant effort to retrieve

and epiclesis whichflowfromthe word, showing the nonidentity of God

of the mystery and require interpretation, not merely speculative but

Sacrament and Aesthetics of Love: Jean-Luc Marion

to us and in face of this no human predication can stand. It is in the

Marion's discussion of blessing,20 where he deciphers the role of the

theology is by no means to be taken as a methodologically uniform

method by enumerating the four kinds of hermeneutics native to fem-

Kristeva's distinction between semiotic and symbolic16 is helpful.

the collection of essays edited in English translation as Powers of Horror: An Essay on

20 « Q ^ T o l l i s pedata Mundi...," in Powers of Horror 118-120.

Kristeva's critique and aspiration converges with the postmodernist

5. AFRICAN AND ASIAN CONTRIBUTIONS

general efficacy, but their power is tested in specific situations, where

Prophetic in its action, the Church has to be prophetic in its ritual. As

The ATLA Serials (ATLAS®) collection contains electronic versions of previously

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