Abstract

Johannes Nebel:
The Heart of the Redeemer as a Source of Liturgical Figure
(FKTh 2015-1, p. 22–24)

This study intends to provide a christological foundation for the form of liturgy. Since liturgy cannot be separated from the reality of the symbol, this christological foundation too has to develop the symbolic level. The argument starts from the theology of the sacred. Symbols do not substitute the reality they refer to, but concentrate this reality within themselves, in as far as they can be considered metaphorically – always within the horizon of the greater dissimilarity between God and creature – a ›vacuum of similarity‹ which is invaded from the start by the fullness of the symbolized reality. Its climax is the Eucharist as the centre of the sacramental world. In the face of the (post)modern decline of the sacred world view the symbolism of the Sacred Heart of Jesus opens up a renewed view based on the personal dimension: the Eucharist as the Real Presence of a human psychosomatic condition dominated by an unspeakable divine Love. That is why it is not only the kerygmatic character but foremost the symbolic character that basically forms the whole liturgical event as divine call and human answer. In this way the core of the liturgy as »actio sacra praecellenter« (SC 7) is revealed in a new way and illuminated in its essential dimensions including some aspects of the symbolic thought of Romano Guardini.