The return of 'mystery'

...She recently published Bread Not Stone (Beacon Press...

...The trust I am recommending is not placed, in the first instance, in institutions or ideologies, but in the person of Jesus Christ, who is the tradition's truth and norm...

...What, prior to Vatican II, often seemed sundered, has, in the twenty years since the council, become at times rhetorically fused...

...The significance of the synod is ap- "modern world" of 1965 is goal is to promote, rather, a already entering a "postrich and complex dialogue that parent in each, yet for different and very challenging reasons...

...At stake, as the mystical tradition testifies, is far more than a new social or political situation...

...In liturgy Christian identity is not merely proclaimed or analyzed, but publicly performed...

...The boundaries clarification: a preface structured about the council's four exist, then, not to insulate, but to indicate a distinctive orienta- constitutions...

...The church is not yet the Kingdom...

...Finally, Sykes accurately locates the prime context for the celebration of a comprehensive Christian identity within the activity of worship...

...If the Second synod insists that, "An easy accommodation that could lead to Vatican Council may be likened to a superb volume, rich in the secularization of the church is to be avoided...

...And had the synod done no more than Bishop James A. Walsh, applies as much to linguistic appeal authoritatively to new and deeper reflection upon the as to institutional hospitality...

...He does not denounce this power, but insists upon its acknowledgment (in face of tendencies to deny or deprecate it...

...and lifting up the paschal mystery as central to a definition of the comprehensive Christian understanding of salvation (cf...

...Though this mystical element was doubtless present in the Second Vatican Council's work, much of the subsequent interpretation and implementation of the council was neglectful of it and concentrated upon the critical and institutional...

...Each of the four articles that follows represents a deed, not a few claim that the endorsed by the synod...

...I can be brief, since the substance is already present in the foregoing...

...The synod had been a visual demonstration of the patriarchal church or, in the words of the "Holy Father," an "act of ecclesi(astic)al fraternity...

...It might be even further enhanced if both humbly admitted the recurrent temptation to a tyrannous abuse of power, whether institutional or (mirabile dictu), intellectual...

...but each accorded its proper place...

...On the one hand, such as ecclesiology must link the mystery of the church more intimately to the paschal mystery of Christ, which alone can effect communion in the Spirit...

...The very summoning of the synod to corn-' B~" T IS ALSO a function of hospitality to draw bound- memorate the council could not but underscore the council's | aries...

...Such is the unique good news which Christians can bring to interreligious dialogue: the gospel of redemption from sin and death...

...Here, in effect, the institutional, critical, Commonweal: 42and mystical elements of Christian identity come together in the community's celebration and re-presentation of the paschal mystery of its Lord...

...This remark of Maryknoll's co-founder, surpassing importance...

...They had thought they knew what Vatican II meant: perhaps they did not...

...My own persuasion finds support in John Coulson's...

...I had been amazed, in perusing numberless pre-synodal articles, at the almost total absence of reference to Christ in the many expectations advanced and programs proposed...

...Von Hiigel held that there are three interrelated aspects of religion which are indispensable, complementary, yet each individually totalitarian in tendency: the institutional, the critical, and the mystical...

...II, A, 2...

...tion and direction...

...Peter Steinfels, commenting in these pages upon the significance of the synod, concluded his "Sober Look at the Synod" [December 20, 1985] somewhat somberly...

...Rahner's entire labor represents a sustained effort to foster a new integration of theology and spirituality...

...II, D, 6...

...In the current theological and pastoral context, I carry away from Sykes's closely argued work a renewed conviction that Catholic theology must cultivate a "hermeneutics of trust" in the tradition and in its transformative power...

...The extraordinary synod which has just concluded its work gave Catholics a shock...

...Thus the synod, following Lumen Gentium, teaches that in Christ the church is sacrament, that is, sign and instrument of communion with God and also of communion and reconciliation of people with one another (cf...

...It was obvious, I needed a new topic sentence...

...I believe that the synod has once more brought to the fore the mystical element of Catholic Christianity...

...But it cannot truly be the church of Christ unless it also subserves the salvation of the world: "for the love of Christ impels it...

...but not all do so in the same way or with equal directness...

...Thus I found an editorial comment by the London Tablet at ,the synod's conclusion both disarming and refreshing...

...The christological task remains primary: a presentation of the Catholic vision of Christ which is both esthetically attractive and theologically compelling, a vision that arises from worship and leads to worship...

...The synod now faithful...

...F ROM THIS VANTAGE, what are the main tasks of Catholic theology in a post-synod church...

...O Of course, such living with Christ must transpire within the world of the late twentieth century, not the medieval cloister...

...For a "pastoral" counThis "drawing of boundaries" need not indicate any inhos- cil (as Vatican II was intended to be) requires an ongoing pitality to the contribution pastoral reflection...

...II, D, 2...

...Such trust certainly does not imply uncritical credulity nor nostalgic archaism...

...All things" must indeed be recapitulated...

...What is affirmed is a missionary openness for the provides a"preface" to Vatican II that is at once invitation and integral salvation of the world" (Part II, D, 3...

...that you may have communion with us...

...But Chris also had some words of advice: "When I have a difficult assignment I always write and rewrite the topic sentence...

...Perhaps," he muses, "the synod we need is the one we would hold in our own hearts...

...and our communion is with the Father and his Son Jesus Christ...

...Since Catholics in North America saw the "women question" as one of the major issues to be addressed by the synod, bishops sought to scale down such expectations in the presynodal period...

...Urgently needed is a differentiated integration...

...Moreover, for Lonergan, the conversion in question goes beyond the moral to embrace (or, better, to surrender to) the mystical...

...In its "Report," the I I five interpreter...

...I ELISABETH SCHOSSLER FIORENZA D URING THE holidays I started to study the official synodal documents in preparation for this article...

...Might I hazard the belief, then, that a contemporary depiction of Christ will include a new vision of the transfiguration, in which Christ is portrayed with Buddha on one side and Mohammed on the other...

...THI~'I~)ITORS thus appears as both the fruit tity and autonomy of the par- of the council and its authoritaticipants...

...Hence the church is not merely functional to the world: not merely the servant of salvation independently present...

...A creative tension ("friction" is his preferred word) among them is required for religion's well-being...

...The majority of Catholic women are very happy in their allegiance.'" When speaking of problems which have affected negatively Catholic life in the past twenty years in the United States, Commonweal: 44...

...Fra Angelico's avowal -- "Whoever would paint Christ must live with Christ" -- pertains, whether the medium of the portrait be colors or words...

...In this respect also the synod appears providential...

...At a time when the seat of the professional theological enterprise in North America is shifting from seminary to university and is taking on a more academic allure, Sykes's common sense reminder may be in order: "Christianity is a religion, not a philosophical system.., one does not participate in Christianity by discussing its methodological problems...

...Though the emphasis on the mystical, if it becomes exclusive, can itself lead to one-sidedness, in the present situation it not only stimulates a needed deepening in our reception of the council, but also provides the proper perspective from which institutional reform and critical reflection must proceed...

...It is the person who lived and was crucified and is risen who is the Savior of the world...

...Reports from Rome during the synod tended to associate the concept of "mystery" with those deemed "conservative," and to view the concept of "communion" as the watchword of the "liberals...

...and enjoins to it the responsibility such power entails...

...Without denying the obvious abuse to which any notion may be subjected, it seems imperative to remember that the mystery which Lumen Gentium invokes is precisely the mystery of communion: the very life of the triune God mediated to the church through Jesus Christ...

...from the report on the synod in Commonweal [December 20], but I quickly realized that I had to change it to: "So far, so bad . . . . " The !1 I II I ELISABETH SCHUSSLER FIORENZA is Talbot Professor of New Testament at the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and president-elect of the Society of Biblical Literature...

...Consequently, a distinctively Christian ethic can only proceed from eucharistic celebration: empowering a praxis which follows Christ rather than absolutizes a cause...

...Whatever else such mysticism entails, it is marked by a transforming and affective love for Jesus Christ and a vivid sense of the presence of Christ in the other, especially the poor...

...Once more the mystical element comes to the fore: God's grace ever precedes and enables human response...

...Nor should theologians be permitted to preen themselves as an innovative vanguard, with little concern for the continuity of the community of faith...

...A final task set by the synod is a reinvigorated ecclesiology, whose guiding motif is the church as mystery of communion...

...it is the birth of a new self, transformed according to the image of Christ...

...According to the synodal prononncements,' the main task for Catholic theology seems to be the study and exegesis of the documents of Vatican II and the explication of the forthcoming universal catechism...

...But trust in the tradition counters a prevalent tendency to canonize present experience, and counteracts the disintegrative acid of universal suspicion...

...It is not the idea of Jesus, nor the memory of Jesus, nor the cause of Jesus which saves...

...11 '51...

...Academic pretenses to the contrary notwithstanding, theologians' efforts do not transpire in some neutral intellectual realm far removed from the nitty-gritty of ecclesial existence...

...The synod's accomplishment consists in Let me underline this crucial rule for the interpretation of the providing something of a grammar for the discernment of council that the synod offers: the four Constitutions must be Catholic identity, read together as interrelated and mutually illuminating...

...They must set out again to find out...

...Moreover, in light of the struggle which occurred in the aftermath of the council between the partisans of chapter two of Lumen Gentium (on the church as people of God) and the proponents of chapter three (on the church's hierarchical structure), the synod forcefully recalls that the matrix of both lies in chapter one which proclaims and celebrates the mystery of the church...

...It doubtless assumes different sociological forms, but its identity is theological (cf...

...So narrowed had the discussion become that the synod's simple reminder, that the "light of the nations" (the title of the Constitution on the Church) does not refer to the church at all but to Christ, resounds as an almost revolutionary confession...

...A council other languages may make, ~ OLLOWING THE completion of last year's extraordi-, concerned with reading the nor any retrenchment from the ~ nary synod, Commonweal invited four distinjguished . "signs of the times" invites aggiornamento mandated by theologians to discuss what they believe are "the main the church to a continuing the Second Vatican Council tasks of Roman Catholic theology in the post-,~ynodal process of discernment...

...A hermeneutics of trust recognizes that the tradition is where we begin: we are its heirs as well as its continuers...

...Unless The synod' s exercise of discernment was occasioned by the this is done, some will simply reduce Vatican II to what had commemoration of the twentieth anniversary of the close of already been articulated in Vatican I and Trent...

...First, I tried the headline "So far,,so good, so what...

...May I suggest something of what we must "find out" by drawing upon the thought of Friedrich von Hiigel...

...Church in the Modern World (Gaudium et Spes) to root the 31 January 1986:41mission they undertake in the vision that finds expression in the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church (Lumen Gentium...

...I became increasingly "blocked...

...On the other hand, it must relate the church more closely to the life.and salvation of the world...

...The synod respects the distinctive iden- "Contemporary Theology Issue...

...One of Karl Rahner's last gifts to his fellow believers, the mature simplification of a life's journey, is his little book, The Love of Jesus and the Love of Neighbor (Crossroad, 1983...

...If the task of promoting a contemporary Christ-mysticism appears more the province of spirituality than of theology, a sign of hope in the post-synod church lies precisely in transcending this too facile dichotomy...

...splendid study, Newman and the Common Tradition (Clarendon/Oxford, 1970): "[For Newman] when it is a matter of religious assent, we must trust persons and not logic . . . . Our assent is verified not by logical criteria, therefore, but by our acts and within the actions of the worshiping community...

...I N THE SPIRIT of the above remarks, let me indicate some of the more specific tasks I deem incumbent upon Catholic theology in a post-synod church...

...How boring -- to use a favored expression of my daughter, Chris, who is twelve...

...And the project of his fellow Jesuit, Bernard Lonergan, which posits reflection on conversion as theology's foundational task, already overcomes the separation in principle...

...II, A, 2...

...Some attention along these lines by the extraordinary synod would do much to calm the present unrest...

...Management, not mystery, seemed the order of the day...

...language of Catholic Christianity...

...but it is already the sacrament of the Kingdom, through which the Kingdom, realized in Christ, is made present in hope...

...If the church is sacrament only in Christ, as the body, the making visible of Christ, its transforming mission, inspired by the Spirit, is to recapitulate all things in Christ...

...In principle, the fruitful tension between bishops and theologians is considerably enhanced when both recognize in each other an overarching commitment to Catholic identity (placing the institutional and the critical self-consciously at the service of the mystical...

...Here enacted expression guides and nurtures the emergence of a distinctively Catholic experience and identity -- for bishop, theologian, and lay person alike...

...Here the redoubtable Rahner, master of transcendental method, attests with tender simplicity: "You are only really dealing with Jesus when you throw your arms around him and realize right down to the bottom of your being that this is something you can still do today...

...Moreover, the pronouncements of cardinals arguing that women cannot be ordained because Christ was a man had become theologically embarrassing...

...It thereby FATHER ROBERT IMBELLI, a priest of the archdiocese of New York, challenges the advocates of the Pastoral Constitution on the teaches theology at the Maryknoll School of Theology...

...It is above all an assent to a personal question: 'What think ye of Christ?' -- and in making this response to a person, we learn that our response to his church must be of the same kind, as being a response to a personal unity . . . . " If Vatican II itself, in so many ways, brought the pioneering efforts of Newman to their fruition, the extraordinary synod has made its own the council's Newmanian sensitivities...

...between redemption and emancipation, the mystical and political...

...for the mystery is concretely incarnate in a person who bears a unique name: Jesus the Christ...

...For the synod's two documents -- its "Final Report" church, the liturgy, revelation, and the church in the modern and its "Message to the People of God" - - outline some world), it would have been a salutary re-affirmation that Vati"boundary conditions" for correctly speaking the distinctive can II "remains the Magna Carta for the future" (II, D, 7...

...while others Vatican II...

...Church 31 January 1986:43has a substance <>fits own: "a life hid with Christ in God...

...Hence some considerations of the Anglican theologian, Stephen Sykes, in his important recent book, The Identity of Christianity (Fortress, 1984), may serve as apt prelude to a more programmatic reply...

...All things contribute to the communion of the Spirit...

...For the death and resurrection of Jesus provides the definitive revelation of the depths of transformation and communion to which God calls all peoples...

...Also excluded detail, its very profusion risks that selective renditions will be is an immobile closing in upon itself of the community of the bruited about as the true tale of the council...

...Communion indicates, then, both the substance of the church and the shape of salvation...

...And it equally demands of the defenders of the latter that their vision open upon the mission urged in Gaudium et Spes...

...It also suggests an approach to documents of Vatican II, especially the four "Constitutions" the achievement of the recently concluded extraordinary which are the pillars of the conciliar edifice (those on the synod...

...It is none other than this mystery of communion that the Constitution on Revelation (Dei Verbum) so vigorously proclaims when it introduces its entire consideration of revelation with a quotation from the First Letter of John: "We announce to you what we have seen and heard, so...

...Cardinal G. Emmett Carter of Toronto, for example, spoke in a pastoral letter under the subheading "The Church 'Ad Extra' " about "the vexatious subject of the role of women in the church," and made clear that he did "not subscribe to the sometimes shrill clamor that women are second-class citizens in the church...

...Crucial to such an ecclesial vision is a more nuanced consideration of the relation between Gospel and culture, church and society...

...I I Ill Ill I reasons for this change are obvious...

...According to the cardinal, women need to feel that they are wanted and that their gifts are "put to good use...

...If you get the topic sentence right the rest will flow from it...

...The Second Vatican Council itself remains the will hasten to dissolve Vatican II into self-proclaimed "postdecisive ecclesial event of our century, enthusiastically cele- Vatican II models...

...Despite this broadening of horizon, the conversation on the mount of transfiguration will remain, as in Luke's account: "the exodus which Jesus would accomplish in Jerusalem" (Lk 9:31...

...Its distinct perspective...

...In(an aggiornamento explicitly period...

...A prime responsibility regards the contribution of theological reflection to clarifying and maintaining Christian identity...

...In the search for an integral vision, the synod offers valuable guidelines, stressing the distinction, not the separation of the two orders (cf...

...Any appeal to "mystery" must not be a cover for mystification...

...But the synod achieved much more...

...A further task theology, must pursue is that of fostering in the church a new Christ-mysticism...

...Sykes, firstly, cautions against the illusion that questions of method hold an "absolute priority" in theology, and cautions against the peculiar temptation to an "infinite methodological regression...

...The church itself is a reflected mystery, deriving its origin and significance uniquely from Christ...

...Secondly, Sykes offers some apposite reflections on the power which accrues to professional theologians by dint of their " superior articulacy...

...Jl l I l I THEOLOGY AFTER THE SYNOD: ACKNOWLEDGING WOMEN 'So far, so bad...

...Without disputing the desirability of such an "interior" synod, if it is not to remain tongue-tied or lapse into the purely individualistic, then it must, surely, draw upon what the extraordinary synod has provided: a comprehensive language wherewith to form those habits of the heart which bespeak communal Catholic identity...

...To my mind, the synod's stress on "mystery" and its focus upon the trinitarian and Christocentric character of church corrects an imbalance...

...Every genuine renewal of the church has been animated by a new realization of the presence and power of Christ -- whether by Benedict or Francis, Ignatius or Teresa, Vincent de Paul or Charles de Foucauld...

...The synod calls for a comprehensive reading of Vatican II, a respecting of its full canon...

...Given the seemingly irresistible urge, especially among the press, to read matters in exclusively conflictual terms and then to adopt relatively facile labels to pin on the "antagonists," it may be useful to linger here briefly...

...Only within a eucharistic setting does secular service become social ministry...

...Though theology is far too important an ecclesial activity to be left to "professional" theologians, such professional theologians do exercise a vital function within the Catholic community...

...We are honored to present them in this year's modern" phase...