Continuing our examination of paragraph 2 of Sacrosanctum Concilium, we see that the first sentence (with the subordinate clause now removed) can be rephrased into two sentences:
- The liturgy is the outstanding means whereby the faithful may express in their lives and manifest to others the mystery of Christ.
- The liturgy is the outstanding means whereby the faithful may express in their lives and manifest to others the real nature of the true Church.
Each of these statements is huge, so we will take them one at a time, with this article looking at the dimension of the mystery of Christ. Obviously, however, the "mystery of Christ" is a huge concept. The word "mystery" doesn't mean that it is unknowable, but simply that we can never exhast its full contents of the mystery — not unknowable, but "ever-knowable". It is a bit like a map: we start by looking at the mystery at a very large scale, with only the main features illustrated, and gradually zoom in. For this article the "map of the mystery of Christ" that we will use is this passage from the Creed of Nicea-Constantinople:
We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, one in Being with the Father.
Through him all things were made. For us men and for our salvation he came down from heaven: by the power of the Holy Spirit he was born of the Virgin Mary, and became man. For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate; he suffered, died, and was buried. On the third day he rose again in fulfilment of the Scriptures; he ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end.
I placed a division in the block of text to highlight that through these words we see that the "mystery of Christ" has two dimensions: the being of Christ (the first portion) and the action of Christ (the second portion). If, as the Constitution states, the liturgy helps us to "express in their lives and manifest to others", it will do so in both of these dimensions.
Regarding the "action" of Christ, we see this quite clearly fairly quickly, particularly through the celebrations present in the liturgical year. As I mention in article #1, all the liturgy bathes in the context of the liturgical year, and the liturgical year defines certain days when we celebrate elements of Christ's action:
- "For us men and for our salvation he came down from heaven" — March 25, the feast of the Annunciation
- "By the power of the Holy Spirit he was born of the Virgin Mary, and became man" — December 25, the feast of the Nativity (Christmas)
- "For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate; he suffered, died, and was buried. On the third day he rose again in fulfilment of the Scriptures" — Good Friday, Holy Saturday, Easter Sunday
- "He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father" — the feast of the Ascension, 40 days after Easter
- "He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead" — the whole season of Advent
- "His kingdom will have no end" — the feast of Christ the King, the last Sunday before Advent
There are many more things about the "action" of Jesus that we celebrate than these few mentioned here, but I think the idea is clear. The liturgy offers us many ways to connect our earthly life to the heavenly kingdom. Think of Christmas — at its best, isn't it a way to "express in our lives and manifest to others" something about the mystery of Christ? Think of other liturgical actions, like baptisms, weddings, and funerals — they are attempts to connect significant moments in our lives to Christ, and they can only be understood in their fullness when seen in the light of Christ, so it should be no surprise that they involve liturgy. Every time I do a house blessing, I recognize that for many people this is not just an occasion to toss some holy water on their walls: the visit of the priest, bringing this blessing, is an occasion for Christ, in a sense, to come and visit them — and please note that this blessing takes place within a liturgy.
Regarding the "being" of Christ, this is a bit more subtle. For Jesus, before he *was* Jesus, was the eternal Word of God, eternally "springing forth" from the Father. How does the liturgy allow us to express *this* in our lives, and to manifest it to others? In a nutshell, through beauty.
When we are in the presence of something that is truly beautiful, it provokes a reaction in us called the "aesthetic experience". It "takes our breath away", it causes us to be "beside ourselves". The Greek word for this experience is ekstasis, related to the English word "ecstasy", which literally means "to stand outside yourself". Ecstasy can be experienced in many forms. There is a physical ecstasy, which brings us a certain delight and comfort to the body and the emotions; there is an ecstasy of the intellect, such as the joy that comes from some sort of discovery (the kind of joy that cause Archimedes to leap from his bathtub shouting "Eureka!"); and there can be a spiritual ecstasy, which comes from the encounter with love in its highest forms, the greatest of which is the mystical encounter with God, who *IS* Love itself.
Now consider the Trinity. The higher forms of aesthetic experience are drawn out of us when we encounter the higher kinds of objects of beauty — the greatest of which is love. Love draws us out of ourselves to be at the service of others. But if God is not only one who loves, if God really *is* Love, then God *is* Beauty itself. This means that God, as the Lover-who-is-Love, is not just supremely beautiful, but is Beauty-contemplating-Beauty. God, therefore, must always be in a state of supreme "ecstatic experience": he is a God-in-ekstasis, "standing outside himself," as it were, through all eternity. And what is the name of this "God-outside-himself"? The Word, a.k.a. the Son of God, who is not separate from God, but who possess all that God is in a perfect union of Being with God. He is "eternally begotten of the Father" from the overflowing of Being that comes from the very perfection of God-as-Love. (The Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son as part of the same reality of the God-in-ekstasis).
How, then, do we liturgically express and manifest, not just Christ's action, but his "being"? Through beauty and through love. "Through beauty" means that the liturgy itself, in its every dimension, must be a true work of art, touching us in every way that we encounter beauty: physically, through the 5 senses; mentally; through the encounter with Truth; and spiritually, through the sense of awe and reverence and wonder and mystery that tells us we truly are in the presence of God. "Through love" means that the experience of liturgy should empower us to always seek the good of others, and to seek to respond to God's loving will for ourselves by obedience: as Jesus said, "If you love me you will keep my commandments" (John 14:15). The liturgy, at its best, is a "challenge to love", and love fully.