On Liturgical Theology

It is difficult for me to review this book, as most of the fun has gone out of it. I bought a copy and began reading it. The book was in my car, and I was just about to begin the last chapter when the car got stolen. I recovered the car quickly, but the book was gone. I hope the thieves enjoy it and profit from it, but unless they are more academic than I, I fear it will be difficult for them to understand. Refusing to buy another copy, I requested an Inter-Library Loan, which was lent by Mount Angel Abbey and Seminary in Oregon. I love that monastery and school, since they fulfill so many of my ILLs. God bless their library; long may it stand. I read the first few paragraphs of the last chapter, put the book down, and then couldn't find it again. After a couple weeks of panic, I found it! Huzzah. I quickly read the last chapter and conclusion before it had to go back, but Kavanagh's style is not really conducive to a quick, panicked, reading. And now I find that the immediate impressions of the first chapters are gone, as is all my joy in reviewing this book.

At any rate, here is something. I hope it is better than nothing.

I am intelligent and well-educated. Furthermore, I am known (affectionately, I hope) as “the liturgy monster,” since this is my field of study and enthusiasm. I am certainly intellectually able to read and understand Kavanagh and enter into dialog with him. But his style is so dense and “academic” that I found myself losing patience with him. I am a big fan of simple, clear academic writing, and am therefore generally disappointed in my hopes.

The first delight of the book is the first chapter's discussion of the tension between being a faithful believer and an academic. He has good and important things to say, and if I were actively in academe I would have benefited from this lecture even more than I actually did. I recommend it to everybody who is involved in the academic study of theology.

I found his distinction between liturgy as primary theology and all the talk about it as mere secondary theology to be the most important assertion of the book. When we do liturgy, we are doing the Faith. Otherwise, we are just talking about it. Reading and talking about theology is always second to gathering, praying, worshiping, giving, and receiving in the Liturgy.