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5 Louis-Marie Chauvet’s Contributions to a Roman Catholic Theology of the Word The Catholic tradition has a long history of appreciation for the sacramentality of the created world. Natural beauty is easily recognized as an expression of the glory of God. The work of French theologian Louis-Marie Chauvet builds on this tradition to recognize the sacramentality of human language and culture, thus building another bridge between Roman Catholic sacramental theology and theology of revelation. Language and culture, like the created world, are always the creative gift of God, infused with God’s grace. They are also, however, influenced by the co-creative work of human beings who constantly shape their cultural and linguistic environments through their everyday words and actions. Chauvet attends to the efficacy of these words and actions within the ecclesial context as well as to their sacramentality in the world outside of the liturgical context. His theology of the word is constructed within the context of sacramentality. Although their methods differ, Chauvet follows Rahner in his interest in the significance of the proclaimed word, both in the specifically ecclesial context and in the broader context of the world. In contrast to Rahner, who helped to shape the teaching of Vatican II, Chauvet came of theological age in the context of post-conciliar thought. His work is particularly influenced by the Council’s broad understanding of the presence of Christ in the liturgy1 and its openness to the contributions of the social sciences,2 including psychology 1. See: Sacrosanctum Concilium, in The Basic Sixteen Documents: Vatican Council II Constitutions, Decrees, Declarations, ed. Austin Flannery (Northport, NY: Costello, 1963), 7. As Sacrosanctum Concilium reminded us, Christ is present not only in the seven sacraments, but in the preached and proclaimed word, in the presider, and in the gathered assembly. By directing attention to the significance of the word of God in Dei Verbum and in Sacrosanctum Concilium, the Council re-situated the Eucharist in its proper theological 143 and linguistics, to theological discourse. This openness, in combination with the Council’s optimism regarding the modern world, contributed to a retrieval of the principle of sacramentality, which has to a degree transcended the fields of sacramental theology and theology of revelation. Chauvet proposes a “foundational theology of sacramentality” that engages theological questions of language and embodiment through the lenses of the social sciences, continental philosophy, and pastoral experience.3 The result is a theology of the word that is considered within the context of a graced world. In his investigation of the functions of ritual and symbol within culture, Chauvet turns to the social sciences of linguistics and psychology. Although Chauvet is convinced that the “traditional treatises de sacramentis in genere” have been discredited, he believes that an “interest in a study of the common traits of sacramentality” remains operative in twentieth-century Western culture.4 These “common traits of sacramentality,” the visible signs of God’s presence among humanity, can be studied through the lens of the social sciences.5 Chauvet seeks to build on the contemporary interest in sacramentality by approaching the topic from the perspective of the cultural mediations of ritual and symbol, rather than from the perspective of classical metaphysics. Attending particularly to the intersection of psychology and linguistics in psychoanalysis as it developed in the French post-structuralist tradition, Chauvet observes that “analytic discourse tends to point towards philosophical discourse.”6 He therefore links his reliance on the psychoanalytic work of Jacques Lacan to the philosophical writings of Martin Heidegger. Working within the frameworks of Lacan and Heidegger, Chauvet proposes that the place within the context of a graced world. This theological shift invited further theological reflection on the theology of the word within the context of sacramentality. 2. “The human mind is, in a certain sense, increasing its mastery over time—over the past through the insights of history, over the future by foresight and planning. Advances in biology, psychology, and the social sciences not only lead humanity to greater self-awareness, but provide it with the technical means of molding the lives of whole societies as well.” Gaudium et Spes, in Flannery, The Basic Sixteen Documents, 5. Dei Verbum also reflects the renewed interest in the study of language as a medium of revelation. “Indeed the words of God, expressed in human language, are in every way like human speech, just as the Word of the eternal Father, when he took on himself the weak flesh of human beings, became...

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