Signs of the Holy One: Liturgy, Ritual, and Expression of the Sacred by Uwe Michael Lang (review)

Father Lang’s new book appears on the fiftieth anniversary of the close of the Second Vatican Council and constitutes a significant contribution to the ongoing appropriation of the Council and, in particular, of Sacrosanctum Concilium. As one expects of the author, the book is clearly written, cogently argued, and impressively informed. Though composed from a distinct perspective, it is admirably balanced in its presentation, recognizing the legitimate concerns of those with whom it may disagree.

The book opens with a chapter that explores the “Anthropological Foundations” for an understanding of ritual and the sacred, drawing significantly upon the work of Victor Turner. Then, what for this reviewer is a crucial chapter, Lang discusses the sacred in contemporary Catholic theology—treating concisely, but insightfully, the contributions of Edward Schillebeeckx, Karl Rahner, Louis Bouyer, and Joseph Ratzinger.

Having laid the cultural anthropological and theological foundations, the author proceeds, in the following chapters, to apply the principles gleaned to the areas of sacred architecture, sacred art, and sacred music. The chapter on sacred architecture is enhanced by eight pages of photographs that provide concrete examples of efforts in this regard. Lang concludes with a succinct but incisive “Epilogue: Ongoing Liturgical Renewal and the Problem of Ritual Change.”

A key conclusion that Lang draws from his examination of cultural anthropology is that “Christian faith cannot do without such a sense of the sacred, even if it significantly transforms and transcends it” (17–18). For this reason he finds the approach to sacramental theology in the works of Schillebeeckx and Rahner problematic. Though sympathetic with Rahner’s concern to overcome a dichotomizing of sacred and profane, Lang judges that Rahner’s “Copernican turn in sacramental theology” risks collapsing their distinction. He maintains that, in Rahner, “the notion of ‘sacramentality’ is extended to such a degree that the Church’s sacraments are considered nothing more than manifestations, albeit significant ones, that make explicit what already takes place in the world” (45).

This Rahnerian “always/already” optic compromises the newness of the Christian dispensation and the call to transformation that it entails. In its stead, Lang endorses the theological approach of Bouyer and Ratzinger with their emphasis on the eschatolological “already/not yet” as the constitutive rhythm of Christian faith and liturgy. He recapitulates Ratzinger in asserting that “the distinction between the sacred and the quotidian still holds, even if this distinction is not conceived of as an absolute separation.” In this way “the dynamic character of the sacred is highlighted: through it the whole world is to be transformed into the worship and adoration of God, but this will only be fully realized at the end of time” (61).

However, it was the Rahnerian vision that too often prevailed in the 1970s and 1980s as the post-conciliar liturgical reforms were being enacted. Sadly, Rahner’s influential writings did little to counter the attenuation of the sense of the sacred already operative in an increasingly secular culture. Thus, for example, prominent contemporary church architects insisted that their approach was spiritual rather than specifically religious; that they aspired to a universality not narrowed to the parameters of the distinctively Catholic. What Lang finds wanting here (and mutatis mutandis in his assessment of similar approaches in sacred art and sacred music) is a vital appreciation for, and concrete embodiment of, the distinctively Christian sense of the sacred and the paschal “logic” of its liturgical celebration.

In expounding this logic, Lang turns to magisterial teaching: in particular Sacrosanctum Concilium, supplemented by documents such as Pius X’s Tra le Sollicetudini, Pius XII’s Mediator Dei, and Benedict XVI’s Sacramentum Caritatis. From these he culls principles of discernment to govern judgments about what most fittingly serves the primary liturgical function of sacred art in the Church. It is worth stressing that, though firm in his criteria, Lang is not rigid. Honoring the depth grammar of the faith...