Summary of “Divine Liturgy, Divine Love”
Presented by Dr. David Fagerberg
Love & Sacrifice: 2006 Letter & Spirit Conference
Pittsburgh, PA
October 28, 2006

The thesis of Dr. Fagerberg’s presentation focused primarily on the fact that all things in the Church must pass through the hypostatic union before we can use them in liturgy. By “all things,” Dr. Fagerberg really means this; he refers to temples, vestments, Sundays, architecture, art, and priests as examples. In particular, Dr. Fagerberg focuses on the fact that sacrifice itself must also pass through the hypostatic union. This does not diminish or nullify sacrifice, but rather strengthens and perfects it.

The liturgy includes sacrifice through love. In speaking of the liturgy, Dr. Fagerberg states that something is liturgical for being an exercise of Christ. Ritual alone without divine or Christological content is not liturgy. This is because the Christian religion is the religion of Christ (though this is sometimes forgotten). Christ Himself is an eternal sacrifice that unites the human nature with the Word, with the divine.

Sacrifice has a negative connotation today. Still we must remember that the Church reflects the light of Christ (Lumen Gentium 1) and that Christ himself transfigures the world through sacrifice. Further, Christ transfigures sacrifice itself.

In bringing together the work of three other theologians, Dr. Fagerberg speaks of the fact that there are three parts of sacrifice: offering, immolation, and God’ acceptance. Typically, people today focus on immolation in sacrifice, but for Dr. Fagerberg this is incomplete. Further, for most people today, sacrifice may be material or immaterial and may include something or someone, but they forget sacrifice is also to someone.

It would be better stated to state that for Dr. Fagerberg, sacrifice is not merely to someone, but to Someone. The full sacrifice in Mass includes immolation of the humiliated (in the form of “God became Man”) Jesus present in the transubstantiated Eucharist, but this Sacrifice is also done by someone (the Son) to Someone (the Father). The humiliation of Christ became Man is even greater than the humiliation of the cross for Dr. Fagerberg. Still, the victim of the Eucharistic table is not a new victim, but an eternal one.

Dr. Fagerberg puts this in context. In ancient Hebrew and Greco-Roman ways, sacrifice was for religious things, and was never for purposes of renunciation or sadness. Rather, sacrifice was gladly performed and joy accompanied this sacrifice. Sacrifice was always by man to his god or gods. No value was given to the death of the animal sacrificed, but rather to the honor being shown to the man’s god or gods.

Furthermore, it speaking of Louis Bouyer’s work (in Liturgical Piety, 1955, and in Rite and Man, 1963--dates: questionable), Dr. Fagerberg speaks of Bouyer’s changing views over time. In particular, Dr. Fagerberg speaks of Bouyer’s conclusion in the latter work: the sacred was never made out of the profane, and yet the sacred makes itself known relative to the profane (and vice versa). Sacrifice is giving in, not just giving up.

For Dr. Fagerberg, this all leads to looking at sacrifice through three lenses. First, there is a protological lens where “sacrifice is every action done so as to cling to God.” Here, we see G.K. Chesterton’s re-statement of the Greek view that in surrendering something, the man will gain more for losing an ox than God will gain by receiving the ox. For Dr. Fagerberg, “liturgy is doing the world the way the world was meant to be done.” Second, in the soteriological lens, we see that for our salvation, the only sacrifice acceptable would be of a righteous man who clinged not to his own ways, but to God. We ourselves are afraid to unclench our hands from our selves and our ways, due to our fallen ways. Third, there is the eschatological lens in which we see that it was the Father who offered the Son to Himself, fulfilling the three parts of sacrifice. What the first Adam didn’t do, the second did: He clinged to His Father.

In summation, Dr. Fagerberg takes a view of liturgy and sacrifice passing through Christ. It is through Christ that all things are perfected and united with God. Religion is a relation of man to His God. For Christians, Christ is the mediator that perfects our relation to our God. Liturgy and sacrifice must center on the praise of the Lord passing through the lips of the Church. Stated better and more completely, liturgy and sacrifice must be through Christ, who does not separate Himself from the Mystical Body.

This is the second in a series of my summaries of various scholastic papers which were presented (and have not been published as of yet) at the "Love & Sacrifice: 2006 Letter & Spirit Conference," which I attended in Pittsburgh, PA. -- Tom Reagan