Eschatology, Liturgy, and Christology: Toward Recovering an Eschatological Imagination by Thomas P. Rausch

Abstract

230 Antiphon 16.3 (2012) Thomas P. Rausch Eschatology, Liturgy, and Christology: Toward Recovering an Eschatological Imagination Collegeville, Minnesota: Liturgical Press, 2012 161 pp. Paperback $19.95. The proposal in this book, as might be deduced from its title, is to integrate eschatology more fully into liturgy by attending to recent scholarship in Christology. Rausch is descriptive in most of the book, giving the reader an overview of recent scholars’ work, but ultimately this description is in the service of improving our eschatological imagination . “Throughout this book we have sought to recover the hope and expectation of the early Christians, particularly in their liturgical celebrations, for Christ’s coming in glory, bringing the fullness of the kingdom” (141). An introductory chapter on “The Eschatological Imagination” locates some of our difficulties. Rausch believes that the eschatological imagination of early Christians was much in evidence when they celebrated the Eucharist, but that this faded into the background in the Middle Ages when attention was shifted from eschaton to eschata, that is, from the glorious restoration of the whole creation to a individualistic concern with the last judgment and one’s personal salvation . The Second Vatican Council took significant steps, he thinks, toward renewing both Church and liturgy, and was largely successful in reclaiming a corporate sense for liturgy, but “it is less clear that it brought about a recovery of the vivid eschatological imagination that so characterized the primitive Church” (7). Why was it less successful in this? The postconciliar developments he mentions are religious indifference , a culturally shaped liturgy, the shift to the historical Jesus, and a revised Christology from below. Central to any consideration of eschatology need to be creation, time, and memory. This sets up the remaining chapters. Chapter two concerns the God of Israel, and the prophetic and apocalyptic foretelling of justice and cosmic restoration. Here are the origins of belief in the resurrection of the dead and final judgment. Chapter three places its emphasis on the imitation of Christ. Rausch asserts that for the early Church this meant eschatological divinization, but by the twelfth century imitatio Christi focused upon the earthly life of Christ, leaving the West with an individualistic approach, which was strengthened by the Reformation, and has only lately been challenged by the retrieval of the biblical notion of the kingdom of God. Here Rausch surveys Johannes Baptist Metz, Jon Sobrino, Elizabeth Johnson, Peter Phan, Roger Haight, and Terrence W. Tilley. Chapter four treats the resur- 231 Book Reviews rection as an eschatological event, where God’s power breaks into history and creates renewed relationships; contemporary thinkers have reacted against the individualism of modern thought and see the social dimension of the resurrection. Chapter five returns to Rausch’s thesis about the medieval loss of the eschatological imagination. He reviews the relevant terminology of soul, death, last judgment, hell, and purgatory, and, recognizing Jesus’ solidarity with all who have suffered throughout history, he observes a recovery of the social dimension , or liberation, in eschatology. Chapter six turns to how all this can be given expression in the liturgy. Eucharistic anamnesis integrates time and eternity, and calls the assembly to enter into the Paschal mystery, becoming Christ’s Body for the world. Alas, he says, our concept of “mystical body” shifted after Berengar, lessening the eschatological dynamism and the corporate character of Eucharistic faith. As a result, Catholics have narrowed Eucharist to individual Communion, and the current interest in exaggerated ritualism seems more nostalgic than genuinely liturgical. The question Rausch wishes his reader to ask is, “how can our liturgies call our people to a deeper sense of themselves as the Body of Christ and to their own share in his Paschal mystery?” (132). The modern liturgical movement has aided in the renewal of Eucharistic practice, but rarely has it recovered the inbreaking of the kingdom. So Rausch makes some recommendations in chapter seven. Though Christology has recovered the centrality of the kingdom, there is a risk that it may collapse into ethics and secular hope; and if the Church’s mission moves from Christocentric to regnocentric, it risks losing sight of what is unique to Christ and the Church. At times I had wished that...