From Passion to Paschal Mystery: A Recent Magisterial Development concerning the Christological Foundation of the Sacraments by Dominic M. Langevin

Abstract

Reviewed by: From Passion to Paschal Mystery: A Recent Magisterial Development concerning the Christological Foundation of the Sacraments by Dominic M. Langevin Roger W. Nutt From Passion to Paschal Mystery: A Recent Magisterial Development concerning the Christological Foundation of the Sacraments by Dominic M. Langevin, O.P. (Fribourg, CH: Academic Press Fribourg, 2015), vii + 403 pp. It is common for theologians and historians of religion to document the ebb and flow of doctrinal, moral, and spiritual accents throughout the history of the Church. Sometimes by accident and sometimes by necessity, the treasures of one epoch can be underappreciated or neglected by a later one. It goes without saying that, as St. Paul insists in 1 Corinthians 15, without the doctrine of Christ's [End Page 1031] resurrection from the dead (and the Ascension into heaven) the Christian faith is null. Accepting the centrality that the resurrection has for the Christian profession of faith, however, does not of itself make it evident today how the resurrection relates to the Church's doctrine of the seven sacraments and the significance of the sacramental life in the economy of salvation. In From Passion to Paschal Mystery, Dominican theologian Fr. Dominic Langevin wrestles with the question of the efficacy of the Church's sacramental worship in relation to the major events of Christ's life. That the risen Christ acts in the Church in and through the sacraments is hardly an object of theological dispute. What is more difficult to explain, however, is which events of Christ's life on earth established the sacraments of the New Law as ex opere operato causes of grace. In pursuit of answers to questions such as these, this book "explores [the] appreciation granted to the Paschal mystery by the Second Vatican Council and the succeeding magisterium" (1). It is important to note that Langevin's work is not simply a liturgical consideration without reference to the Church's sacramental doctrine. Rather, he seeks to track identifiable emphases in magisterial teaching precisely with reference to the sacraments. By means of this sacramental focus, he documents a development in magisterial teaching: "The magisterium over the last fifty years has emphasized that the sacraments are founded upon and communicate the entire Paschal mystery of Christ's Passion and Resurrection" (1). Furthermore, by accentuating the recognition of both the Passion and resurrection in more recent magisterial teaching in relation to the sacraments, Langevin provides a "contrast with an earlier focus upon the Passion of Christ as the proper locus of sacramental attentions" (1). The book is divided into two sections. Part I identifies the teachings of the magisterium in Pius XII's Mediator Dei, the Second Vatican Council's Sacrosanctum Concilium, and the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Part II provides a reflection on this data through the resources of speculative, historical, and dogmatic theology. The first three chapters make up part I and document "a transformation with regard to" the teaching of the magisterium in "its understanding of the foundation of the sacraments in the life of Christ" in the fifty years between Mediator Dei and John Paul II's promulgation of the Catechism of the Catholic Church (225). The transformation that Langevin uncovers pertains to the precise manner in which the sacraments are related to Christ and his incarnate life. In Mediator Dei, the Church's liturgy is cast in relation to the virtue of religion, by which the Church shares in Christ's worship of the Father. As a [End Page 1032] result of this ordering, "the Passion of Christ is the event of greatest importance for human salvation, both objectively and subjectively, including in the sacraments' participation in that salvation" (225). Vatican II's Constitution on the Liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium, provides an implicit nod, Langevin demonstrates, toward viewing the sacraments in relation to the entirety of the Paschal mystery. For example, he points to §61, which teaches that "divine grace [flows] from the paschal mystery of the passion, death, and resurrection of Christ, from which all of the sacraments and sacramentals derive their power" (227). This affirmation stands as an important springboard from Mediator Dei to post–Vatican II magisterial teaching. Moreover, Langevin demonstrates that the...