Let us go back to where we started. We said that there is, first, the level of the event of institution and, secondly, the liturgical making present, the real liturgical level. I have tried to show how the two levels are interconnected. Now if past and present penetrate one another in this way, if the essence of the past is not simply a thing of the past but the far-reaching power of what follows in the present, then the future, too, is present in what happens in the liturgy: it ought to be called, in its essence, an anticipation of what is to come. But we must not be overhasty. The idea of the eschaton, of the Second Coming of Christ, immediately comes to mind, and rightly so. But there is yet another dimension to be considered. This liturgy is, as we have seen, not about replacement, but about representation, vicarious sacrifice [Stellvertretung]. Now we can see what this distinction means. The liturgy is not about the sacrificing of animals, of a “something” that is ultimately alien to me. This liturgy is founded on the Passion endured by a man who with his “I” reaches into the mystery of the living God himself, by the man who is the Son. So it can never be a mere actio liturgica. Its origin also bears within it its future in the sense that representation, vicarious sacrifice, takes up into itself those whom it represents; it is not external to them, but a shaping influence on them. Becoming contemporary with the Pasch of Christ in the liturgy of the Church is also, in fact, an anthropological reality. The celebration is not just a rite, not just a liturgical “game”. It is meant to be indeed a logikē latreia, the “logicizing” of my existence, my interior contemporaneity with the self-giving of Christ. His self-giving is meant to become mine, so that I become contemporary with the Pasch of Christ and assimilated unto God. That is why in the early Church martyrdom was regarded as a real eucharistic celebration, the most extreme actualization of the Christian’s being a contemporary with Christ, of being united with him.
Ratzinger, J. (2000). The Spirit of the Liturgy (J. Saward, Trans.; pp. 57–58). Ignatius Press.
- Last week, we saw how the “Today” of the liturgy makes the past events of the passion of Christ present by their substance – the eternal does not pass away. This same logic applies to the future. The substance of the future is again present in the “Today” of the liturgy, because it is the same eternal reality. As Christ says, “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.”
- The logic of a living past, invites us to plunge our minds and hearts into the richness of sacred history, alive because it reveals God and it is God revealing the truth about himself and about man. The culmination of this life is the offering and pouring out of Christ’s divine substance on the Cross.
- Now, the logic of a future, already substantially bound to the present, has the power of moving us and transforming us into what we will be, and transferring us into eternity. The liturgy, by drawing me into the sacrifice of Christ (which happened in history), now also propels me with the same substantial power into the future – but not just any future: the eschaton. The end is when Christ has completed the redeeming and sanctifying process of every person he saves. The liturgy, setting us on that path, strengthens the grace of witness which in turn causes the Gospel to spread.
