Portugal: National Liturgy Secretariat publishes «The intelligence of the liturgy»
Fátima, Jan 19, 2022 (Ecclesia) – The National Liturgy Secretariat (SNL), of the Portuguese Episcopal Conference, has published the book ‘The intelligence of the liturgy’, by Paul De Clerck, priest of the Diocese of Malines-Brussels (Belgium).
“The purpose of this book is to lead to a possible sharing. The liturgy is more intelligent than is usually thought; contain more riches than we are often able to see, hear and live”, reads the new book published by SNL.
The introduction will be sent today to the ECCLESIA Agency, by the National Liturgy Secretariat, explains that the structures of the liturgy, “like its elements, whether texts or rites, provide meaning”.
“Contrary to what many people think, the elements that can be a piece of the liturgy do not present themselves as a puzzle that can be considered evil on the floor in disarray and that can come together without any head with its arrangement and its provision ”, can be read.
In the presentation of the work, Father José Ribeiro Gomes states that this ‘intelligence of the liturgy’, published in 1995, and now in Portuguese, comes to “fill an important gap” for an ‘ethical approach to the liturgy’ in moments of dispersion.
The priest of the Diocese of Bragança-Miranda refers to Paul De Clerck’s proposal for a “background path” where the ‘understanding of the liturgy’ involves the “perception of the body and the senses (anthropological dimension).
“The ‘liturgical act’ has its theological dimension, in the ecclesial realization of the liturgy inserted in a given culture that wants to celebrate the ‘today of God’ for men”, adds Father José Ribeiro Gomes.
Paul De Clerck, born in 1939 in Brussels, was a professor at the Higher Institute of Liturgy (Institut Catolic de Paris), of which he was director from 1986 to 2001.
The priest of the Diocese of Malines-Brussels was also a professor at the Center for Theological and Pastoral Studies in Brussels, from 1970 to 1998, he is a member of the Societas Liturgica, he was its president (1989-1991), of the European Association of Catholic Theology, of the of the “Sources Liturgiques” and the Saint-Serge Institute of Orthodox Theology in Paris.
‘The intelligence of the liturgy‘ is the sixth in the collection of liturgical studies entitled ‘Hodie = Today’, by the National Liturgy Secretariat.
CB