Who Do You Say That I Am? Liturgy and the Meaning of Life | Fr. Innocent Smith, O.P.

The Thomistic Institute

Christianity, Society & Culture, Catholic Intellectual Tradition, Catholic, Philosophy, Religion & Spirituality, Thomism, Catholicism

4.8 • 729 Ratings

🗓️ 24 February 2023

⏱️ 47 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Fr. Smith's handout can be found here: tinyurl.com/3knfh8y5 This lecture was given on January 14, 2023, at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, D.C., as part of the intellectual retreat entitled, "The Mystery of the Liturgy." For more information on upcoming events, please visit our website at www.thomisticinstitute.org. About the speaker: Fr. Innocent Smith, O.P. was born in California and raised in Indiana. He discerned a vocation to the Dominicans while studying music and philosophy at the University of Notre Dame, and joined the St. Joseph Province of the Order of Preachers in 2008. After the novitiate in Cincinnati and philosophy and theology studies at the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C., Fr. Innocent was ordained to the priesthood in 2015 by Archbishop Charles Brown. Fr. Innocent’s teaching and research interests include homiletics, liturgy, sacramental theology, ecclesiology, and sacred music. His S.T.L. thesis, “In Collecta Dicitur: The Oration as a Theological Authority for Thomas Aquinas,” explored the importance of the liturgy as a source for scholastic theology. His doctoral dissertation, “Doers of the Word: Bible Missals and the Celebration of the Dominican Liturgy,” focused on medieval manuscripts of the Bible that also contain liturgical texts for the celebration of Mass. Fr. Innocent examined manuscripts at libraries and museums throughout Europe and North America that form an important but previously understudied body of evidence for understanding the liturgical reception of the Bible and the development of the liturgy in the Middle Ages. In addition to publishing popular and scholarly articles related to theology, liturgy, and music, Fr. Innocent has edited chant books that make the musical and liturgical tradition of the Dominican Order available for use in the contemporary liturgy.

Transcript

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0:51.5	So today's talk, who do you say that I am, liturgy and the meaning of life?
0:56.5	We're going to go back into this question of what is liturgy.
1:00.0	It's a really fundamental question that we can explore from different angles.
1:03.7	We had a wonderful presentation from Dr. Marshall this morning.
1:06.0	I'd like to give us a few other perspectives that are complementary to what we were learning about
1:11.3	this morning for ways of defining and celebrating liturgy. So there's a particularly important
1:17.6	theologian from the 20th century who has a lot to say about liturgical theology. His name is
1:22.9	Cypriano Vagagini. He was an Italian Benedictine monk. He was highly influenced by St. Thomas Aquinas in his way of studying the liturgy and trying to define it. And he also played a major role in drafting the document on the liturgy from Vatican II, Sacrosanth and Cilium. So his way of understanding liturgy has been very influential for the church.
1:44.9	So he gives one definition of liturgy, which is the sanctification and the worship of the church
1:52.4	actualized insensible and efficacious signs. So I'm going to say that once more,
1:59.9	and then I'm going to go into each of those words
2:01.4	so we can understand what he's trying to get at more deeply. Liturgy is the sanctification
2:07.5	and worship of the church, actualized, insensible, and efficacious signs. So what is sanctification?
2:20.1	I'd like to draw your attention to a passage from Leviticus, Chapter 11, verse 44, which St. Peter quotes in his first letter, First Peter 116,
2:27.7	be holy for I am holy. So God is holiness itself. It's proper to God to be holy. And we are given a share in God's
2:39.6	nature through our participation in the liturgy, a share in His holiness. It's not something we
2:45.8	achieve by our own efforts. It's the result of God's grace. There's nothing we can do to grasp holiness for
	...

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