Dutch Responses to Lockdown Liturgies. Analysis of the Public Debate on Sacraments During the COVID-19 Pandemic

Analyzing the discourse around sacraments – most notably the Eucharist – in Dutch newspapers in the first months of restrictions issued to combat the coronavirus pandemic, this article categorizes the various manifestations of liturgical life encountered and presents the main theological interests at stake. The article is structured according to the four types of adaptations to liturgical life displayed in the sample of articles, readers’ letters, and opinion pieces included in this study: abstinence, spectator liturgy, private domestic liturgy, and embedded domestic liturgy. This categorization helps to track the theological presuppositions involved, some of which have been explicitly articulated in the sample. These arguments are then collected and discussed. In doing so, this article lists significant responses to the liturgical practices that emerged during the first lockdown of 2020 in the Netherlands and analyses the most important themes involved, formulating some of the implications for the future of liturgical practice and thought.

A Distanced Eucharist in Bits and Bytes. Creating a True Encounter in Online Celebrations of the Mass during the COVID-19 Crisis

Since the beginning of 2020, liturgical life in many countries around the globe has changed due to COVID-19 lockdowns or other measures related to the worldwide pandemic. While churches had to close their doors to the faithful, or only allow a limited of people to attend mass, communities brought their Eucharistic celebrations online in livestreamed or Zoom services. This phenomenon has raised questions about the authenticity of online celebrations of the Eucharist. Can those online services be considered as ‘real’ liturgy? In this article, I will address this question by focusing on embodiment and presence in the liturgy and how these key concepts of liturgical studies are being established in a new existential context of the online realm.

Liturgische Theologie als Praxisreflexion. Qualitative Forschung unter Benediktineroblaten

The relation between liturgical practice and theological reflection is by no means self-evident, especially in a secularized society. How can academic theology be rooted in liturgical life, and how can liturgical involvement play a vital role in the task of theology to reflect on liturgical tradition and practice? Liturgical theology is an attempt to bridge that gap between practice and reflection. The voice of practitioners as part of theological discourse is an important ingredient for this hermeneutical dialogue. Monastic life offers a space where liturgical and theological life can meet, especially in Benedictine abbeys. There, liturgical experience (theologia prima) is directly linked to theological reflection (theologia secunda), which leads to critical impulses for both, liturgy and theology, inside and outside abbey walls. Today, monastic communities are shrinking, but there is a growing interest in liturgical life among affiliated members of abbeys: the number of Benedictine oblates are growing. What is their view on liturgical experience, reflection and criticism? In this article, I present findings from a qualitative survey among fifty-three Dutch Benedictine oblates. Their answers are analyzed by coding procedures and interpreted theologically. They form an example of liturgical theology as practice-reflection.

A New Sacramental Theology for e-Eucharist?

During the 2020–21 COVID-19 crisis, participation in the eucharist was largely reduced to watching a service on television or online. This article focuses on whether such a form of participation in the eucharist – perhaps enhanced by taking some bread and wine individually in front of the screen – could be called sacramental participation from the point of view of a (broadly Catholic) systematic sacramental theology. I argue that a spiritual form of real presence is possible by virtue of Christ’s omnipresence, but that sacramental presence is inevitably dependent on embodiment and locality.

Do This in Remembrance of Me Online? Irenic and Elenctic Normativity in Liturgical Studies

The authors of this article, two liturgical scholars and a scholar in dogmatics, engaged in a public discussion of whether or not a Holy Communion should be celebrated online. Speaking about the case afterwards, they found that both the discourse of liturgical studies and of dogmatics introduced comparable normative elements. Barnard and Klomp in liturgical studies speak with Ronald Grimes of ‘ritual criticism’ and with Roy Rappaport of ‘The True Words’ as benchmarks that are established by religions in the infinite field of meanings of the rite. Wisse speaks on the basis of the originally Lutheran distinction of Law and Gospel of therapeutic or irenic and elenctic normativity. The authors advocate this distinction as an instrument that opens the way for a discussion about the mystery of life and of the sacraments.

Spiritual Communion in Mystical Texts from the Twelfth to the Sixteenth Centuries

Since around the twelfth century, spiritual communion was defined as participating in the sacrament in a spiritual manner. This practice was based on Augustine’s distinction between the sacrament and the substance of the sacrament, which is spiritual union with Christ. Mystics such as William of Saint-Thierry contributed greatly to this practice, as they focused on the personal dimension of a spiritual union with Christ. Spiritual communion can take place when one is hindered from partaking in the sacrament, through meditation on Christ’s sacrifice or through watching the Eucharistic celebration. Yet, for mystics, spiritual communion is also the continual, inner celebration of the substance of the sacrament, which allowed them to harmoniously combine sacramental communion and spiritual communion. Spiritual communion is referred to by many mystics, including Gertrude of Helfta, Tauler, and the Evangelical Pearl. After the Council of Trent started to promote sacramental communion, the practice of spiritual communion declined.

Onenigheid over een Doopvraag. De Gevolgen van Twee Incidenten in het Amsterdam van 1613 voor de Vormgeving van de Remonstrantse en Contraremonstrantse Doopliturgie

In this essay, the authors use new primary sources to reconstruct which baptism questions were asked during two services held in Amsterdam in 1613. These services, which were taken by, amongst others, the Reformed ministers P. Plancius and G. van der Heyden and in which the later Remonstrant foremen J. Wtenbogaert and S. Episcopius acted as godparents, caused great turmoil. Research of the various editions of baptismal liturgy reveals three basic types of the second baptism question. Primary and secondary literature have overlooked the significance of one of these types in the Amsterdam services. Wtenbogaert and Episcopius, but especially the latter, were not aware of the existence of all three types and felt misled since they did not want to subscribe to the doctrine taught from the Amsterdam pulpits by affirming the questions posed. The authors outline the impact of the incidents on the format of both later Reformed and later Remonstrant baptismal liturgy.