Liturgy as mystagogy in a digital age

Abstract

Liturgy is not only a celebration of faith but a mystagogy, a process that leads into the dual movement of God towards Man, katabasis, and consequently of Man who, filled with the Holy Spirit, moves towards communion with God, anabasis. The liturgical act is the spatio-temporal, symbolic, embodied, and communal act of worship which is at the heart of Man’s own vocation as homo adorans. In involving the whole person, body and soul, in their personal, social and cultural experience, the assembly enters into the process of being transformed, in the power of the Holy Spirit, as the communion of saints and the body of Christ on earth. Nevertheless, our age, often called the digital age, poses various challenges and obstacles to contemporary Man in experiencing liturgy as mystagogy. The contemporary age is forging a digital identity that challenges and redefines our experience of spatiotemporal reality, our understanding of the symbol and the embodied self, and our sense of community. Since all the major components of the liturgical act are being challenged, then the contemporary Christian is in a privileged position to discern his true liturgical vocation and to realise the importance of the liturgical act not only for his faith, but for his entire life: personal, social and cultural.