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Play and Liturgy Towards a Transcendental Sense of the Experience of the Mystery
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 January 2024
Abstract
In The Spirit of Liturgy, Romano Guardini argued that liturgy is a playful activity. But one may ask, can liturgy really be analysed in light of the experience of play? This question opens up different theoretical problems, which range from a fundamental understanding of play and its celebratory spirit to a consideration of liturgy as an event of the divine Mystery. In this paper, I will therefore explore the nature of Christian ritual performance, drawing on a phenomenological analysis of the connections between play and liturgy in the process, before concluding that the liturgy – from a transcendental perspective – is in fact a playful activity. The argument will thus include a study of the particularity and difference of the original ritual patterns and the universe of play, thereby bringing into focus the interplay between the sense of rite and the experience of play. In such a way, I will show that play provides us with one of the possible ways of approaching the essence of the Christian ritual celebration as a transcendental experience of Mystery, as well as shedding light on the interrelation between homo ludens and homo liturgicus.
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- Copyright © 2018 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers
References
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21 Guardini, The Spirit of the Liturgy, p. 71.
22 Ibid., The Spirit of the Liturgy, p. 66.
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