mysterium pietatis: “He [or “It,” i.e.

, the mystery of Christ]4 who be-

came manifest in the flesh, was justified in the Spirit, appeared to the
angels, was announced to the pagans, was believed in the world, was
assumed into glory” (1 Tim 3:16); otherwise, as the variable acclama-
tions are normally expressed, it is an event that is identified with the
paschal mystery and that the tradition has synthesized in the events
of death, resurrection, and glorious advent of the Lord Jesus.5
As we will see by the example of the other ritual sequences, the
­liturgical action expresses the wonder that arises from the experience,
the synthesis of aesthetic and poietic; the Church makes that wonder
its own in the whole range of celebrative experience. However, in the
eucharistic context, the sequence assumes an emblematic character
regarding how one should consider all liturgical experience of the
sacraments and of the Hours: it is acting, doing, performing realities
given to us (tav poihtav), in the perception or mediation of sensible
­realities (tav aijsqhtav).
The conciliar Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy Sacrosanctum
­concilium (SC) clearly and authoritatively has set the foundation of
­liturgical action and its purpose, the glorification of God and the
sanctification of humans (SC 7), through the sole salvific action
­performed by Christ in the paschal mystery. It is the same action or
work of salvation that, in its effects through proclamation and living,
continues in the mission of the Church and that is done in a singular
way in the liturgical celebration (SC 6). The celebration, a human-
­divine work, a poietic experience, performs the opus salutis. Not,
however, in imaginary abstract or in theory. In harmony with the
­dynamics put into play by the founder Jesus Christ for performing
the opus salutis, in its turn an aesthetic experience, the liturgical a­ ction
makes use of ­sensible signs “to signify invisible realities” (SC 33).
Thus the liturgical celebration, “the work of Christ the priest and of
his Body, which is the Church” (SC 7), is based on this particular
­polarity: a poietic fundamental that is expressed aesthetically.
In the light of the more properly liturgical sources, with the help of
theological science and of some so-called human sciences, we are
  4
This pronoun can, according to the reading that the codices make of it, refer
to Christ or to the Mystery, without altering the meaning.
  5 
Cf. S. Maggiani, “La celebrazione cristiana: celebrare ‘in Spirito e verità per
mezzo dei riti e delle preghiere,’” Celebriamo il Signore, eds. M. Dosio and A.
Meneghetti (Rome, 1995) 91–119.

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