THE KNUCKLEHEAD
'
S GUIDE TO COVENANTAL THEOLOGY
181
14 Epilogue: A Quote
1
In sum, our objective reality as human is covenantal, and as
historical is Eucharistic; this reality is the single interest and the single
subject matter of Catholic theology, because it is the single ground of
existence in Christ. The Eucharist is the center of objective existence
because it is the constituting Event of the historically free world, of the
Good Creation. Therefore the work of theology is not speculation but
practice, a dimension of the Eucharistic worship of the Church. It is the
responsibility and privilege of the theologian in and for the Church,
inherent in the freedom of his commitment to the inexhaustible
mystery of the New Covenant which sustains him, to inquire in and out
of season into the freedom of the Good Creation that is good as in
Christ, into the mystery of its historical objectivity, into the nuptial
dignity of our covenantal imaging of God, and in that inquiry to
remember that such understanding as he may gain is a gift, carried in a
most fragile vessel, and that his questions, like any other expression of
his worship of God, mark his indigence, not his self-sufficiency. The
theologian is very much Our Lady's juggler; by himself he is only
ridiculous: his sole dignity is his service to the Church. There is no
other dignity than this, our participation in the One Flesh of the One
Sacrifice by which in Christ we have access to the Father.
1. CT, p. 654
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