Conference
7 - 9 May 2007
LITURGY AND IMAGES
Casa Sacro Cuore
Via Rina, 1 - 35038 Torreglia PD
Tel. 049.521.16.67
We are well aware that there are many ways in which God is present and close to us. He makes himself present through revelation and his Word, through reason and metaphysics, through the personal events of life, through prayer and through cultural and liturgical experience. What remains fundamental is that each of these different presences is mediated through “the world of images”. One can say that every experience of God comes through images in so far as we are made of flesh, we have sensitivity, we have vision, hearing, touch and smell. The same rational understanding is secretly present in the world of images to the point that many scholars and cognitivists today sustain that “we today think always and only by means of images”. For others, that which we do with our body and senses has a direct impact on the state of our consciousness. Body and mind are not separate entities, but they interact in a reciprocal manner. In the same way the faith which is shown by that which “one says”, is demonstrated even more in that which “one does”.
Our Institute, which has as its principle aim the study of the way in which rite and liturgy act on our sense perceptions and on our religious cognitions and has given great importance to the body and to the verbal and non verbal codes, placing in particular prominence the importance of sounds, of colours, of lights, of gesture, cannot neglect one of these most important and necessary aspects of the itinerarium mentis in Deum . Therefore, we cannot but compare the study of rite and liturgy with “the world of images”, a world which is so closely connected to the body and the senses. This year's Symposium is consequently in harmony with the great liturgical themes.
