The Catholic Theological Faculty at the University of Innsbruck, in coordination with the Jesuitenkolleg, are celebrating the person and formidable pastoral-theological contributions of Josef Jungmann, S.J., in this fiftieth year after his death (+26.01.1975).
The faculty’s March newsletter features four brief appraisals of the Tirolean Jesuit’s formative role in the restoration and renewal of the liturgy (before, during, and following Vatican Council II). The newsletter also announces the inauguration of Josef Jungmann Lecture, which I shall have the honor of delivering in Innsbruck on June 3rd.
In my contribution to the Theological Faculty’s current newsletter I note:
Jungmann helped draft the Second Vatican Council’s Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy. The fundamental principles in the document’s first chapter have Jungmann’s fingerprints, so to speak, all over them, including the overarching priority of the full, conscious, active participation of the faithful. He solely authored the chapter on the Eucharist, putting in motion the development of the three-year Lectionary, the renewal of homiletic preaching, and recovery of such ancient elements as the prayers of the faithful and the sign of peace.
In my lecture, I shall review the originality of Jungmann’s methodological approach – historical, theologcial, pastoral – and demonstrate its enduring legacy in the discipline of liturgical theology.