How Symbols Speak

Symbols, including liturgical symbols, communicate to us on many levels. This article explores the profound nature of symbolic communication, based on the approach of scholar Paul Ricoeur, and offers suggestions for how liturgical symbols can be made to speak more clearly and profoundly. The whole program of the liturgical revival may be summed up with the apt phrase used by Robert Hovda in a variety of places: "Let the symbols speak. " We long for our communities to be clear about the great central signs and actions that bear Christianity and speak it authentically to our time. We want to "unshrivel" these symbols and let them stand forth, ample, gracious and full, occupying the whole time and space of the liturgical assembly's gathering. We want to see anew that these symbols are the actions of a whole community, not objectified things under the control of a clerical few. And we want to learn anew how to take seriously the rich implications of these symbols as they propose to us ne…