DEPARTMENT OF SACRED LITURGY

OBJECTIVES

1. To promote quality formation of the students not only in the Liturgical field, but in all fields of Theology, and help them to appreciate Liturgical studies.
2. To carry out Departmental research activities for staff and students in form of conferences, seminars or workshops once a year.
3. To have qualified staff members who will impart quality knowledge to the departmental students as well as to the entire Faculty.
4. To ensure that the Lecturers in the department attend to refresher courses at least once in every five years.
5. To hold liturgical conferences and seminars within and without the AMECEA region, as well as be involved in community services at all levels, as organized by the University.

AIMS

As part of the Faculty of Theology, the Department of Sacred Liturgy strives:

1. To enable the Family of God in the AMECEA region carry out its ministry of proclaiming the salvific Word of God effectively and to facilitate a positive response, paying special attention to inculturation and contextualization towards full evangelization of Africa.
2. To dialogue constructively with the African Traditional Religions and cultures in order to offer specialized theological education and integral evangelization.
3. To deepen and expand students’ theological education in a field of Theology and to continue to form them in the scientific methods of research, both in theory and practice in view of a personal synthesis.
4. To equip students with necessary tools and skills for teaching and carrying our various pastoral ministries or for doctoral studies and subsequent theological research and publication.

VISION AND MISSION

Sacred Liturgy has become an increasingly indispensable means of evangelization in Africa today. There is an urgent need for liturgical formation of pastoral agents and the people of God in general. We offer a Master’s Programme in Sacred Liturgy targeting pastoral agents who would go back to their communities to carry out liturgical functions more efficiently and effectively. We teach Liturgy based on the sound Church Tradition but also focusing on the needs of the contemporary Church in Africa (inculturation).

In the last 25 years the Department has produced many students who are working as lecturers in the major seminaries and other houses of formation, directors of liturgical commissions in the dioceses, animators of liturgy in their dioceses. They are also involved in updating catechists and choir members in the areas liturgical. Others participate in the continuous ongoing formation of the clergy especially on homiletics and other liturgical disciplines.

QUALIFICATIONS

Admission to this programme requires a holder of a Bachelors’ Degree in Theology. Applications can be sent to the Registrar’s Office up to the end of April of every Year. Next academic year begins in August. The University may award scholarships to capable and needy students upon the request from the local ordinaries. The fee structure, the prospectus, the official address of the Registrar and the list of academic staff is attached for more information.

FIDELITY AND CREATIVITY

The commemoration of the 40th anniversary of Sacrosanctum Concilium is a good opportunity to rediscover the basic themes of the liturgical renewal that the Council Fathers desired, to seek to evaluate their reception, as it were, and to cast a glance at the future. With the passing of time and in the light of its fruits, the importance of Sacrosanctum Concilium has become increasingly clear. The Council brilliantly outlined in it the principles on which are based the liturgical practices of the Church and which inspire it healthy renewal in the course of time. The Council Fathers set the Liturgy within the horizon of the history of salvation, whose purpose is the redemption of humanity and the perfect glorification of God.

In this perspective, it is more necessary than ever to intensity liturgical life within our communities by means of an appropriate formation of the pastors and of all the faithful with a view to the active, conscious and full participation in liturgical celebrations desired by the Council. The Liturgy offers the deepest and most effective answer to this yearning for the encounter with God. It does so especially in the Eucharist, in which we are given to share in the sacrifice of Christ and to nourish ourselves with his Body and his Blood. However, Pastors must ensure that the sense of mystery penetrates consciences, making them rediscover that art of “mystagogic catechesis”, so dear to the Fathers of the Church.

Pastors have the indispensable task of educating in prayer and more especially of promoting liturgical life, entailing a duty of discernment and guidance. This should not be seen as an uncompromising attitude that is incompatible with the need of Christian souls to abandon themselves to the action of God’s Spirit who intercedes in us and “for us with sighs too deep for words” (Rom 8: 26). Rather, the guidance of Pastors constitutes a principle if “guarantee” inherent in God’s plan for his Church that is governed by the assistance of the Holy Spirit. The liturgical renewal that has place in recent decades has shown that it is possible to combine a body of norms that assure the identity and decorum of the Liturgy and leave room for the creativity and adaptation that enable it to correspond closely with the need to given expression to their respective situation and culture of the various regions.

John Paul II, Spiritus et Sponsa, Apostolic Letter, The Vatican, 4 December 2003.

SECOND CYCLE: THE LICENTIATE / MASTERS IN SACRED LITURGY

COURSES

1. COMMON COURSES

   • L-CSL 104 Inculturation and Contextualization of Liturgy in Africa (3 credits)
   • L-CSL 107 Ordo Missae of Paul VI: Structure and Theology (3 credits)
   • L-CSL 209 Liturgy Theology (3 credits)
   • L-CSL 214 Bible and Liturgy: The Homily (3 credits)

2. CORE COURSES

   • L-SL 100 Hermeneutics and Critical Methods of Liturgical Documents (3 credits)
   • L-SL 100 The Roman Liturgy and its Historical-cultural Development (3 credits)
   • L-SL 103 The “General Restoration” (SC 21) of the Liturgy (3 credits)
   • L-SL 104 Theological dimension of the Liturgy (3 credits)
   • L-SL 105 Liturgy and Human Sciences (3 credits)
   • L-SL 201 Eucharist: Theology and Celebration (3 credits)
   • L-SL 202 Christian Initiation (3 credits)
   • L-SL 203 Rite of Penance (3 credits)
   • L-SL 204 Rite of Marriage (3 credits)
   • L-SL 205 Liturgical Ministries (3 credits)
   • L-SL 206 Mystagogical Catechesis (3 credits)
   • L-SL 207 Symbolic Environment and Art (3 credits)

3. ELECTIVE COURSES

   • L-SLE 102 Theology of the Word of God and Homiletics (2 credits)
   • L-SLE 103 Liturgy and Pastoral Practice (2 credits)
   • L-SLE 104 Rites and Pastoral Care of the Sick (2 credits)
   • L-SLE 201 Heritage of the Eastern Churches (2 credits)
   • L-SLE 202 Liturgical Spirituality (2 credits)
   • L-SLE 203 Christian Funeral Rites (2 credits)

4. SEMINARS

   • L-SSL 150 Liturgical Inculturation in the Praenotanda (3 credits)
   • L-SSL 151 Liturgical Year (3 credits)
   • L-SSL 152 Liturgy of the Hours (3 credits)
   • L-SSL 153 Liturgical Tuition and Formation (3 credits)
   • L-SSL 154 The Ge’ez Rite in Eritrea and Ethiopia (3 credits)
   • L-SSL 155 Reading of the Greek and Latin Church Fathers (3 credits)

THIRD CYCLE – DOCTORATE IN SACRED LITURGY

1. CORE COURSES

   • D-SL 100 Contemporary Trends in Liturgical Sacramental Theology (3 Credits)
   • D-SL 101 Liturgy and Ecclesiology (3 Credits)
   • D-SL 102 Comparative Liturgy (3 Credits)
   • D-SL 103 Epiclesis: The Holy Spirit in Liturgical Celebrations (3 Credits)

2. SEMINARS

   • D-SSL 103 Select Questions on Confirmation (3 Credits)
   • D-SSL 104 The Anaphora (3 Credits)

OTHER COURSES OFFERED AS WORKSHOPS, CONFERENCES, SEMINARS – (3 Credits)

• S-SL 300 Liturgy and Music
• S-SL 301 Liturgy and Architecture
• S-SL 302 The Rites of Religious Profession
• S-SL 304 Sacramentals (Book of Blessings)
• S-SL 305 Dedication of Churches (Roman Pontifical)
• S-SL 306 Liturgy and Popular Devotions
• S-SL 307 Pastoral Liturgy
• S-SL 308 Liturgy and Ecumenism
• S-SL 309 Liturgy and Communication