Odo Casel
Johannes Casel OSB (27 September 1886 – 28 March 1948), better known by the religious name of Odo Casel, was a German Roman Catholic priest, liturgical scholar and co-founder of mystery theology. He is considered a pioneer and leader of the Catholic liturgical movement, and from 1921 he published the Yearbook for Liturgical Studies. Many of his thoughts on theology and liturgy were published by Pope Pius XII in his encyclical Mediator Dei in 1947 as official teaching of the Catholic Church.
Biography
Johannes Casel was born in Koblenz. He entered the Benedictine Maria Laach Abbey in 1905, where he took the religious name Odo. He studied Catholic theology at the Pontifical Athenaeum of Saint Anselm in Rome from 1908 to 1912 and classical philology in Bonn from 1913 to 1918, where he also received his doctorate in 1918. From 1922, he was spiritual director of the Benedictine abbey in Herstelle near Höxter and played a decisive role in the establishment and development of this abbey. In the last two years before his death in 1948, he also accompanied the nun Corona Bamberg as spiritual director.[1]
Casel's main achievement is the rediscovery of the unity of the mystery of faith and the act of worship. Since the latter is less a static propositional truth than a passage, namely Christ's passage from death to life, from the world alienated from God home to the Father, this, the divine service, especially the Eucharist, is the actual involvement and involvement of the Church and the individual believers in the Lord's Easter passage. The unique, past event of salvation (mystery of the cross, paschal mystery) becomes an effective presence through the Holy Spirit (mystery of the Church).
Odo Casel died in Herstelle.
Works
- Das Gedächtnis des Herrn in der altchristlichen Liturgie: Die Grundgedanken des Messkanons (1918)
- De philosophorum graecorum silentio mystico (1919)
- Die Liturgie als Mysterienfeier (1923)
- Das christliche Kult-Mysterium (1932)
- "Art und Sinn der ältesten christlichen Osterfeier". In: Jahrbuch für Liturgiewissenschaft (1934)
- Das christliche Festmysterium (1941)
- Glaube, Gnosis, Mysterium (1941)
- Mysterium des Kommenden (1952)
- Vom wahren Menschenbild: Vorträge (1953)
- Mysterium des Kreuzes (1954)
- Mysterium der Ekklesia: Von der Gemeinschaft aller Erlösten in Christus Jesus. Aus Schriften und Vorträgen (1961)
- Vom Spiegel als Symbol. Aus nachgelassenen Schriften (1961)
Odo Casel edited the Jahrbuch [today: Archiv] für Liturgiewissenschaft. He also published several articles in the journals Liturgische Zeitschrift (1928–1933) and Liturgisches Leben (1934–1939), edited by Johannes Pinsk in Berlin.
Notes
- ↑ Bamberg, Corona (2011). "Was ich noch sagen wollte - Lebensrückblick einer Benediktinerin," OrdensNachrichten, No. 5, pp. 59–68.
References
- Bautz, Friedrich Wilhelm (1990). "Casel, Odo". In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). 1. Hamm: Bautz, pp. 946–47.
- Fittkau, Gerhard (1953). Der Begriff des Mysteriums bei Johannes Chrysostomos. Eine Auseinandersetzung mit dem Begriff des „Kultmysteriums“ in der Lehre Odo Casels (Promotionsschrift, Breslau 1944). Bonn: Peter Hanstein Verlag.
- Krahe, Maria Judith (1986). Der Herr ist der Geist. Studien zur Theologie Odo Casels. St. Ottilien: EOS.
- Nawar, Alexander (1990). Opfer als Dialog der Liebe. Sondierungen zum Opferbegriff Odo Casels. Frankfurt am Main: Lang.
- Schilson, Arno (1987). Theologie als Sakramententheologie. Die Mysterientheologie Odo Casels. Mainz: Matthias-Grünewald-Verlag.
- Volk, Paulus (1957). "Casel Odo". In: Neue Deutsche Biographie (NDB). 3. Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, p. 164.
- Winkelmann-Jahn, Renate Maria (1999). Fülle der Zeit – erfüllte Zeit. Zur Begründung von Mystagogie nach Alfred Petzelt und Odo Casel. St. Ottilien: EOS.
