Ambrose of Milan's Method of Mystagogical Preaching - Book Review

Ambrose of Milan's Method of Mystagogical Preaching. By Craig Alan Satterlee. Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 2002. xxiv and 391 pages. Paper. $34.95.

What is mystagogical preaching? It is preaching on the "mysteries," that is, the sacraments, as experienced by those baptized and communed at the Easter Vigil, preaching based on the sacraments as texts, presented during Eastertide and designed to shape the life of those just initiated into the church. This book holds up the method of Ambrose of Milan as the model for such preaching.

The author is the Axel Jacob and Gerda Maria (Swanson) Carlson Assistant Professor of Homiletics and co-director of the doctor of Ministry program at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago. An ordained pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, he previously taught homiletics and liturgics at the University of Notre Dame.

Mystagogical preaching was the practice of the church of the latter part of the fourth century and grew out of the church's special situation in initiating people into the life of the church after baptism. It was the custom, as exemplified by the emperor Constantine, to delay baptism as long as possible, sometimes until the death bed, so that the holy life expected of the baptized would not interfere with the responsibilities expected by the government or business or the army. Ambrose, the leading government official in Milan, was not baptized until after his surprise election by the people as their bishop.

Ambrose expected those who wished to be baptized to announce their intention at the beginning of Lent and then to participate in instruction as catechumens throughout the season of Lent. The instruction focused not on baptism or the Eucharist but on the moral life that was expected of the baptized. The rites were part of the Disciplina Arcani, the secret disciplines of the church, too holy to be discussed before they were experienced.

Once the rites had been experienced, they had to be explained. For Ambrose that was the purpose of mystagogical preaching. He required those newly initiated into the life of the church to be present twice a day for worship and instruction each day of Easter week. The sermons at the worship used the liturgical rites as the text to move the initiated to live the life they had experienced in baptism and the Eucharist. In separate chapters Satterlee presents the substance of Ambrose's preaching as drawn from his extant works, De Sacramentis and De Mysteriis.

In a concluding chapter Satterlee argues for making Ambrose's method of mystagogical preaching a model for such preaching in our own time. He describes the baptismal and eucharistic liturgy as practiced one Easter in St. Timothy Lutheran Church, the congregation he served as pastor. Then he gives us the content of the sermons preached during the Sundays of Eastertide, demonstrating his use of Ambrose's model.

Ambrose is cited in the Lutheran symbols as one of the Church Fathers whose teaching is evidence that the teaching of the symbols is in harmony with catholic teaching of every age. Those of us who confess the Lutheran symbols as our own have much to learn from the renowned bishop of Milan. Ambrose's insistence that preaching is for the purpose of transforming the life of the hearer rather than for the instruction of the mind has much to say to us for our preaching today. We also can learn much from his interweaving of liturgy and faith in preaching.

But there are problems with Ambrose's mystagogy. While Satterlee makes a good case for the similarities between the culture of Ambrose's day and our own, there are major cultural differences. Disciplina arcani do not exist in the church of our time, and so there is no reason why interpretation of the rites of baptism and the Eucharist should be postponed until after they have been experienced. For sound educational reasons they need to be interpreted again and again before and after they are first experienced.

Nor is the fourth-century system of the catechumenate a reality for the church in our time. Baptism of children and infants is still the norm in spite of the strange arguments against it. If Ambrose is right that baptism effects faith (Luther held the same), then why should children have to wait until they grow up before they experience the saving benefit of baptism? Like the church of the fourth century, we need to find ways of involving all who are candidates for baptism and their families in the life-changing events of baptism and the Eucharist.

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