Abstract

The great richness of the work of Louis Bouyer is well known. In his first publications, Bouyer initiates a return to the sources of the liturgy, the Word and the Fathers. Very characteristically of this movement is Le mystère pascal (1945), which rehabilitates theologically many profound views more or less forgotten. Nevertheless, we also find that, in this work, the author, after opening new avenues, comes to close them. The status Bouyer gives to Holy Saturday manifests this lack of consistency. The present article attempts to explain this situation. At the end, Bouyer’s own approach appears to be a link between the theologies of Thomas Aquinas and Hans Urs von Balthasar.