Abstract In this article, I argue that what has been called ‘the liturgical present’ in recent philosophical discussions of Christian liturgy points to three different phenomena: (1) the phenomenological immersion into the narrative of the gospel by the use of present‐tense language; (2) the actualisation of occurrent divine activity in the enactment of sacraments; and (3) the presence of the eternality of divine activity by means of the liturgical service's participation in heavenly worship. I clarify the philosophical and theological commitments involved in each of these three articulations of what happens when temporal presence is invoked in liturgical scripts. I conclude by arguing for a ‘thick’ account of the liturgical present in which each of these three phenomena offers the liturgical participant the kairological time of opportunity that disrupts mundane chronological experience.
Christopher J. King (2026) studied this question.