FREE EUCHARIST AS MEANING: CRITICAL METAPHYSICS AND CONTEMPORARY SACRAMENTAL THEOLOGY PDF

Joseph C. Mudd | 270 pages | 26 Jun 2014 | Liturgical Press | 9780814682210 | English | Collegeville, MN, United States Our Consulting Scholars - World Wisdoms Project

World Wisdoms Project is committed to informed, scholarly approaches to the challenges of our time in the context of sacred Eucharist as Meaning: Critical Metaphysics and Contemporary Sacramental Theology and wisdom. To assist the Board of Directors in mining the depth of world wisdom in light of our northern Colorado and global communities, we are privileged to have three official theological consultants to the BOD. As both scholars and faculty they have unique insights into the intersections of spirituality, religion and secularism in our society. Joe co-directs the graduate program in Religious Studies. He also co- directs the Francis Youth Institute for Theology and Leadership which brings high school juniors and seniors to Gonzaga University for a week of exploring nature in the Inland Northwest, studying theology with Gonzaga faculty, and praying together in community. Joe was a speaker at the World Wisdoms Project in 7. Other areas of Eucharist as Meaning: Critical Metaphysics and Contemporary Sacramental Theology include the philosophy and theology of Bernard LonergranS. She has been a Consultant with World Wisdoms Program since Joseph holds a Ph. A native of Montana, he received a B. She teaches at the intersection of Systematic Theology and issues of diversity religious diversity, Christian cultural diversity, race and gender. She serves as board member for the Northwest Bronx Community and Clergy Coalition, a multi-racial, multi-religious, inter-generational grass roots organization for social change. Jeannine was a speaker at the World Wisdoms Project in 7. Her first book, Monopoly on Salvation? A Feminist Response to Religious Pluralismputs Karl Rahner and George Lindbeck in conversation with feminist theories of identity for a theology of religious pluralism. After obtaining her undergraduate degree at the University of Illinoisshe spent a year with the Jesuit Volunteer Corps, then went on to earn a Master s and Doctorate in Theology from Harvard Divinity School. For ten years she was the faculty director of the Service-Learning Program for undergraduates of Fordham. Skip to content World Wisdoms Project is committed to informed, scholarly approaches to the challenges of our time in the context of sacred beliefs and wisdom. Ecclesia de Eucharistia - Wikipedia

Its title, as is customary, is taken from the opening words of the Latin version of the text, which is rendered in the English translation as "The Church draws her life from the Eucharist", with the first words of the Latin translating as "The Church from the Eucharist". He discusses the centrality of the Eucharist to the definition and mission of the Church and says he hopes his message will "effectively help to banish the dark clouds of unacceptable doctrine and practice, so that the Eucharist will continue to shine forth in all its radiant mystery. It drew as well on his personal experiences saying Mass. Throughout his pontificate, John Paul wrote an annual letter to priests on Holy Thursday. On his 25th Holy Thursday as pope, he issued this encyclical instead, addressed to all Catholics: "to the Eucharist as Meaning: Critical Metaphysics and Contemporary Sacramental Theology, priests and deacons, men and women in the consecrated life and all the lay Eucharist as Meaning: Critical Metaphysics and Contemporary Sacramental Theology. It was the last of his fourteen encyclicals. The text of Ecclesia de Eucharistia consists of an introduction, six chapters and a conclusion, the entirety divided into 62 sections. The introduction opens with the words "The Church draws her life from the Eucharist. John Paul regrets that Eucharistic adoration "has been almost completely abandoned" in some places and that the Eucharist is not always properly honored, sometimes reduced to "simply a fraternal banquet" or "a form of proclamation" that obscures its sacramental character. An ecumenical impulse that seeks to express confraternity with non-Catholic Christians has led to violations of the Church's discipline in celebrating the Eucharist. He writes, therefore, to emphasize and remind all Catholics of the true nature of the Eucharist and to restore proper understanding and practice, because "The Eucharist is too great Eucharist as Meaning: Critical Metaphysics and Contemporary Sacramental Theology gift to tolerate ambiguity and depreciation. In Communion, Christ offers himself as nourishment, which "spurs us on our journey through history and plants a seed of living hope in our daily commitment to the work before us". The Eucharist constitutes an experience of fraternity: "The Eucharist, precisely by building up the Church, creates human community. The celebration of the Eucharist lies at the center of the deposit of faith received from the Apostles and must remain unchanged, true its apostolic inheritance. The role of the priest is critical, a priest ordained by a bishop who is part of the apostolic succession. There are therefore important distinctions to be maintained when considering the communion rites of Protestants, here referred to as "the Ecclesial Communities which arose in the West from the sixteenth century Eucharist as Meaning: Critical Metaphysics and Contemporary Sacramental Theology and are separated from the Catholic Church". Catholics must not receive communion in those churches, nor can an ecumenical service substitute for attendance at Mass. Priests should celebrate Mass daily, both for the sake of their own ministry and as an example to vocations. The "praiseworthy" activities of eucharistic ministers in the absence of a priest must always be considered temporary. The Eucharist presupposes a community that it will bring to perfection. That community requires a life of grace. The sacrament of Penance allows the faithful to prepare themselves for the Eucharist by unburdening their consciences of sin. Communion must be denied to those who visibly persist in grave sin, and it is only available to the baptized who accept fully the true faith of Eucharist as Meaning: Critical Metaphysics and Contemporary Sacramental Theology Eucharist. A community that celebrates the Eucharist must be in harmony with its bishop and the pope, and Sunday Mass is of fundamental importance to our expression of community. Following norms demonstrates love for the Eucharist and the Church. For all these reasons, concelebration or "Eucharistic sharing" with non- Catholic Christians is completely unacceptable, though communion maybe administered to non-Catholics in certain circumstances, to those who— and here John Paul quotes his earlier encyclical Ut Unum Sint —"greatly desire to receive these sacraments [Eucharist, Penance and Anointing of the Sick], freely request them and manifest the faith which the Catholic Church professes". These are norms "from which no dispensation can be given". The celebration of the Eucharist requires "outward forms' that correspond to its internal, spiritual significance. John Paul cites architecture, "designs of altars and tabernacle, and music. Turning from the arts in "lands of ancient Christian heritage", John Paul discusses the work of adaptation to other cultures known as "inculturation". He underscores its value, warns that it must always correspond to the ineffable mystery of the Eucharist, and advises "careful review on the part of the competent ecclesiastical authorities", specifically the Holy See. He condemns "a misguided sense of creativity" Eucharist as Meaning: Critical Metaphysics and Contemporary Sacramental Theology "unauthorized innovations which are often completely inappropriate". He promises a document on Eucharist as Meaning: Critical Metaphysics and Contemporary Sacramental Theology for Eucharistic celebrations will be forthcoming. John Paul considers the relationship of Mary to the Eucharist and considers her role as a model of Eucharistic faith. In Eucharist as MeaningJoseph C. Mudd was questioning the notion of an objectivity that "can be attained without minds". Considering the implications of Ecclesia for the relationship between the Catholic Church and evangelicals, Mark Noll wrote that it would resonate with those Protestants who adhere to the idea of the real presence rather than communion as a memorial, though all would welcome its reliance on Scripture. He believed that "It is obvious that John Paul II teaches a Eucharist doctrine closer to what the Protestant reformers [Luther, Melancthon] themselves advocated than to what they condemned in the sixteenth century", including even his discussion of transubstantiation. He nevertheless concluded that "it is nevertheless evident that the institutional life of the Catholic Church enjoys a prominence in defining a foundational Christian reality that evangelicals do not allow for any human institution. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Solar monstrance of the Eucharist. In Perry, Tim ed. Retrieved 11 May Anglican Communion News Service. La Vie in French. Collegeville, Minnesota: Liturgical Press. Pope John Paul II. Eastern Orthodox Church Judaism. Bibliography Teachings. Eponymous places In popular culture. The Planet Is Alive Let It Live! Hidden categories: CS1 French-language sources fr. Namespaces Article Talk. Views Read Edit View history. Help Learn to edit Community portal Recent changes Upload file. Download as PDF Printable version. In Latin In English. Part of a series on. Sheen Mary Therese Vicente. Catholicism portal. Eucharist in Contemporary Catholic Tradition |

The purpose of this article is not to give a detailed presentation of the history or of the theology of the Eucharist, but to give an overview of directions and trends in Catholic theology in recent years. Fresh insights and orientations have come from a variety of sources. To begin with, there was the liturgical renewal, starting with the more active participation of congregations and more frequent Communion, and then. A simultaneous revision took place in many of the Christian Churches of the West. While bringing Eucharist as Meaning: Critical Metaphysics and Contemporary Sacramental Theology considerable liturgical convergence in the manner of celebrating, this went hand-in-hand with an ecumenical dialogue that has gone a long way in resolving historical disputes and unveiling common points of faith and doctrine, even while pointing to the legitimacy of differences, especially over concepts of sacrifice and presence. This meeting of the ways in western communities itself occurs within an openness to the eucharistic traditions of the East. Dialogue and theological inquiry are, in turn, served by greater historical consciousness, a better knowledge of ancient liturgical rites and prayers, and an appeal Eucharist as Meaning: Critical Metaphysics and Contemporary Sacramental Theology scriptural origins that is affected by historical and literary criticism. Past doctrinal and theological formulations of the mystery of the Eucharist in the Church's tradition are also subjected to historical criticism and can, thus, be reconsidered and assimilated within a larger comprehension, opened up by scriptural, patristic and liturgical research. Catechetically, too, there have been new approaches, especially in putting the mystery of the Eucharist in the context of the mystery of the Church, the Body of Christ and in relating it to the mystery of the Trinity [see church, ii theology of ]. From a historical perspective, it is sometimes said that in the first millennium eucharistic theology was wedded to celebration and in the second became a speculative enterprise that lost touch with celebration. Granting a certain validity to this observation, it is to be noted that even the speculative questions about presence and sacrifice that dominated, first scholastic theology and then post-tridentine, were related to an evolving eucharistic practice that had developed before the theology or the doctrine and which included eucharistic devotions and a new manner of hearing Mass for the faithful. Theology, in other words, took a new turn in the wake of changed liturgical and devotional practice. Not even doctrine or speculative theology, therefore, can be properly understood and interpreted unless seen in the context of ecclesial practice. If contemporary eucharistic theology is Eucharist as Meaning: Critical Metaphysics and Contemporary Sacramental Theology related to a historically critical approach to scriptural reconstruction, to ritual studies, to the study of language, to the study of cultures, or to hermeneutics, this too is because of the need to understand and guide a currently developing practice of eucharistic celebration that shows both convergences and diversities, not only among Churches but within each particular Church. Taking all of Eucharist as Meaning: Critical Metaphysics and Contemporary Sacramental Theology into account, one could speak of a new orientation in eucharistic theology that can be called doing liturgical theology. This is because the focus is on celebration and Eucharist as Meaning: Critical Metaphysics and Contemporary Sacramental Theology its interpretation within the living and richly diverse tradition of the Church. It is within liturgical theology that history, Eucharist as Meaning: Critical Metaphysics and Contemporary Sacramental Theology, doctrine, the study of rites and texts, and theological elaboration, come together. One might also speak of this as a hermeneutical approach, since it attends to the Eucharist as an event of God's gift in Christ, a gift that comes to the Church Eucharist as Meaning: Critical Metaphysics and Contemporary Sacramental Theology embodies itself in the Church through an act of "language," that is, through ritual action and spoken word. With the foregoing in view, a summary of new insights from a variety of fields of eucharistic study will be given under these headings: 1 Eucharist, sacrament of the Body of Christ; 2 Revisiting New Testament origins and background; Eucharist as Meaning: Critical Metaphysics and Contemporary Sacramental Theology Eucharistic theology as a liturgical mystagogy, and the study of the Great Eucharistic Prayer; 4 The study of controversies, doctrines and past theologies of the West in historical context; and 5 Orientations in contemporary systematic theologies of the Eucharist. By way of stating a common fundamental principle, one could say that a contemporary liturgical theology looks to the Eucharist as the Sacrament of the Body of Christ, Head and members. This plays a part in historical study and in theological and liturgical revision, which is why it is here considered at the outset. Rather than ask only what Christ does in the eucharistic action, or how his body and blood are present, these questions are put. Both terms, one Greek and Eastern, the other Latin and Western, derive from the text of the New Testament where they are used in the original language or in translation, to express the divine counsel and action in bringing about the salvation of humankind through the sending of the Son and the Spirit e. Rom This mystery originates within the Godhead and is ultimately ineffable, but it is manifested in time in visible and symbolic form, beginning Eucharist as Meaning: Critical Metaphysics and Contemporary Sacramental Theology the history of the salvation of Israel and culminating in the incarnation of the Son and the mysteries of his flesh. If the terms are applied in a particular way to the Church's eucharistic celebration in which it keeps memorial of Jesus Christ, this is because in this celebration the mystery is embodied in ritual form at the heart of the Church. This means that while the Church lives from the life of Christ and the Spirit that come to it through many channels, it expresses its own life and mystery most aptly and most fully in the celebration of the Eucharist. The Eucharist, in turn, is best appreciated when seen as the Sacrament of the Church, Body of Christ. While the eucharistic action includes proclamation, prayers and diverse rituals, its truth was expressed in early Christian centuries through a focus on that which is most central to its purpose, namely on the eating and Eucharist as Meaning: Critical Metaphysics and Contemporary Sacramental Theology with thanksgiving at the common table where is received the gift of the Body and Blood of Christ see sacramental theology. Contemporary theology points to a number of implications of this vocabulary of mystery and sacrament. Gathering for the Eucharist is an act of the local Church, wherein all members of the community come together. This embodiment of Christ's mystery is essentially domestic. More than a general relation of Eucharist to Church, it is the relation to the local Church that emerges so that a universal communion in Christ is necessarily related to a communion between such eucharistic Churches. Seen as a gathering and as the mystery of the local Church, the Eucharist is linked to the fellowship of the Church as lived out in practical detail and especially its diakoniathat is to its service of the needy in its midst. It also embraces the Church's appeal to a living apostolic tradition, its testimony to the word of God, the testimony of its martyrs, the communion of the living with the dead who have died in the faith of Christ and often fortified by the viaticum of the sacrament of his Body and Blood. It is related, too, to its travails and its hopes as its members live their earthly pilgrimage in the hope of a divine consummation. Today, anthropological and ritual studies serve a further appreciation of the symbolism of the bread and wine which expresses the mystery of its communion in Christ. These studies probe the symbolism of meals among peoples, of sharing a common table, and of the bread and wine which are blessed and shared with an invocation of the divinity. Taking a point of departure in ritual, they also enable theology to relate the mystery of the Eucharist, the turns in its celebration and its meaning of life in Christ, to cultural, social and economic realities, and to the place within change of an evocation of past memories and of a people's foundational myths. Placed within this context, the mystery of Christ's embodiment through sacrament and in the body of his Church, is located within the contours of culture and ongoing history. In one way or another, the Church in its liturgy, doctrine and theology has regularly taken the Supper Narrative as found in the Synoptics and Saint Paul to be the foundational narrative for eucharistic celebration, especially because of the memorial command. At times this was considered as though one could work chronologically from those texts to trace the development of the Eucharist in the early Church. The first move to a more circumspect approach was occasioned by the influence on the reading of the Scriptures of a historical critical approach. A more hermeneutical approach has now emerged which is more focused on the plot and meaning of the texts and which considers how the memory of the Last Supper is assimilated into the lived memory of diverse Churches, in diverse cultural and historical times. From Lord's Supper to Last Supper. Scriptural scholars increasingly pointed out that the story as it stands in the New Testament text was much influenced by the practice of the Lord's Supper. This meant the common meals of remembrance at which the faithful came together and in which Christ's death and resurrection were recalled, inclusive of a remembrance of his Last Supper with his disciples on the eve before he was betrayed. These meals were seen, however, to represent a certain diversity from one Church to another and to fit within a larger compass of meal sharing. Thus consideration of the scriptural roots of the Eucharist took in a larger compass in order to find the right setting in which to place the Supper Narrative. There is what we know of the practice of early communities in keeping memorial of the Lord as they shared the common loaf and the common cup in his name. There are the accounts of the meals of Jesus with others, during his public ministry and after the resurrection, and of the feeding of the crowds, which show that the actions and words of the Last Supper have their setting within Jesus' own continuing relation to sharing a table and to feeding others. Recently, some writers have also drawn attention to the need to relate the narratives of the table action of Jesus on the night before he was betrayed to the account in John's Gospel of the washing of the feet and the love commandment. This Gospel locates these words and action on that same evening of farewell and presents them as another way of expressing the testimony which Jesus, in showing himself in the guise of a servant, left to his disciples. The Last Supper. In the middle of this attention to other texts, the efforts to reconstruct the events of the Last Supper have not been wanting. The concern to find an accurate historical reconstruction is grounded in a desire to discern the mind and the will of Jesus since discovering this is thought by some to be necessary to the meaning of the Eucharist. In reconstructing the action, words and significance of the Last Supper, with its memorial command, the usual approach Eucharist as Meaning: Critical Metaphysics and Contemporary Sacramental Theology to relate what was done there to its Jewish setting, of Passover and of table ritual. In general, the meaning of table ritual comes from knowledge of meal practice with its memorial narratives, its blessing prayer, its invocations of memorial commands, and the symbolism of the food and drink that are shared. More particularly, efforts to show that the meal shared by Jesus with his disciples was a Paschal Seder are numerous, just as are the counter efforts. Much of the difficulty of this question lies in a deeper difficulty, that is, the little Eucharist as Meaning: Critical Metaphysics and Contemporary Sacramental Theology is known in a clear way of the seder at the time of Jesus. Certainty about such reconstruction, however, is probably impossible. The effort is surmounted by the hermeneutical turn of theology, that is by the realization that the religious significance of the story of the origins of the Church's Eucharist lies in the story itself, not in its historical reconstruction. That is not to say that historical criticism bears no fruit, but this fruit is found in what it shows us of the context for the meaning of the story. Turning to the narrative as narrative, it is clear that the New Testament accounts present the table action as an event which took place at Passover and as a paschal thanksgiving meal which Jesus shares with his disciples in anticipation of his death. They do not allow us to settle the exact order of the meal as Jesus and his followers celebrated Eucharist as Meaning: Critical Metaphysics and Contemporary Sacramental Theology, but they do reveal the reason for the Passover setting. This is meant both to underscore the paschal significance of Jesus' death as evoked in his words and blessing prayer, and to root the Eucharist of the Church in this meal by way of bringing out its memorial and paschal character. Memorial command and action. According to one recension of the Supper Narrative, Jesus gave the memorial command at the end of the meal, when he had completed the action with both loaf and cup Mt According to another 1 Cor There are many examples in Jewish history of feasts kept and meals shared in virtue of a divine command to keep memorial and this provides the background to the memorial command given by Jesus to his disciples. Memorial is done in obedience to God's command, and it is this Eucharist as Meaning: Critical Metaphysics and Contemporary Sacramental Theology gives it its place and power in the life of a community. It is inherent to covenant, a sign of God's fidelity and of the people's fidelity at one and the same time. Finally the actions of table memorial, of which the Paschal Seder is the primary example, combine the gathering of a community that finds identity in the action, narrative, blessing prayer and the ritual action of shared food and drink. Critics rightly point to the departures of Christian Eucharist from Jewish meal services, but this does not derogate from the fact that its true meaning is served by a constant attention to the interaction of the four Eucharist as Meaning: Critical Metaphysics and Contemporary Sacramental Theology mentioned. Attention to Semitic thought-patterns and practices also give us insight into the attachment of sacrificial language both to the death of Jesus and to the celebration kept in his memorial. In giving the bread and cup to his disciples, Jesus is reported to have used abundant sacrificial imagery in speaking of his death, as he had done also at other times. This evokes many strands in the cultic and Eucharist as Meaning: Critical Metaphysics and Contemporary Sacramental Theology past of Israel. Among the sacrifices recalled are those of the paschal lamb, the sealing of the covenant at Sinai, the levitical peace-offerings and the metaphoric attribution of sacrifice to the suffering of the Servant commemorated in the Servant Songs of the Book of Isaiah. The fact that such language is evoked at a meal also reminds us of the importance of Communion sacrifice and of the presence among the Jewish people at Jesus' time of those who located true sacrifice in obedience to God's commands, in fellowship and in songs of praise, distancing themselves to some extent in this from the importance given to temple sacrifice. All of this points to the rich and polyvalent significance of the use of sacrificial language which Christians inherited from Jews and which they in turn applied to the death of Jesus, to life lived according to the Gospel, to songs of praise and to their memorial of the death of Jesus at the common table. No narrow definition of sacrifice is possible, but the rich polyvalence of practice and language is pertinent to what is said of Jesus' death and of the memorial supper of Christians. It is as difficult to reconstruct the origins and development of the practices of Christian Eucharist as it is to reconstruct the historical facts of the Last Supper. However, we have the written and archeological evidence in hand of Christian celebrations dating over several centuries. We also have evidence in writers such as irenaeus of lyons, ambrose and augustine, cyril of jerusalem, theodore of mopsuestia and john chrysostom that eucharistic theology was developed as a reflection on the words and rites of the liturgical celebration. Writers today attempt, for their part, either to appropriate this theology or to embark themselves on a reflection that takes its point of departure in rites and texts as these are now known Eucharist as Meaning: Critical Metaphysics and Contemporary Sacramental Theology us from historical research and textual reconstruction. In following this mystagogical line of exposition, authors since early in the 20th century have pointed to the primacy of the sacramental Communion in the body and blood of Christ, noting that the center or focus of the Eucharist is there and not in the words of consecration. In conjunction with this, given the possibilities offered by textual research, liturgical theology includes the analysis of the rich variety of eucharistic prayers from a number of traditions which are now in hand. It is noted that the significance of the prayer comes out only when it is taken as a blessing prayer over food and drink to be shared, and that the meaning of the Communion rite is enriched by knowledge of the eucharistic prayer. In other words, the action is of its very nature a communion in the body and blood of Christ, in commemoration of his passion and resurrection and in hope of a part in his now immortal life. The meaning is captured for all time by justin martyr:. We call this food the Eucharist …. Not as common bread or as common drink do we receive these, but just as through the word of God, Jesus Christ, our Saviour, became incarnate and took on flesh and blood for our salvation, so … the food over which we give thanks has been given by the prayer of his word, and which nourishes our flesh and blood by assimilation, is both the flesh and blood of that incarnate Jesus Apologia I. Eucharist as Meaning: Critical Metaphysics and Contemporary Sacramental Theology Prayer. The text just quoted links the Communion to the "prayer of his word," to the giving of thanks over the food. It is to this that much study and reflection is now given. The great thanksgiving prayer, also known Eucharist as Meaning: Critical Metaphysics and Contemporary Sacramental Theology the anaphorain its many different forms as known from different Church traditions, provides a rich theology of the Eucharist, as well as of the death and resurrection of Christ, of creation, of salvation history and of the Church. There have been many studies which attempt to reconstruct its early genesis, as well as comparative studies that work within the diversity of texts that have come down to us. The most complete analysis of texts is the — 68 study of Louis Bouyer, though it has been greatly completed in the intervening years by way of studies of particular Eucharist as Meaning: Critical Metaphysics and Contemporary Sacramental Theology or traditions. The genesis of the prayer is still a matter of conjecture, especially in its relation to Jewish blessing prayers.