Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox theologians claim that the unique event of Christ’s sacrifice on Calvary is present in Eucharistic liturgies. A popular explanatory strategy for this miraculous presence suggests that due to its supernatural character the Eucharist “conquers time,” transcends its boundaries, and allows for temporal coincidence of two chronologically distant events. I discuss the four main approaches within this strategy that can be discovered in contemporary theological writings. The first approach implies a time travel of the Calvary event. (...) The second suggests the time travel of Eucharistic participants. The third eliminates the chronological distance by relocating one of the events into a timeless reality. The fourth assumes multilocation of the event across time. I argue that each of these approaches is untenable on philosophical or theological grounds. (shrink)

Presence as ordinarily understood requires spatio-temporal proximity. If however Christ’s presence in the Eucharist is understood in this way it would take a miracle to secure multiple location and an additional miracle to cover it up so that the presence of Christ where the Eucharist was celebrated made no empirical difference. And, while multiple location is logically possible, such metaphysical miracles—miracles of distinction without difference, which have no empirical import—are problematic. I propose an account of Eucharist according to which Christ (...) is indeed really and objectively present in the religiously required sense, without benefit of metaphysical miracles. According to the proposed account, which draws upon Searle’s discussion of “social ontology” in The Construction of Social Reality and The Making of the Social World, the presence of Christ in the Eucharist is an institutional fact. I argue that such an account satisfies the requirements for a real presence doctrine. (shrink)

In chapters 9 and 10 of their book Roman but Not Catholic, Kenneth Collins and Jerry Walls criticize the Roman Catholic positions on the Eucharist as a sacrifice and on the ministerial priesthood. I reply to their historical and theological objections, and defend the belief that the Eucharistic sacrifice, the Mass, is a re-presentation, or making present, of Jesus’s redemptive sacrifice on Calvary, and a key component in God’s incarnational strategy for redeeming us.

The contemporary revival of Eucharistic ecclesiology has occurred alongside a new understanding of the episcopacy as a distinct grade of holy orders. Both of these developments make possible a new synthetic understanding of the presbyterate, building on classical theological approaches to orders that incorporate both of these perspectives. In this essay, I will attempt to show how the theology of the presbyterate articulated by Thomas Aquinas might help supplement and be supplemented by that of John Zizioulas. The synthesis I propose (...) has the merit of corresponding with much of the classical approach to orders, while advancing a new thesis on the Eucharistic role of the presbyterate that establishes a clearer connection between contemporary ecclesiology and the theology of holy orders. (shrink)

The Eucharist, as a pillar of Christian life and faith, stands at the center of the Mass. It bears multi-dimensional meanings and functions, each of which addresses a different aspect of Christian life and mindset. The study resonates dialectically between the Eucharist as a unique religious affirmation of faith and philosophical strategies that are developed to meet its challenges, particularly the rational frameworks by which the believer affirms that the consecrated bread and wine are Christ’s body and blood. On the (...) one hand, the philosophical examination offers new perspectives to understand the Eucharist and its influence on the faithful; on the other hand, the Eucharist and the unique challenges it poses allow us to examine man’s relation to reality within the colors of faith. It will be argued that Edward Schillebeeckx’s discussion of the Eucharist, particularly his attempt to bridge between reality and the symbolic sphere, accords with Heidegger’s reevaluation of the question of Being. The present reading limits itself to the encounter between the mind and the phenomenon and does not proceed to the meaning of the Eucharist as part of the Mass and the crucifixion of Christ. However, the focus of the article is not on the phenomenon but rather on the existential position of the subject and his orientation toward reality. (shrink)

The rational explanation of the Eucharist is at the centre of a revived debate in philosophical theology. After describing gunk-relational ontology, I show how it allows us to understand transubstantiation differently than other traditional and contemporary accounts, from which it draws a few points but combining them in a new way. In gunk-relational ontology every substance is its own relations, which constitute a gunky fundamental reality. The liturgical celebration of the Last Supper therefore creates a new relational situation for the (...) bread: the substance of the bread (its relations) profoundly changes its nature. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:THE EUCHARISTIC THEOLOGIES OF LAUDA SION AND THOMAS AQUINAS'S SUMMA THEOLOGIAE THOMAS J. BELL Emory University Atlanta, Georgia MANY works associated with Thomas Aquinas stand both the Office and Mass for the Feast of Corpus Christi.1 The earliest witness to this association comes from two of Thomas's Dominican brothers and younger contemporaries, Tolomeo of Lucca and William of Tocco. Around 1317 Tolomeo wrote in his Historia Ecclesiastica: " Thomas (...) composed [the Corpus Christi Office] in full, including the lessons and all the parts to be recited by day or night; the Mass, too, and whatever has to be sung on the day." 2 William, in his Historia beati Thomae completed around 1320, lists the liturgy of Corpus Christi among Thomas's works and informs us that Thomas wrote the liturgy " at the request of Pope Urban [IV]." 3 It is known that on August 11, 1264, Urban, in the bull Transiturus, declared that the Feast of Corpus Christi was to be celebrated throughout Christendom according to a "new, Roman," liturgy.4 Thomas had returned from Paris to Italy, his 1 This does not mean that Thomas created the liturgy for the feast de nova. Rather it means that Thomas selected and combined older elements from the Scriptures, the Fathers, and existing liturgies, only venturing to write from scratch those hymns and prayers necessary for expressing the theological and devotional views central to the Feast of Corpus Christi. In other words, Thomas wrote or pieced together texts " proper " to the feast and united them with the " ordinary " texts of the Mass and Office. 2 James A. Weisheipl, Friar Thomas d'Aquino: His Life, Thought and Works (Washington, D.C., 1974), p. 177. a Ibid., pp. 132, 177. 4 Ibid., pp. 179, 183. For a partial translation of the bull Transiturus see also Darwell Stone, A History of the Doctrine of the Holy Eucharist (London, 1909), vol. 1, 344-46. This "new, Roman" liturgy promulgated by Urban IV was, indeed, a new 163 164 THOMAS J. BELL homeland, five years before the bull was published. Furthermore, by 1264 he had developed a "warm friendship" with Urban, whom we know to have commissioned Thomas to write several works between 1261 and 1265.5 These facts have led most scholars since the early fourteenth century to conclude that Urban's "new" liturgy was the work of Thomas.6 In recent years, however, Cyrille Lambot has questioned whether Thomas wrote or compiled the liturgy promulgated by Urban. He has noted that Reginald of Piperno, Thomas's amanuensis and companion from 1259 to 1274, did not include the liturgy for Corpus Christi in his list of Thomas's works. Moreover, the Dominican Order, like most Orders and dioceses, did not adopt Urban's liturgy for the Feast of Corpus Christi until 1317, when John XXII required its use throughout Western Christendom.7 If Thomas had written the liturgy, argues liturgy composed for the celebration of Corpus Christi. Around 1246 a certain John, a religious of Mont-Cornillon, had compiled a liturgy for the " Body of the Lord " that was in place throughout the diocese of Liege. Being so impressed by the solemnities of the Liege eucharistic celebration, Hugh of Saint-Cher, a Dominican and the cardinal legate of Germany, declared in 1252 that the feast of Corpus Christi was to be celebrated throughout the territory under his leadership. Jacques Pantaleon, the future Urban IV, knew the solemnities of Liege from his time as the city's archdeacon. It seems that upon his election as Pope, Urban was urged by many people to establish the Feast throughout Christendom. Eventually he did this with the publication of the bull Transiturus. For more details, see Weisheipl, Friar Thomas d'Aquino, pp. 178-79. 0 Weisheipl, Friar Thomas d'Aquino, p. 147. 6 The liturgy for the Feast of Corpus Christi that is associated with Thomas is not identical with the one currently used in both the Roman rite and Dominican rite. The modern texts for the Feast reflect the liturgical reforms that have occurred since Thomas's day. Notwithstanding these reforms, the Mass for the Feast (Cibavit eos), which includes Lauda Sion, has for the most part... (shrink)

This article aims to bring some work in contemporary analytic metaphysics to discussions of the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. I will show that some unusual claims of the Real Presence doctrine exactly parallel what would be happening in the world if objects were to time-travel in certain ways. Such time-travel would make ordinary objects multiply located, and in the relevantly analogous respects. If it is conceptually coherent that objects behave in this way, we have a model for (...) the behaviour of the Eucharist which shows the doctrine to be coherent, at least with respect to the issues discussed. (shrink)

The Liturgy of the Eucharist in the Roman Catholic Church is the communal re-membering of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus as Christ, the powerful symbolic system used in the rite judged capable of facilitating the people present to carry on, as the Body of Christ, the redemptive acts that Jesus embodied. This paper sets out to examine the political character of these Eucharists by considering both the political nature of the beliefs and actions of Jesus, and of the (...) Vatican, the governing body of the Roman Catholic Church comprising of the Pope and the Roman Curia, who claim divine authority to define and regulate the Church’s teaching enacted at the Eucharist. The position of women in relation to the current economic and political situation in the world will provide a base on which to question in particular the gender politics of the governing body of the Church as seen at the heart of their teaching on Eucharist and symbolized in the all-male priesthood. (shrink)

This article examines “Poem of the Eucharistic Bread” (1946) by the underappreciated twentieth-century Argentine Catholic poet Francisco Luis Bernárdez (1900-1978). It contends that “Poem of the Eucharistic Bread” is not only a poem about the Eucharist, but also a kind of allegory of the Eucharist, one whose poetic diction frames the process of poiesis as significantly analogous to the sacramental character of the Eucharist itself. In the process, the article also suggests that Bernárdez’s rare combination of poetic talent and theological (...) sensitivity ought to win him a wider readership among scholars interested in the relationship between literature and theology. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:The Eucharistic Form of God: Trinity, Incarnation, and Sacrament in the Theology of Hans Urs von Balthasar by Jonathan Martin CirauloNicholas J. HealyThe Eucharistic Form of God: Trinity, Incarnation, and Sacrament in the Theology of Hans Urs von Balthasar. By Jonathan Martin Ciraulo. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 2022. Pp. xiii + 297. $50.00 (hardcover). ISBN: 978-0-268-20223-1.In Fides et Ratio 93, under the heading “current (...) tasks for theology,” John Paul II writes:The chief purpose of theology is to provide an understanding of Revelation and the content of faith. The very heart of theological enquiry will thus be the contemplation of the mystery of the Triune God. The approach to this mystery begins with reflection upon the mystery of the Incarnation of the Son of God: his coming as man, his going to his Passion and Death.... From this vantage-point, the prime commitment of theology is seen to be the understanding of God’s kenosis, a grand and mysterious truth for the human mind, which finds it inconceivable that suffering and death can express a love which gives itself and seeks nothing in return. In this light, a careful analysis of texts emerges as a basic and urgent need: first the texts of Scripture, and then those which express the Church’s living Tradition. On this score, some problems have emerged in recent times, problems which are only partially new; and a coherent solution to them will not be found without philosophy’s contribution.These words about the mystery of Jesus Christ’s life and death as a revelation of the Triune God—and about the emergence of new difficulties and questions—underscore the importance of a dialogue between St. Thomas Aquinas and the great twentieth-century theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar. As two recent books written from a Thomistic perspective have shown (Aidan Nicholas, Balthasar for Thomists [San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2020]); [End Page 715] Matthew Levering, The Achievement of Hans Urs von Balthasar [Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 2019]), Balthasar’s profound indebtedness to the metaphysics of Aquinas provides a solid foundation for dialogue. And yet a number of difficulties remain. What is the relationship between the so-called real distinction of esse and essence and the hypostatic union of two natures in the person of the Son? How and in what sense does the paschal mystery of Jesus’s death and Resurrection presuppose and express the mystery of the Father’s eternal generation of the Son? In the words of Joseph Ratzinger, “in the pierced heart of the Crucified, God’s own heart is opened up—here we see who God is and what he is like” (Spirit of the Liturgy [San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2000], 48). How does the mystery of Christ’s Eucharist reveal the heart of God?This last question about the Eucharist and the nature of God is explored in depth in Jonathan Martin Ciraulo’s monograph, The Eucharistic Form of God: Hans Urs von Balthasar’s Sacramental Theology. Despite the expansive title, the primary aim of this book is fairly straightforward: to present Balthasar’s theology of the Eucharist and to show the significance of his thought for contemporary sacramental theology. Anyone who seeks to offer a systematic account of Balthasar’s theology of the Eucharist is confronted with at least two basic obstacles or challenges. First, his reflections on the Eucharist are scattered throughout (and often hidden within) an immense and complex corpus of writings. Second, the most distinctive feature of Balthasar’s theology of the Eucharist is the inseparability of his sacramental theology from his speculative account of the central mysteries of the Christian faith—Trinity, Incarnation, Cross and Resurrection, Church, and eschaton.The Eucharistic Form of God represents a thoughtful, well-written, and original response to this twofold challenge. Regarding the first point: Ciraulo demonstrates an intimate familiarity with the whole of Balthasar’s corpus. He draws together Balthasar’s early writings on German literature, his monographs on Origen, Gregory of Nyssa, and Maximus the Confessor, his engagement with Karl Barth, his interpretation of twentieth-century French Catholic literature... (shrink)

The Eucharist is at the heart of Christian worship and at the heart of the Eucharist are the curious phrases, 'This is my body' and 'This is my blood'. James M. Arcadi offers a constructive proposal for understanding Christ's presence in the Eucharist that draws on contemporary conceptual resources and is faithful to the history of interpretation. He locates his proposal along a spectrum of Eucharistic theories. Arcadi explores the motif of God's presence related to divine omnipresence and special presence (...) in holy places, which undergirds a biblical-theological proposal concerning Christ's presence. Utilizing recent work in speech-act theory, Arcadi probes the acts of consecration and renaming in their biblical and liturgical contexts. A thorough examination of recent work in Christology leads to an action model of the Incarnation that borrows the notion of enabling externalism from philosophy of mind. These threads undergird a model of Christ's presence in the Eucharist. (shrink)

One cannot deny that the person of Christ is present in the Eucharist, on a Catholic interpretation, but the term ‘person’ is rarely, if ever, used in formulas or theology describing the Eucharist. Moreover, the understanding conveyed by Scriptural imagery of the Eucharist, such as the Passover Lamb or our spiritual food, is rather sub-personal. In this chapter, I argue instead that the role of the person of Christ is most clearly perceived in the sacrificial action within which the Eucharist (...) is embedded in every Mass. I argue that the Mass is related to Calvary in a specifically second-personal sense, in which we are equipped to love with God what God loves, and sacrifice with God what God sacrifices. On this account, the focus of the Eucharist is not on communicating the incommunicable person of Christ but being formed as an adopted divine person. Also on this account, salvation is not about becoming slightly better human beings but being formed as children of God. (shrink)

Pope Benedict XVI's encyclical Deus Caritas Est continues the magisterium's twentieth-century shift from an act-oriented, procreative approach to sexual ethics to what I will term a heterosexually personalistic one. Situating a heterosexual anthropology within a heterosexual cosmology, Benedict argues that just as God loves humanity with heterosexual eros, so must human beings love each other heterosexually. Although Benedict depends upon the explanatory power of heterosexuality, he perhaps unwittingly ends up depicting God's love not as iconically heterosexual, but as queer. In (...) casting God's love as queer, I do not, even analogously, impute to God a type of homosexuality as Benedict does a heterosexuality. Instead, by drawing attention to the discursive specificity and historical instability of both homosexuality and heterosexuality, I use “queer” to recognize God's love as beyond categorization and as strange; it cannot be corralled into or contained by the historically specific notions of heterosexual and homosexual. But this essay does not merely deconstruct Benedict's heterosexually personalistic cosmology. It uncovers in Benedict's Eucharistic transfiguration of marital love a new and promising way of situating discussions about the ethics of sex. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Eucharistic Adoration:Veils for VisionEmmanuel Perrier O.P.Translated by Amy Christine DevaudTo the Virgin of the AnnunciationEucharistic adoration is an eminently personal form of prayer.1 Not in the sense that each one of us could fill this time spent in the presence of the Lord with what he or she wants; if this were to be the case, there would be no adoration at all, since it would simply be a (...) matter of meeting oneself and one's ideas about God. Eucharistic adoration is a personal prayer in the sense that the adorer welcomes in his soul the divine person of the eternal Son, through the vision of the human body united to the Son in the womb of the Virgin Mary, just as this body is offered by faith in the sacrament of the Eucharist. Therefore, what is crucial to this meeting is that prayer be guided by the truth of the Eucharistic mystery and not by the feelings of the adorer, even less by the introspection of himself while adoring. In presenting the theological foundations of Eucharistic adoration, the following pages have a threefold goal: to enlighten beginners about the very things which shape this prayer; to help those who are progressing in their adoration to align it to the vision of the Word who became flesh; and [End Page 397] to accompany and support those who are more advanced in putting into words what they are already experiencing.After having specified the foundations of Eucharistic adoration, we will address the themes that sustain it in the same order in which the soul welcomes the mystery of the Word become flesh. This is an order that can be followed as steps to take during a time of adoration. One will then take care to allow enough time for each step. But it may be more relevant to focus on a limited number of themes, or even on a single one. We will be careful to ensure that we do not neglect any of the themes presented throughout the various meditations for adoration.The Hope of VisionEucharistic adoration begins and is consumed in vision, in the gaze toward the Body of Christ in his sacrament. God has accustomed us to listen to him, ever since he began to speak to Abraham, to Moses, to David, through the prophets. The Law begins with this commandment: "Hear now, O Israel!" To hear the Word is to welcome it, to put it into practice, and in doing so, to let it bear fruit within us. But seeing God is quite different.In the days of Christ, the central part of the Temple in Jerusalem, one of the wonders of the world, had two rooms, one called the Holy Place and the other called the Holy of Holies. The entrance to each room was obstructed by a huge curtain (see Exod 26:31–32). The priests usually celebrated their services behind the curtain of the Holy Place. However, they did not enter the Holy of Holies, the dwelling place of God among men (see Exod 29:43–46), which sheltered, before its destruction (probably in 587 BC), the Ark of the Covenant containing the tables of the Law given at Sinai, as well as a relic of the manna, the bread that came down from heaven to feed the people of Israel during the Exodus (see Heb 9:4). Only once a year the High Priest would cross the veil of the Holy of Holies to stand in the presence of God and pronounce the Name above all names, in remembrance of God's encounters with Moses:Whenever Moses went out to the tent, all the people rose up, and every man stood at his tent door, and looked after Moses, until he had gone into the tent. When Moses entered the tent, the pillar of cloud would descend and stand at the door of to the tent, and the Lord would speak with Moses. And when all the people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the door of the tent, all the people would rise up and worship. … The Lord used to speak with Moses... (shrink)

ABSTRACTThe doctrine of the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist presents a particular challenge to its defenders: how is it so much as intelligible? This paper explores Dummett’s response to this question, centred on the notion of deeming. Whilst instructive, Dummett’s position is unsustainable as it stands, since it fails to secure the meaningfulness of the doctrine. Once deeming is brought together with an account of bodiliness and an appreciation of the nature of the Eucharist as a meal, however, (...) the way is open to demonstrating the intelligibility of the doctrine. This is a prerequisite even for its rejection as false. (shrink)

This paper examines two practices — the Roman Catholic Practice of Eucharist and the game Dungeons and Dragons — to show how social critique can be mounted from within a practice. It begins by relating Alasdair MacIntyre’s notion of tradition to his earlier analysis of ideology and to the notion of ideology in general. The paper then tackles two dominant forms of ideology — Commodity Fetishism and Scientism — and shows how both Eucharist and Dungeons and Dragons promote critical thinking (...) to resist those ideologies. In the process, it denies the Althusserian-Foucauldian analysis of ideology as mere materiality and defends a conception of ideology as material and ideal. (shrink)

This paper wishes to make a contribution to the study of how seventeenth-century scholasticism adapted to the new intellectual challenges presented by the Reformation. I focus in particular on the theory of accidents, which Reformed scholastic philosophers explored in search of a philosophical understanding of the rejection of the Catholic and Lutheran interpretations of the Eucharist. I argue that the Calvinist scholastics chose the view that actual inherence is part of the essence of accidents because it was coherent with their (...) theology. In this paper, I bring to attention the Reformed scholastic philosophy which was taught in the Scottish universities in the first half of the seventeenth century, an area so far neglected by scholars. In so doing, I compare Scottish scholasticism with coeval Calvinist sources, and highlight the differences from authoritative Catholic and Lutheran philosophers. The conclusion is that Calvinist scholasticism, both Scottish and Continental, brought about fundamental changes in seventeenth-century metaphysics, which are coherent with a humanist interpretation of Aristotle, and anticipate some themes of early modern philosophy. (shrink)

New Blackfriars, Volume 103, Issue 1104, Page 278-293, March 2022.

The forms of bread and wine can be understood to be amogs a series of symbols representing the presence of the Lord. The object of the celebration is this presence, not the symbols. This can be observed in the history of the Christian tradition.

Originally the Adoro te devote was not a liturgical hymn but a prayer, probably intended by Thomas Aquinas for personal use when attending mass. Quoting the at present most reliable version of the poem, the author studies Adoro te devote from the angle of transformation: poetic, Eucharistic and mystic or eschatological transformation. Structure and form are analysed, and a number of themes discussed: two alternative interpretations of adoration, several concepts of truth intended in the poem, the good thief and doubting (...) Thomas as symbols of moral and spiritual imperfection, and living in connection, in union with God. (shrink)

This article focuses on the question of whether the doctrine of the real presence of Christ's body and blood, and likewise the doctrine of the real absence of bread and wine, can be defended philosophically. It argues for an affirmative answer, and does so by considering a variety of metaphysical models, including that of Aquinas. It will appear, thus, that transubstantiation is a philosophical possibility. If it is possible for two substances to be in the same place at the same (...) time, consubstantiation will be a philosophical possibility as well. Of course, the question of actuality is a theological one. (shrink)

It may come as a surprise to readers familiar with the life and work of the Arts Master that he discusses the Eucharist at all. As he likes to remind us, theological topics are generally out of his wheelhouse. Even so, in his Questions on the “Metaphysics” of Aristotle (QM) 4.6, Buridan takes the sacrament of the Eucharist as a key data point in his discussion of Aristotle’s Categories. In the Eucharist, the accidents of the bread and wine—their color, texture, (...) and so on—remain intact, but the underlying substance is transubstantiated into the body and blood of Christ. Accordingly, God can preserve accidents independent of their underlying substance. Therefore, for our part we can use accidental terms, like whiteness, without connoting any substances, like communion bread. Moreover, it follows that, contrary to Aristotle, substance and the accidental categories are not the most general genera. Instead, being (ens) is, as Buridan concludes. Here, I trace Buridan’s thought on the metaphysical and semantic matters of substance in light of the Eucharist. The Eucharist is for him not only a theological truth, but a metaphysical and semantic datum as well. I conclude by asking why Buridan did not take any and all questions about the Eucharist to be out of his ken. What does this tell us about his attitude toward theology? This paper also includes, as an appendix, the first ever English translation of the question under discussion (QM 4.6): “Does the term being (ens) signify substances and accidents by one single concept or notion?”. (shrink)

The iconography of the Communion of the Apostles, a theme well established in Byzantine art after Iconoclasm, first appears in a securely dated context in the silver patens from Riha and Stuma. These silver plates were produced in Constantinople sometime between 575 and 578. The iconography with the twofold depiction of Christ is usually explained as a reflection of the liturgical practice of the Eucharist, namely, as a reflection of the two actors in the Eucharistic rite, the priest and a (...) deacon distributing bread and wine. I argue instead that during the early Byzantine period the twofold depiction of Christ is an expression of the two natures of Christ directed against the Miaphysites. I propose that the exceptional appearance of the scene in the two early Byzantine silver patens from church treasures from northern Syria is likely to be explained by its Christological significance with regard to Chalcedonian Eucharistic doctrine during the persecution of the Miaphysites in the 570s. (shrink)

The position and power of women in the early church has been much explored by scholars such as Karen Jo Torjesen and Virginia Burrus. Research has often indicated that women had little power, especially sacramental power, at this time. This article challenges such a perspective by examining and comparing three accounts of women’s experience of the Eucharist in the private sphere during the third century. Drawing on Gregory of Nyssa’s account of Macrina, his sister, and her making of the eucharistic (...) bread, Pseudo-Athanasius’ instructions to virgins celebrating their own eucharistic meals, and Gregory Nazianzus’ description of his sister, Gorgonia, anointing herself for healing with the Eucharist, this article demonstrates that, in the private setting, sacramental power was not the preserve of the male. The Eucharist, in far more varied forms than might be anticipated, is potent in the domestic setting of these women of the early Church. (shrink)

The doctrine of the Eucharist has been one of the more fruitful locales of philosophical reflection within Christian theology. The central philosophical question has been, ‘what is the state of affairs such that it is apt to say of a piece of bread, “This is the body of Christ”?’ In this article, I offer a delineation of various families of answers to this question as they have been proffered in the history of the church. These families are distinguished by how (...) they view the presence of the body of Christ as well as the continued presence of the bread and wine after consecration. I then provide a specific examination of some recent attempts to explicate these views. A number of the recent work has focused on the Roman Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation, but I also survey consubstantiation, transignification, and a recent revival of impanation as potential means for describing the metaphysical realities of the Eucharist. (shrink)

Current relational phenomenologies of the Holy Mass remain on a fundamentally horizontal level. Here I develop a phenomenology of the Holy Mass and of Eucharistic devotion that explores the spiritual as well as the ethical transformations attendant on individuals of faith who engage in these practices. On the one hand, I hold as premise the traditional and magisterial teachings of the Church on the Sacrament and its devotion. On the other hand, I make use of the phenomenology of Emmanuel Levinas, (...) interpreting him in line with the minority but not unsubstantial spiritual reading of his work. After first summarizing Church teaching on the Mass and the Eucharist, I point out how the relational approach to a phenomenology of the Eucharist has been misapplied to the Sacrament. I then point out shortcomings in the phenomenology of two other Catholic writers on the Eucharist, Jean-Luc Marion and Michael Purcell. Finally, I develop a more adequate phenomenology of the Mass and the Eucharist, bringing together the spirituality and the ethics of the individual and of the Church as an ethical people. (shrink)

This article will argue that much of Kierkegaard’s authorship is reflective of the characteristics of the Eucharistic liturgy found in the 1830 Forordnet Alter-Bog for Danmark (confession, invitation, preparation/exhortation, consecration, and thanksgiving/praise/blessing), particularly as each of those elements of the liturgy are reflected in his seven Discourses at the Communion on Fridays in Part IV of Christian Discourses. Major components of his authorship function as an indirect invitation to the single individual reader to inwardly experience the prototype-redeemer dialectic as it (...) was enacted in a typical Eucharistic liturgy of Kierkegaard’s day. The readers of Kierkegaard’s work make interpretive decisions not only about Kierkegaard’s texts, but most importantly about themselves, God, and the paradox of Christ, such that by the time they finish the authorship they find themselves inwardly standing at the foot of the altar, either offended by the paradox of Christ and ready to turn and leave, or beating their breasts alongside the tax collector. (shrink)

Thorp, Luke If one were to undertake an enquiry as to what constituted early Christian eucharistic spirituality in the church, both East and West, in the first seven centuries, an immediate problem would be encountered-in fact, several problems. The first would be that for the Christians of the first seven centuries, spirituality and theology were synonymous. One did not exist without the other; they were part of a seamless garment. The second issue would be that the term 'eucharistic spirituality' is (...) a relatively modern one and difficult to retroactively apply to a previous age. The third issue that one would encounter would be the fact that any spirituality or theology is never formed in a vacuum: time, place, people and experience all play a role in developing unique spiritual expressions. The legacy that Ignatius of Antioch leaves us in relation to the Eucharist differs markedly from that of either Maximus the Confessor or John Chrysostom. While it might seem trite to suggest this, it is important for a twenty-first century mindset to be reminded of it in order to better appreciate and enter more fully into a eucharistic spirituality. (shrink)