Browsing by Author "DENNIS, NTABO GWARO"

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    THE EUCHARIST: THE ONE PERFECT OFFERING OF CHRIST
    (Tangaza University College, 2005) DENNIS, NTABO GWARO
    The Holy Eucharist is a mystery placed by God into the visible continuity of human history. As a genuine historical reality, its exterior shape has undergone development and variations from one epoch to another and from one place to another. The first six centuries after the death of Christ were undoubtedly the greatest periods of development, as far as the shaping of the eucharistic liturgy is concerned. The gathering of Christians to celebrate the Eucharist grew from simple domestic celebrations to elaborate papal liturgies. There was a lot of copying of elements from the imperial courts, and gradually the Eucharist took a more official character. Slowly, a fixed outline of rubrics emerged, so that the main line of the Eucharist as it is known today in the West solidified. This development in the liturgy of the West between the 6" and 7th centuries consisted of assimilation of liturgical forms according to the practice of the Roman imperial courts, for instance, the use of a ceremonial handkerchief (maniple), the adoption of the chasuble, the ritual procession for the entrance, the rank of sub deacon, and the origins of a fixed style of prayer and chant. In the midst of all of the evolutions and variations, one consistent factor emerges: the experience of the Eucharist as a communitarian event. The primary emphasis in eucharistic theology from its very beginning was that the Eucharist is both the image and source of the unity of the Christian 2 community. Another important point is that apart from the influence of the Roman imperial courts, further major influences came from the intellectual, social and architectural developments of the Middle Ages. These greatly affected the development and understanding of the Eucharist. I intend to present a systematic, that is, a step-by-step progressive unfolding of the Christian eucharistic liturgy, and whatever our understanding of the Eucharist may be, this presentation should give us exactly what the word meant originally. We shall see that in the eucharistic celebration God himself is revealing and communicating the mystery of salvation through Jesus Christ through a specific type of prayer, a prayer that is a re-presentation of the Christ-Event in a sacred action. Beneath the divergent 'liturgical' practices in the Old and New Testaments, there is no doubt that there are some constants that have survived up to the present time, in the sense that there has been a general continuity with respect to the developments and changes of liturgy over the centuries. My aim in undertaking this research is to show how the Eucharist is rooted as an event in the Old Testament, a command at its institution in the New Testament, and the celebration today with its significance in Christian living. Having said this, the first chapter focuses on the origin of the Eucharist. It is a historical survey the objective of which is to serve as an instrument for the proceeding chapters under the titles: The One Perfect Offering of Christ, and the Significance of the Eucharist in the Christian Life.