THE EUCHARIST: THE ONE PERFECT OFFERING OF CHRIST
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Date
2005
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Tangaza University College
Abstract
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
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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.
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THE EUCHARIST: THE ONE PERFECT OFFERING OF CHRIST