Thesis advisor: Lisa Sowle Cahill / This dissertation contributes to discussions of theological method by creating a dialogue between social ethics, familial vocation, and liturgical theology. Informing the entirety of the project, historical analysis provides a framework for exploring an important normative claim: The Eucharist serves, and has always served, to unite families as communities of social transformation. In a Church where the family faces challenging questions of lay identity, gender, globalization, and multicultural awareness, this work aims to be both timely and efficacious. After introducing the shape of the field on social-scientific and theological issues of family and worship (Chapter 1), the project turns to an exploration of the history of the U.S. Catholic family and the Eucharist in the twentieth century prior to Vatican II (Chapters 2 and 3). In a century marked by great social change, documents from social history reveal Catholic programs attempting to resist popular agency, on the one hand, and encouraging the active participation and leadership of laypersons and families, on the other. An exploration of the history and theology of the period during and after Vatican II (Chapter 4) reveals that, confronting the mores of a changed world, the Church chose to align its official pedagogy, Eucharistic and social, with those theologies that supported lay and family agency. This societal and ecclesial trajectory is confirmed and expounded upon through an exploration of the work of John Paul II (Chapter 5) and through an anthropological and theological exploration of Pauline churches (Chapter 6). As the conclusion (Chapter 7) discusses, each of the above chapters seeks to unite historically-grounded concepts of the family, Eucharistic community, and social transformation. The family is to be the Body of Christ, for the sake of its members and for the sake of the world at large. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2012. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Theology.

Thesis advisor: James F. Keenan / This dissertation offers a constructive contribution to the field of liturgy and ethics by proposing a fundamental eucharistic ethics, articulated in the key of virtue. It envisions a new theological approach to examining the relationship between worship and morality, which proceeds on the basis of Eucharistic theology, eschatology, and theories of virtue. The project begins with a critical reading of modern sacramental theology and the field of liturgy and ethics. It draws attention to the problematic prioritization of universal sacramentality over the ecclesial sacraments themselves, and on this basis, it calls for renewed attention to the Eucharist. In addition, it offers a methodological assessment of the field in terms of two models for linking liturgy and ethics: the correlational and pedagogical models. The dissertation attempts, on that basis, to stress the eschatological setting of the relationship between liturgy and ethics. It argues that virtue ethics provides the appropriate theoretical resources for understanding the connection between liturgy and ethics on an eschatological horizon, and it gives an account of liturgical virtue. The limits of this approach are discussed relative to the partial and fragmentary nature of virtue in light of eternal life and in terms of liturgical vice. The project ends with a study and defense of the virtue of hope as the first virtue of a fundamental eucharistic ethics. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2021. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Theology.

The Roman Catholic and the Orthodox Churches, as well as other Christian communities, are faced with the challenges of postmodern thought, which calls into question some of the foundational theological and philosophical constructs through which Christianity has articulated the mystery of Eucharistic presence. Louis-Marie Chauvet, Alexander Schmemann and John Zizioulas, the interlocutors presented in this dissertation, recognize that for centuries, Eucharistic theology has been shaped within a metaphysical/Scholastic framework which confines, in many respects, the experiential/relational aspects of the divine/human dynamic as mediated in the Eucharistic celebration. An appeal for a paradigmatic shift is made evident in their respective works based on a renewed understanding of the various strata of the symbolic order and the paradigm of relationality as being the primary contexts within which the people of God celebrate his presence. This shift is necessary in order to correct the problematic of a causal, mechanistic, reductionist, overly-metaphysical, dualist framework as well as a static onto-theological construct, to which Eucharistic theology has been subjected to for centuries. There is a call for a re-thinking of Eucharistic presence in light of a theology which is rooted in the mutually supportive principles of lex orandi est lex credendi and of a Patristic theological landscape. The methodology of this dissertation is comparative and dialogical in nature in which each theologian articulates the need for a scholarship of Eucharistic presence to be established on new terrain and a new trajectory which will prove to be more appropriate in expressing the mystery of presence as it is grounded and expressed within the Apostolic faith and practice.<br>By appealing to and implementing the theologies here presented, we can develop a renewed vision of Eucharistic presence that may provide a common ground for an ecumenical enterprise, reaffirming the most essential component of faith: God's presence among humanity and in creation. This ecumenical enterprise must not remain within the realm of the abstract or theoretical, but needs to culminate in a true union of the churches born of a common unity in faith and eventual Eucharistic practice. In addition, these three theologians' contributions will continue to provide contemporary and future scholars in sacramental theology with an innovative approach to further articulate the mystery of presence through media which speak to the contemporary world while remaining rooted in antiquity. / McAnulty College and Graduate School of Liberal Arts; / Theology; / PhD; / Dissertation;

This study assesses René Girard's claims regarding the Gospels' understanding of Jesus' death. Though Girard contends that the Gospels never depict Jesus' death as an atonement for sin, there are significant passages that Girard avoids discussing like the Last Supper sayings in the Synoptic Gospels. This dissertation investigates whether these central passages, along with other supporting texts in the Synoptics, jeopardize the viability of Girard's assertions, especially when they are read in light of restoration theology. <br>The core components of Girard's thought, his reading of salvation history, and the ways in which Girard's followers have adapted his thought are adumbrated in the opening chapters. Once the Girardian approach to soteriology has been depicted with its various permutations, the research turns towards Israel's hopes for restoration after the exile, including the reconstitution of its covenantal relationship with YHWH, as they are articulated in the Old Testament and intertestamental literature in order to establish the historical and theological context for reading the Gospels. After identifying the core components of restoration theology, it is argued that the Synoptic Gospels situate Jesus within Israel's hopes for restoration and that this backdrop should inform one's reading of the Synoptics rather than presupposing a polemical relationship between the Gospels and mythology as Girard does. After establishing restoration theology as the leitmotif of the Synoptics, specific attention is devoted to the Last Supper sayings along with other passages that, when read in light of restoration theology, indicate Jesus' death reconstitutes God's covenant relationship with his people by atoning for their sin. Should the exegesis and hermeneutical approach of this study prove persuasive, the conclusions jeopardize Girard's global claims regarding the Gospels' dearth of atonement theology. As a result, concessions or alterations will be necessary. The final segment of the study offers several ways in which Girardian soteriology could be reframed in order to account for the results of this particular study. / McAnulty College and Graduate School of Liberal Arts; / Theology; / PhD; / Dissertation;

The symbolic meal, known as the Eucharsit, Lord's Supper, Holy Communion, and many other names is of peculiar interest to the Christian church. This thesis presents the results of a psychological examination of the teachings of the church present both in creeds, statements, and by individual writers.

Thesis advisor: Boyd T. Coolman / William of Saint-Thierry, Isaac of Stella, and Baldwin of Forde created a distinctly Cistercian body of Eucharistic theology in the twelfth century. But despite one article that examines none of the Eucharistic treatises and omits Isaac and Baldwin, there is no scholarly account of Cistercian Eucharistic theology. Nor is there more generally a historical work that examines the connection between medieval Trinitarian and Eucharistic theology. This dissertation seeks to fill both lacunae. The introduction of the dissertation sets the historical and scholarly context for investigation. Chapter 1 examines the thought of William of Saint-Thierry, who has the most developed understanding of Eucharistic presence, conversion, and reception. It also treats the connections William draws between Eucharistic reception and meditation on scripture and the passion of Christ. Chapter 2 treats Isaac of Stella, who uses more intellectualist imagery and imagery of the mystical body of Christ. Chapter 3 studies Baldwin of Forde, who argues that the term transubstantiation best describe Eucharistic conversion. Baldwin emphasizes reception by faith in the truth about Christ. Chapter 5 offers a brief conclusion. These Cistercian authors thought that the character of God as a Trinity of persons united in essence provides the form or structure of the economy of salvation—especially its turning point or climax, the Eucharist. This emphasis on Trintiarian dimensions is the hallmark of Cistercian Eucharistic theology. They saw the Eucharist as an analogue to the Incarnation, a site where the economic missions of the Trinity take place. In the Eucharist, God the Father draws those who receive to himself by uniting them to the body and blood of the Son. This unity brings an increase of unity with the Holy Spirit. Once united to the Son and Spirit, the faithful are united to the Father and to the unity that all three persons share. The Eucharist is, then, not only a site of God’s movement toward human beings, but of human movement back toward God. It acts as a kind of pivot point in the economy of salvation: the moment where the outpouring of the Son and Spirit join most deeply with the faithful and draw them back to the Father. The Eucharist also binds the members of the Church, the body of Christ, to each other and to their Head in his act of self-offering to the Father. It connects the meditation, sacrifices, and offering of their own lives to that of Christ, with which they are offered to the Father.

Thesis advisor: James Keenan / Thesis advisor: Shawn Copeland / Despite its stated opposition to racism, the Catholic church in the United States remains both complicit in and shaped by the United States' persistent white supremacy. Largely due to the habituating effect of racial segregation, many of the church's practices have been turned into habits of white supremacy. For this reason, I contend, white supremacy operates in the church as a corporate vice, impeding the church's ability to achieve its identity as the body of Christ. This dissertation uncovers the Catholic parish as well as the sacraments of baptism and the Eucharist as habits of white supremacy in order to propose a new approach to the problem of racial inequality and injustice, corporate re-habituation. The church must re-make itself while re-making the spaces it inhabits. As long as the Catholic church continues to reside in racially segregated space, it will continue to carry the vice of white supremacy in its body. In addition to re- drawing parochial borders in defiance of regnant patterns of racial segregation, the church must also work to dismantle both the hypersegregated black ghetto and the hyperprivileged white enclave. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2014. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Theology.

The Naga women in North East India suffer in silence because of the unjust practices of child-birthing in their patriarchal culture, which privileges the birth of sons over daughters. Naga theology narrates suffering largely through Jesus' redemptive suffering on the cross, and Naga Christian women embrace this narrative, seeing in Jesus' suffering both a vision of Jesus as a friend who understands their pain and as a call to share in his suffering. Contemporary theologians have approached the symbol of the Christian cross in order to interpret it anew in light of marginalized communities. This dissertation examines Christology through the lens of the experiences of Naga women. It takes the issue of child-birthing practices within Naga culture as a starting point for re-reading the Christian cross by drawing on the theological writings of Jürgen Moltmann, Serene Jones, Rita Nakashima Brock, and Wonhee Anne Joh. This work turns to the theme of 'natality' in the work of feminist theologian and philosopher of religion, Grace Jantzen. Rooting Naga Christology in the concept of natality, it focuses on three dimensions of the life-bearing work of Jesus: embrace, respect, and nourishment. The central thesis is that a theology focused on natality provides not only a way to affirm the birth of girls in the Naga context, but it also provides a way to re-narrate the story of the cross in Naga Christian theology. In chapters one and two, this dissertation outlines the problem of child-birthing via the term `mascu-surrogacy.' The birthing mother becomes the surrogate for the male who seeks his progeny through dominating the female body. These chapters highlight the poetry and stories of Naga women, ancient and modern, to express the situation of Naga women; they also identify the centrality of the story of Jesus for Naga Christians. Chapters three and four turn to the contemporary theologies of the cross with the question of child-birthing in mind. Chapter five examines Grace Jantzen's philosophy of natality. The final chapter develops three aspects of a life-affirming Christology, based in the work of Mary Elizabeth Moore and concludes by reimagining the practice of the Eucharist for Naga women.

By the thirteenth century, Eucharistic devotion had reached a crescendo of adoration among medieval Christians. Contemporary sources recount how worshippers attended mass only for the moment of elevation, racing from church to church to see as many consecrations as possible. As the priest raised the transubstantiated wafer above his head, the assembled congregation was granted the momentary luxury of gazing upon God. While this awe-inspiring vision was believed to unify the gathered people, nuns could not participate directly in this powerful experience. In the fourteenth century, following Pope Boniface VIII’s Periculoso (c. 1298), nuns heard Mass while hidden in private choirs, without a view of the altar. This thesis will explore how Clarissan nuns in fourteenth century Italy would have encountered the Host via works of art inside and outside of their enclosed choir. The Passion cycle decorating the Neapolitan Church of Santa Maria Donna Regina (ca. 1318-1320) will illustrate how Eucharistic vision could occur during the public recitation of the liturgy, while two illustrated manuscript copies of the Meditationes vitae Christi (Oxford Corpus Christi College MS 410, ca. 1350 and Paris Bibliothèque Nationale MS Ital. 115, ca. 1340-1350) will demonstrate how devotional books could provide an avenue for Eucharistic veneration in the privacy of the convent. The main objective of this thesis is to draw attention to one major limitation of enclosure, specifically how Clarissan communities were able to overcome their visual obstruction to the altar by engaging in the devotional practice of performative vision. By entering into the image with her mind’s eye and sustaining the narration of the biblical episode as though she were present, the nun is able to visualize spiritually what she is denied from seeing corporeally. Sensory experience is thus restored in the cerebral confines of the brain, as devotional images become intercessory conduits of connection, bridging the gap between the sponsa and her sacrificial bridegroom. / acase@tulane.edu

Est-ce-que le sabbat est d'origine hébraïque ? Quand est né le dimanche ? Est-ce que Paul est l'inventeur du christianisme ? Comment expliquer la position des chrétiens sabbataires aujourd'hui ? Is the sabbath from hebrew origin ? When the Sunday is "born" ? Was Paul the inventor of christianism ? How to explain the position of the sabbatarien christians ?