Thesis (S.T.L.)--Catholic University of America, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 163-170).

Thesis (S.T.L.)--Catholic University of America, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 138-149).

Thesis (S.T.L.)--Catholic University of America, 1987. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 130-141).

Thesis advisor: John Baldovin / Traditionally, Church teaching has examined the Eucharist in metaphysical terms (‘what is it?’: substance, presence, and causality) and its liturgical celebration as a sacrifice (a re-presentation of Christ’s self-sacrifice on the cross). Prompted by Vatican II’s exhortation to the faithful for ‘full, conscious, active participation’ in the liturgy (cf. Sacrosanctum Concilium 14, 27, 30), this dissertation re-interprets the Eucharistic liturgy and participants’ role in it through the root metaphor of gift: a gift of desire, which impacts participants’ desires, relationships, and selfhood. It proposes a ‘relational approach’ to the Eucharist by asking: What is going on ‘relationally’ in the Eucharistic celebration? How might the Eucharist impact our desire, relations, identity? How does or ought the liturgy of the Eucharist concern relationships between the participants and others? What specifically does the Church celebrate in its liturgy of the Eucharist? Louis-Marie Chauvet’s ‘symbolic exchange’ model of the Eucharistic Prayer, when put in conversation with both Jean-Luc Marion’s phenomenology of gift and René Girard’s mimetic theory, yields an understanding of the Eucharist as God’s gracious and scandalous gift of divine desire. The gift is gracious as an embodied expression of divine love, and also scandalous as it challenges recipients’ autonomy with a radical call to charity demanding an existential response. This dissertation upholds Christ’s self-gift as the ultimate decision to love in a perfect reversal of sacrificial violence, which Christians are called to imitate. It emphasizes the liturgy’s structure as a dynamic event of being encountered by God’s gift of himself and reception of this gift through particular responses. This understanding aims to re-appropriate traditional Catholic teaching on the Eucharist in more contemporary terms. It aims to explain how ‘fully conscious and active participation’ in the sacred mysteries occurs, that liturgy and life may be more richly interrelated. / Thesis (STD) — Boston College, 2019. / Submitted to: Boston College. School of Theology and Ministry. / Discipline: Sacred Theology.

Thesis advisor: Angela Kim Harkins / Thesis advisor: John F. Baldovin / Thesis (STL) — Boston College, 2021. / Submitted to: Boston College. School of Theology and Ministry. / Discipline: Sacred 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;

It is a well established fact that the practice of the eucharistic prayer in the roman, rite is seriously underdeveloped. This survey of complete or partially through -composed settings of the eucharistic prayer attempts to shed some light on why and how composers have responded to the wide-spread opinion that the eucharistic prayer is rarely experienced as the high point of the eucharistic celebration as it was intended. Divided into two parts, the study initially considers the official aims and norms of the post-conciliar liturgy, both in general and as they pertain to the eucharistic prayer, noting some tension between the aims and their realisation. Three broad themes are identified for the entire work: ritual structure, the role of music and participation. The texts of the eucharistic prayers are then discussed to see how the official expectations are realised. A survey of the theoretical writings on rnusic and the eucharistic prayer concludes the first part. The second part focuses on over 100 musical settings, both published and unpublished d the eucharistic prayer. After offering a general chronological overview of the music, noting its forces and general characteristics, the music is scrutinised to see whether its various parts are celebrated or submerged by music, the broader shape of the compositions is examined and then a discussion concerning participation issues follows. The use of tabulated data aids the discussion. While acknowledging that there are many ways to evaluate the usefulness of such compositions and that this study does not touch on their actual reception and performance, it is hoped the current work will offer some insights into the variety of existing responses to the challenge of the setting the eucharistic prayer and offer some suggestions as to how this important work may continue.

Thesis (S.T.L.)--Catholic University of America, 2008. / Description based on Microfiche version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 146-148).

Thesis (S.T.L.)--Catholic University of America, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 146-148).

Thesis (M.T.S.)--Catholic Theological Union at Chicago, 1989. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 53-56).