1. Aim of the Thesis. This thesis is concerned to investigate the schemata of metaphysical concepts, and the lines of philosophical argument, used by Thomas Aquinas in reaching conclusions about the nature of the change through which Christ becomes present in the sacrament of the Eucharist, and about the nature of this continuing presence. Although the object to which the thesis relates is provided by doctrinal and theological affirmations, the perspective within which the investigation takes place is that of the reflective rationality distinctive of philosophy. Put differently, the aim of the thesis is to examine the speculative rational work undertaken by Thomas Aquinas in the course of his discussion of issues relating to the change of bread and of wine into the body and blood of Christ in the Eucharist - a discussion that Thomas introduces by first arguing to traditional Catholic belief about the outcome of this change. The examination engages with the reasonable explanatory power of the conceptual resources and the philosophical arguments drawn upon by the Angelic Doctor in his systematic study of the Eucharistic change, and of the implications of this change relative to the continuing presence of Christ in the Eucharist. 2. Scope of the Thesis. The parameters of the thesis are set by St Thomas’s discussions of Eucharistic change and presence that take place in part three, questions 75-77, of his Summa Theologiae, book four, chapters 60-68, of his Summa contra Gentiles, and book four, distinctions 10-11, of his Scriptum super Libris Sententiarum Petri Lombardi. Within these parameters are to be included contributions to the issues discussed by St Thomas made by Thomas de Vio Cajetan, Domingo Banez, and Silvester of Ferrara (Ferrariensis), major commentators on the work of Thomas. Extensive presentation, and scrutiny, of opposing arguments from Duns Scotus are also included. Following an introductory chapter concerned to situate, summarise, and indicate its principal assumptions, the thesis explores what is, for St Thomas, a major objection to affirming the substantially real presence of Christ in the Eucharist: such an affirmation is said to imply the ontological impossibility that Christ’s bodily reality is simultaneously present in more than one place. The response to this objection involves an analysis of the distinction between the primary and the secondary formal effects of dimensive quantity, and the use of this distinction to argue at some length that one and the same material thing may be simultaneously present in more than one place if the secondary formal effects of dimensive quantity that would spatially situate this thing in relation to its immediate surroundings are suspended. The thesis then considers three issues dealing with what becomes of the substance of the bread and of the wine at the Eucharistic consecration. In the first of these, Thomas rejects the claim that the substance of the bread and of the wine remains in existence on the altar, affirming that the bread and wine are changed at the level of substance into the body and blood of Christ. This position requires, and receives, sustained treatment of philosophical questions concerning ‘substance’, and change affecting the whole substance of a thing (within a hylomorphic understanding of material realities). Related problems of individuation, causal agency, and the logic of language that both signifies, and brings about, change, are considered. The second issue investigates the claim that the substance of the bread and of the wine is not changed after all into the body and blood of Christ but is either annihilated or changed into matter-in-an-earlier-state. This claim is rejected by St Thomas on philosophical grounds, and this section of the thesis engages critically with Cajetan on several points connected with Thomas’s arguments The third issue concerns, and affirms, the capacity of bread and wine to be changed substantially into the body and blood of Christ, at which point the thesis widens out to contrast a hylomorphic with a hylomeric account of matter, and to consider at some length Duns Scotus’s metaphysics of the Eucharist which oppose those of St Thomas. Chapter six of the thesis explores in some detail the responses of Cajetan and Ferrariensis to the challenges issued by Scotus, and the concluding chapter (chapter seven) provides an analysis of Thomistic ideas regarding three modes of the emergence of being: creation, natural change, transubstantiation. 3. Conclusions. The title asserts that the thesis is “an examination of the Thomistic metaphysics of the Eucharistic presence”. This examination endorses the following conclusions: 3.1 The schemata of metaphysical concepts employed by St Thomas (e.g. the concepts of substance, accident, esse, primary matter, substantial form, creation, natural change, obediential potentiality, primary/secondary formal effects of dimensive quantity), and his lines of philosophical argument, provide a clearly valid response to “the exigencies of the inquiring mind at work” in relation to the presence of Christ in the Eucharist. In other words, their reasonable explanatory power is evidently to be affirmed. 3.2 Pari passu the thesis indicates something of what could be called ‘the mystery of matter’ – the inexhaustible depths and potentialities of matter that the inquiring mind confronts when exploring matter in the distinctive situation that is matter’s special dependence on the First Cause in the Eucharistic change (transubstantiation). 3.3 The thesis is an instance of philosophical work undertaken in the first decade of the 21st century, and within the socio-cultural context of this time. This socio-cultural ‘situatedness’, although vastly different from the socio-cultural ‘situatedness’ of Thomas Aquinas, Duns Scotus, Cajetan, Ferrariensis, and Banez, has created no culturally relative barrier - no ‘incommensurability’ - such as to prevent an understanding of the conceptual/argumentative activity in which these thinkers engaged some centuries ago. Human beings always and everwhere ‘fit into’ the same Universe through their abiding and ineluctably shared openness to being and its first principles.

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Boston University. / Carl Gustav Jung has devoted specific attention to religion and the Christian Eucharist. The individuation process is central to his system and he identifies the Eucharist as a rite of individuation. The dissertation investigates the theories of analytical psychology pertaining to this sacrament. Comparisons are made between Christian and non-Christian sacramental rites as a means of clarification and illustration. An essay written by a counselee after termination of a therapeutic relationship with a pastor is presented to illustrate how individuation may function in the Eucharist and to give a basis for a critique of Jung's theories. Jung holds that religion as a deeply rooted phenomenon of human psychic life is founded in the collective unconscious and is archetypal in nature; the archetypes are symbolized when they manifest themselves to consciousness. When the self archetype which is very similar to the God archetype becomes more highly differentiated and synthesizes other archetypes around itself a person experiences individuation which is a natural process tending toward union of personality. The change from a segmented to a unified psyche is effected via the process of transformation. The Eucharist is seen as a general therapeutic system which leads toward individuation [TRUNCATED]

Thesis advisor: John F. Baldovin / Thesis advisor: Catherine M. Mooney / An incorporation of a notion of "destruction" into our understanding and theologies of the Eucharist can help us to appreciate more robustly not only late medieval and early modern discussions of Eucharistic sacrifice, but also our late and post-modern experiences of God's absence. This thesis recovers theories of the Eucharist that propose an inherent aspect of destruction as part of the Sacrament. Such theories emerged in the writings of Robert Bellarmine, Juan de Lugo, Francisco Suárez, and others and continued to be influential on Eucharistic thought through the time of Pius XII. I trace these theories and their reception from the sixteenth century to a revival of them in nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, particularly in the works of Maurice de la Taille (1872-1933) and Anscar Vonier (1875-1938) as well as in Pius XII's Mediator Dei (1947). I then consider them and their implications for contemporary discussions of Eucharist, notably by Louis-Marie Chauvet and followers of René Girard. A recovery of a notion of destruction might help contemporary Christians to reach both a greater understanding of the Eucharistic presence as well as a greater appreciation of God's apparent or perceived absence. / Thesis (STL) — Boston College, 2023. / Submitted to: Boston College. School of Theology and Ministry. / Discipline: Sacred Theology.

Thesis advisor: Thomas D. Stegman / The majority of exegetes agree that the so-called “Letter” to the Hebrews is actually a homily, meant to be read aloud to a Christian community gathered for worship. In The Context of the Text: Reading Hebrews as a Eucharistic Homily, I argue that the specific venue for the public reading of Hebrews was a celebration of the Eucharist. It is my contention that the author presumed and exploited this Eucharistic setting in order to bolster his claims about the superiority of Christ and his sacrifice to the sacrifices of the “first covenant”, as well as to entreat his readers to remain faithful to Christian Eucharistic worship. This dissertation begins in Chapter 1 by considering the “state of the question,” examining the positions of scholars who take – respectively – negative, agnostic and positive positions regarding Eucharistic references in Hebrews. Chapter 2 situates the question of Hebrews and the Eucharist within the broader milieu of the liturgical provenance of New Testament writings. Chapter 3 considers the issues of Hebrews’ authorship, date of composition, audience, rhetorical strategy, and literary structure as they pertain to my argument that the text was written for proclamation at the Eucharist. Chapter 4 offers an extensive study of several passages from Hebrews which appear to allude to the Eucharist without mentioning the sacrament explicitly (Hebrews 6:4; 9:20; 10:19-25; 12:22-24; 13:10; and 13:15), setting forth the claim that the allusive nature of these references is explained by the Eucharistic milieu for which the homily was written. In particular, I argue that a Eucharistic understanding of Hebrews 13:10 (“We have an altar from which those who officiate in the tent have no right to eat”) is the linchpin for understanding other Eucharistic references in Hebrews and that this verse serves as a major reinforcement of the author’s earlier claims regarding the supreme efficacy of Christ’s redemptive work. I hold that the author’s mention of an “altar” in 13:10 is meant to be understood as a reference to the Eucharistic table and that, taken as such, this statement parallels the claim in 8:1 (“We have such a high priest”) in order to demonstrate that Christians have both a superior priest (Christ) and a superior cultic act (the Eucharist). Finally, Chapter 5 considers interpretive traditions (particularly patristic and Eastern) which bolster the case for a Eucharistic interpretation of Hebrews. / Thesis (STD) — Boston College, 2014. / Submitted to: Boston College. School of Theology and Ministry. / Discipline: Sacred Theology.

Thesis advisor: John Baldovin / Twentieth century is an epoch that has known the ravages of war, violence, oppression, exploitation and conflict. In a century marked by great human brokenness which has escalated the alienation from God, from one another and from the whole of creation; what would be the proper mission of the Church in such a context? This breakdown of the whole human family which has led to great suffering stares us in the face. It has been an epoch with two world wars, genocides, nature‘s rebellion as the weather and atmospheric conditions have been unpredictable and above all that world development has taken place on the heads of billions of people who live in abject poverty. In a world torn apart by conflicts and division, reconciliation becomes a necessary theological theme for mission, if we are to work for a better future for "All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God" (Rom. 3:23). / Thesis (STL) — Boston College, 2009. / Submitted to: Boston College. School of Theology and Ministry. / Discipline: Sacred Theology.

This study retrieves the long-abandoned thought of an early twentieth-century Jesuit theologian, Maurice de la Taille (I872-t933), reassessing his theory of eucharistic sacrifice in light of his theology of grace and contemplation. His major work, the three volume Mysterium Fidei (L921), provides an integrated account of sacrifice, one which responsively embraces the multiple and often controversial aspects of the topic of sacrifice. De la Taille rejects a supercessionist treatment of Hebrew ritual sacrifice; he incorporates a sophisticated theory of sacrifice as sign and gift; and he allows the fullness of theological tradition-scripture, the Fathers (East and West), Thomistic thought, conciliar and papal teaching, and the witness of liturgical prayer and mystical theology to inform his theory of Christian sacrifice. In surprising ways, de la Taille's magisterial work on eucharistic sacrifice forestalls the post-Vatican II liberal anxieties about sacrifice. He decidedly challenges the formidable heritage of sixteenth and seventeenth century immolation-focused eucharistic theology by providing a patristically-rich theology of sacrifice, one that stands rooted in a spirituality of prayer and ascetic practice which cannot be segregated from the ecclesial oblation of Christ's sacrifice. With his focus on the affect and desire of the offerer of sacrifice, de la Taille anticipates the 'subjective turn' that emerged in mid-twentieth century eucharistic theology, and in a way that revitalizes the critical role of ecclesial ritual sacrifice in the transformation of that desire. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2008. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Theology.

Thesis advisor: Frederick G. Lawrence / This study investigates Aquinas' understanding of Christ's role in sanctification. In discussing the soteriological effect of Christ's passion, Aquinas makes a distinction between the manner in which the soteriological effect is brought about (modo efficiendi), the effect in itself, and the way the effect is obtained. The dissertation explores Aquinas' understanding of the third element - the securing of the effect of Christ's passion - and the relation of this third element to the first two. Sanctifying grace is given as a result of Christ's saving acts, is infused by an act of the Holy Spirit, and conforms its recipients to the Holy Spirit. But Christ's role in sanctification does not cease once the Holy Spirit is given. In Aquinas' judgment, Christ continues to be present in the giving of the gift, a giving that is also consequent upon a being conformed to Christ. The dissertation builds toward an examination of how Aquinas understands this being conformed to Christ, especially in light of Aquinas' conception of faith as a knowledge of God, of Christ as the source and object of faith's knowledge, and of charity's relation to this knowledge, all of which are analyzed against Aquinas' strict adherence to the principle that humans cannot know God in his essence so long as they remain in time / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2009. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Theology.

Thesis advisor: John F. Baldovin / This dissertation argues that the eucharistic theology found in Thomas Aquinas's Summa Theologiae is not a Christocentric, static, hierarchical economy of grace production. Rather, it is a deeply Trinitarian, dynamic, communal drama of graced participation. Based on Aquinas's insistence that grace is a participation in the Divine Nature that is signified by the sacraments, I turn to the Secunda Pars in order to explicate the relationship between grace and human action that is presupposed in the sacramentology of the Tertia Pars. Insofar as the res tantum of the Eucharist is the unity of the mystical body of Christ, special attention is given to the relationship between grace, theological virtue, and moral virtue. Through close examination of the process through which charity is said to increase in the subject, the unity of the mystical body is seen, not as a mystical state, but as a graced action that is simultaneously God's action (insofar as grace formally moves us through charity) and the Church's action (insofar as the moral virtues dispose us to receive the presence of God as the extrinsic principle of our actions). The unity of the mystical body of Christ is, then, rightly called the grace of the Eucharist because the spiritual life affected by the Eucharist is the active presence of charity in the Church. The result of the Eucharist is the Church's participation in the Divine Nature. This project aims at providing a grammar that allows for fruitful dialogue in modern sacramental theology. Within Catholic Eucharistic theology, the scholastic language of metaphysics is regularly given place of privilege to such an extent as to view other grammars of the Eucharist with suspicion. This dissertation provides a Thomistic grammar of the Eucharist that largely avoids the traditional scholastic grammars. It is the hope that such retrieval is a catalyst for constructive dialogue between modern grammars (of all denominations) and traditional scholastic grammars. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2015. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Theology.

Thesis advisor: Frederick G. Lawrence / This dissertation offers a critical response to the fundamental sacramental theology of Louis-Marie Chauvet drawing on the works of Bernard Lonergan. Chauvet has articulated a significant critique of the western theological tradition's use of metaphysics, especially in interpreting doctrines relating to the presence of Christ in the Eucharist, liturgical sacrifice, and sacramental causality. Chauvet's criticisms raise questions about what philosophical tools allow theologians to develop a fruitful analogical understanding of the mysteries communicated in the sacraments. This dissertation responds to Chauvet's challenge to theology to adopt a new foundation in the symbolic by turning to the derived, critical metaphysics of Bernard Lonergan. The dissertation argues that Lonergan's critical metaphysics can help theologians to develop fruitful understandings of doctrines relating to Eucharistic presence, liturgical sacrifice, and sacramental causality. In addition Lonergan's categories of meaning offer resources for interpreting sacramental doctrines on the level of the time, while maintaining the genuine achievements of the past. Chapter one presents a survey of some recent Catholic Eucharistic theologies in order to provide a context for our investigation. Here we identify existentialist-phenomenological, postmodern, and neo-traditionalist approaches to Eucharistic doctrines. Chapters two, three, and four present a dialectical comparison of Chauvet and Lonergan on metaphysics as it pertains to Eucharistic theology specifically. Chapter two examines Chauvet's postmodern critique of metaphysical foundations of scholastic Eucharistic theology. Our particular concern will be with Chauvet's methods, especially whether his appropriation of the Heideggerian critique of scholastic theology offers an accurate account of Thomas Aquinas, and whether it offers a fruitful way forward in Eucharistic theology. Chapter three explores Lonergan's foundations for metaphysics in cognitional theory and epistemology. Lonergan's critical groundwork in cognitional theory attends to the problems of bias and the polymorphism of human consciousness that lead to a heuristic metaphysics rather than a tidy conceptual system. Chapter four explicates Lonergan's heuristic metaphysics and articulates the elements of metaphysics that enable an understanding of the general category of causality in critical realist metaphysics. Chapter five explores Lonergan's foundations for theological reflection paying particular attention to the importance of intellectual conversion before going on to survey Lonergan's categories of meaning. Chapter six engages the task of systematic theology and proposes an understanding of Eucharistic doctrines grounded in Lonergan's critical realist philosophy and transposed into categories of meaning. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2010. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Theology.

Thesis advisor: John F. Baldovin / Abstract This dissertation grows from our experience of the perennial problem of violence and conflict witnessed at a great scale in Sub-Saharan Africa. In many parts of Africa, especially south of the Sahara, now even worse in the north, there are recurrent bloody conflicts, violence and wars. Ordinarily, one would be lured to argue that what Heraclitus said is the real experience of Africa: where it seems "war is father and king of all things."1 In this trend of thought war, bloody conflicts and violence are mere symptoms of the underlying belligerent nature of the universe. In Heraclitus' philosophical view any change (physical, social, political, economic) can only arise out of war or violent conflict. On the other hand, in reading and hearing stories from all over the world it reveals to us that violence, conflict and the difficulty of establishing lasting peace is a universal problem, not only African. This realization triggered this study to see if we could establish common roots to the problem of violence in the world and at the same time to seek ways of reconciling people in the aftermath or even during the conflict. Therefore although the African situation provoked the thought, our research covers the anthropological roots to the universal problem of recurrent violence that has immersed our world into a culture of death. However in the last chapter we will specifically draw our attention to the nature and mission of the Church of Africa in its social context in order to ascertain the foundational causes of the persistent violence and so seek ways to reconciliation. Employing René Girard's mimetic anthropology and trinitarian/eucharistic theology we argue that reconciliation is a Divine-Human self-emptying event because the one who initiates reconciliation must be ready to surrender to the offending other and become the price of that reconciliation. The Trinity and the gift of the Eucharist just before the paschal mystery presents to us that God, the offended other but loving other, in Jesus became the price of our reconciliation. Therefore every work of reconciliation is an imitation of a self-emptying God in Christ Jesus. / Thesis (STD) — Boston College, 2013. / Submitted to: Boston College. School of Theology and Ministry. / Discipline: Sacred Theology.