Books

Here are the books (plus some online articles) which I am reading  this month for my two classes in liturgy and conversion. It looks like a lot - and it is - but fortunately I have plenty of time on my hands to do it. My job right now is to read, rather than finding time to read in between other things. My big challenge will be carrying them all home; I have  as many books again from last month also.

What makes reading here so interesting is that we're not just reading for comprehension, we're reading for transformation. Lots of us had the experience of school or tertiary study where we cram to remember the details  for an exam or essay, but  then forget it within a few days or weeks We remembered just long enough to spit it out again for assessment. Here though, the details don't matter so much.

 I read the large book on the bottom last  week, From Age to Age by Fr Ed Foley (who taught me in Chicago). It's 2000 years of the history of the Eucharist. There's far too much detail to remember. But it's the overall themes and theological developments which matter. I discovered that there was no distinct theology of the Eucharist in the first centuries of the Church. Instead, there was a  focus on the Church which did Eucharist when it came together. It was also considered a sacrament of initiation, flowing from and connecting to baptism. But in the 5th to 7th centuries baptism pulled  away from Eucharist as baptism of babies became the norm, and Eucharist began to develop its own distinct meaning. It  wasn't until then that the focus was on the bread and wine. Questions of how they changed into the Body and Blood of Christ didn't emerge until the 9th or 10th century onwards, and it was at this time tabernacles developed to retain leftover  consecrated  hosts. So much of what we grew up and take for granted is only later developments, not  what the first millennia of the Church did or believed. Which should give us freedom to continue to explore  how best  to experience and share the Eucharist here and now.


Comments

  1. Ditas15 July 2018 at 16:53

    Very interesting to know the history of the Eucharist.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Dominic16 July 2018 at 13:49

    Here is an interesting thing when you start to look at the origins of a practice to find it has morphed into a much bigger version of itself. Is it right to question what we do now as being as important as we hold it to be? That I suppose is the freedom to express our faith, and the responsibility to discern what we are doing not just blindly follow.
    Thanks Jim.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Unknown26 July 2018 at 03:37

    Hi Jim, Dave here. A great snapshot of the evolution of the Eucharist. I agree with your last line a lot. Love reading about all your adventures.

    ReplyDelete

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