Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-vdxz6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-29T08:15:21.549Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The Eucharistic Prayer: An Examination of Recent Research

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 February 2009

Richard O'Doherty
Affiliation:
St. Andrews College of Education, Bearsden, Glasgow G61 4QA

Extract

This paper has many aims. It proposes, first of all, to cover some of the research that has gone into the Eucharistic Prayer, especially its genesis in Roman Catholic circles. It has been a topic of interest for most of this century, but particularly so in the last twenty years. It aims to discuss the spirituality of the Prayer and its relationship to practical piety and to show the relationship between the Liturgy of the Word, the Gospel tradition, and the Eucharistic Prayer as our response to the Word of God. Lastly, this paper aims to uncover something of the theological richness of this Prayer and at the same time to show its roots in the human condition. In covering this research the paper also aims at pinpointing its constituent elements. Liturgically speaking, the Eucharistic Prayer is central: it represents the Christian response to his God at his most central and sacred moment. It is a topic with a long history. It was discussed particularly at the Reformation and in the Reformed circles was one of the casualties of the older tradition. It is a topic, the study of which has produced some conclusions. There has been a rather widespread reform of the Eucharistic Prayer in many churches. This is especially clear in the renewal of the Roman Catholic tradition and in the proposals of the Anglican Series Three.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 1985

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Danby, H., The Mishnah, (Oxford, 1967), p. 151Google Scholar.

2 Kavanagh, OSB., op. cit., p. 519.

3 Otto, Rudolf, The Idea of the Holy, (Oxford, 1969), p. 33Google Scholar.

4 Kavanagh, op. cit., p. 520.

5 Kavanagh, ibid., p. 524.

6 Bouyer, Louis, Eucharist: Theology and Spirituality of the Eucharistic Prayer, trans, by Quinn, Charles Underhill, (Notre Dame, 1968), p. 40Google Scholar. For further study the reader is directed to ‘Seder R. Amram Gaon’ David Hedegard, Part I, Hebrew Text with critical apparatus, translation with Notes and Introduction (Lund, 1951).

7 ibid., p. 46.

8 cf. Prex Eucharistica Textus e variis Liturgiis Antiquioribus Selecti, A. Hanggi, I. Pahl (Fribourg, 1968).

9 ibid., p. 83. For a critique of Audet and a comment on Ligier sec, Talley, T.From Berakah to Eucharistia: A Reporting Question, Worship, March 1976.Google Scholar

10 Ligier, Louis, S.J., , ‘The Origins of the Eucharistic Prayer: From the Last Supper to the Eucharist’, Studia Liturgica, Vol. 9, No. 4, 1973, p. 177Google Scholar.

11 Ligier, ibid., 177.

12 Ligier, Louis, ‘From the Last Supper to the Eucharist’ in The New Liturgy trans, by Sheppard, Lancelot (London, 1970), p. 123Google Scholar.

13 Bouyer, op. cit., p. 183.

14 Bouyer, ibid.

15 Cox, Harvey, The Feast of Fools, (Harvard, 1969), p. 14CrossRefGoogle Scholar.