The Eucharist - Introduction

As you probably know, the Year of the Eucharist (October 2004-October 2005) is drawing to an end. To enable as many of our readers to experience this period as a time of grace and renewal, we present a series of short articles on the Eucharist focusing mainly on the attitudes required by the post-Vatican Eucharist if it is to be celebrated in an active, fruitful and intelligent manner.

The following statement of John Haughey invites us to reflect seriously: "I am convinced that Christianity is an explosion still to go off, a revolutionary idea still to be comprehended, a banquet in time and history that has been barely nibbled at, and a source of social change the dimensions of which are not even being dreamed of… These potentialities remain stuck in the still-to-be status because of the way we go about Eucharist - what we bring to it, what we bring from it. For that reason I think Christianity's potentiality will move to actuality only if the Eucharist is celebrated in a different way and with a different perspective (emphasis mine) than it ordinarily is today. What we need is not to devise alternative forms of worship, but to … worship according to the alternative we have become in Christ."

Against this background it would be helpful to see whether in these forty years, we have been able to maintain the spirit of Vatican teaching on the Eucharist. How much of the "New Man" is evident in our liturgies? Are there any key attitudes that still need changing or updating to make our Eucharistic celebrations more explosive? We present some of the key paradigm shifts prescribed by Vatican II and invite our readers to see how much they have become part and parcel of our liturgical thinking and living.