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Document Details : Title: Broken Open for the Life of the World Subtitle: A Recontextualization of the Feast of Corpus Christi Author(s): WITHERINGTON, T. Derrick Journal: Ephemerides Theologicae Lovanienses Volume: 98 Issue: 1 Date: 2022 Pages: 63-83 DOI: 10.2143/ETL.98.1.3290282 Abstract : The Feast of Corpus Christi owes its origin to the mystical visions of a twelfth-thirteenth-century canoness, Julienne of Mount Cornillon. From the feast’s origin in thirteenth-century Liège up until the liturgical reforms of the Second Vatican Council, a central component of this celebration was a Eucharistic procession with the consecrated host displayed in monstrance. For the generation of theologians working in the decades following the Council there was a movement away from older forms of Eucharistic piety, including the practice of holding Eucharistic processions. One such theologian, Louis-Marie Chauvet (1942-), disfavors this practice owing to its upholding of an understanding of Eucharistic presence which is wed to the Scholastic metaphysics he famously rejects. In this contribution, I will be engaging Chauvet’s rejection of a metaphysically grounded understanding of Eucharistic presence, on the one hand, and the recent renaissance of holding Eucharistic processions, on the other. I will argue that one can both accept Chauvet’s insights along with the tradition of the Eucharistic procession if this latter practice is seen as a symbolic expression and outgrowth of a dialogical church which is open to the various (post)secular others she encounters in the world. The contribution will end with a practical suggestion for how this should manifest itself which is itself grounded in the historical practice of the medieval Church. |
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