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Document Details :

Title: The Eucharist and Eucharistic Adoration
Author(s): LAURANCE, John D.
Journal: Louvain Studies
Volume: 26    Issue: 4   Date: winter 2001   
Pages: 313-333
DOI: 10.2143/LS.26.4.919

Abstract :
'Restorationist,' an old ecclesiastical term, has received new coinage in the so-called 'liturgy wars' in the Catholic Church. Their opponents use it of those who sometimes give signs of wanting to return to the pre-Vatican II Church, a time of a strictly regulated liturgy (no inculturation or adaptation), a faith-practice dominated by extra-liturgical devotions, and an unquestioned obedience to Rome. Consequently, when a group of undergraduate students at Marquette University recently asked me to help inaugurate a regular holy hour with Benediction on campus, I had to wonder whether this was a manifestation of that same nostalgia, or of a new movement of Holy Spirit in the Church to reclaim something authentic and essential to full Catholic life.
We may still be living too much in the aftermath of Vatican II for any definitive answer to that question. Nevertheless, it may not be too soon to re-evaluate the practice of eucharistic adoration past and present in light of both such differing visions of Catholic life and recent developments in sacramental theology, especially regarding the Church's celebration of the Eucharist.

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