THEO8311 Living in Time and Eternity: Eucharist and the Liturgical Year

2012

4.5

1 x 2-hour seminar weekly

1 Admission into GCTHS-Graduate Certificate in Theological Studies
1a Admission into GDPTHS-Graduate Diploma in Theological Studies
1b Admission into MTHS-Master of Theological Studies
Must Satisfy: ((1 or 1a or 1b))

1 of THEO2304, THEO2305 has been successfully completed

This topic shows the key role of religious ritual within time and space from here to eternity, by helping participants to become informed interpreters of the liturgical cycle. It explores the history and meaning of the Christian year as it celebrates the saving deeds of God accomplished in Jesus Christ. It examines how the various Christian churches seek to make known and accessible to human persons of all times and places those saving events with special reference to the Sunday Eucharist. It explores the nature of Cosmic Time and human life, in the history and context of Jewish and Christian festal calendars, and in the context and culture of a diverse interfaith world. It will examine key aspects of Eucharistic theology and practice within an interpretative framework which lends itself to ecumenical concerns.

The aims of this topic are to:

• explore the concept of time and space and how this relates our human life with its cosmic environment
• examine the origins of the church year in Jewish and Christian traditions and in other faith traditions
• show how the Paschal Mystery is the heart of the Liturgical year and how this is celebrated by liturgical celebration on Sundays, within the Easter and Christmas cycles, Ordinary time and the feasts and seasons of church life
• examine the historical development and the various Christian rites of Eucharistic practice, and to show how a reinterpretation and retrieval of praxis from its origins to the present day can impact upon our present celebrations of Eucharist
• present a theology of celebration for the present day that flows from the ecumenical convergence of shape and theology of Eucharistic practice

On completion of this topic students should have:

• an anthropological, liturgical, scriptural, historical and theological understanding of Eucharist
• knowledge and skills to be informed interpreters of the liturgical cycle
• knowledge and skills to be informed interpreters and celebrants of the Eucharist tradition in our time