Contemporary Eucharistic prayers tend to make the elements of anamnesis, epiclesis and eschatology more visible than they

are in patterns of praying inherited from the 16th Century. Eucharistic participation is potentially enriched by attention to these elements. Discuss their significance.

Anamnesis, epiclesis and eschatology could perhaps be boldly reduced to past, present and future. Anamnesis the process of remembering; epiclesis that of praying to the Spirit in the present during the Eucharist; and eschatology the focus on the future hope we have in Christ. But this approach would be reductionist and fail to appreciate the depth present in each concept. What is clear is that constituents of each are much more explicit in contemporary texts (Common Worship) inevitably changing the timbre of the Eucharist itself. I will look at the three in turn, comparing some texts and then give some brief reasons as to why the contrast. Anamnesis Out of the three, anamnesis is reasonably well accounted for in older texts. In the Book of Common Prayer (BCP), the point at which the elements are prayed for and the bread broken, the words of Jesus are recalled, just as in all eight prayers in Common Worship. What is worth noting is that although the Eucharistic prayer is shorter in the BCP, the use of scripture and theology throughout the Eucharist itself is more widely obvious. In the Eucharist, Jesus teaches us to pray through an act of memory and through communion with the Holy Spirit, bringing us into eternal communion with the Father. By joining us to Himself in communion Christ creates a reconciled community.1 So anamnesis is not simply employed as an act of memory but rather the story is retold, relived in the present so that there is a living connection with the past, informing and emphasising our identity.2 At once, remembering who we are, where we come from and where were going3 whilst focussing on the person of Jesus who informs and gives reality to each of those things. However in Common Worship, anamnesis is reinforced in the preface to the Sanctus in prayers A and B, and to a lesser extent prayers C to H, with different emphases in each. With eight possible Eucharistic prayers, the president is given flexibility to differentiate depending on the communicants and even perhaps the time available. In prison chaplaincy in a male prison it was common to use Prayer H and D it is concise and easily accessible for individuals with little or no schooling. In a female prison we often used prayer G, with its emphasis on the creativity and motherhood of God. By setting the prayers dependent on the communicants, it was possible to facilitate anamnesis, allowing them to be involved in the prayer whether through intelligibility or empathy. Use of the BCP would have obstructed a living connection with God, making it hard for those individuals to make an anamnetic response. Epiclesis Adherents to the BCP or old Roman mass would argue that epiclesis is implicit throughout Holy Communion for instance in Quam Oblationem4 - and thus making it explicit is unnecessary and clunky. It could also be argued that the attention there is greater attention to the administration
1 2 3 4

Torrance J Torrance J Koster W Epiklesis

(1996) (1996) (2003)

Worship, Community & the Triune God of Grace Paternoster Worship, Community & the Triune God of Grace Paternoster In Liturgy in a Postmodern World Ed. Pecklers K Continuum Catholic Encyclopaedia www.newadvent.org/cathen/05502a.htm

of the elements, which is effectively the point at which the Holy Spirit truly becomes alive in peoples hearts. However, both Eastern rites and contemporary Anglican Eucharistic prayers place a higher value on praying for the Holy Spirits transformative power to come to bear at the Eucharistic table. For the epiclesis is a drawing together, beseeching the Spirit of God to gather the church into the body of Christ as grains are gathered to make bread and grapes are gathered to make wine. God gathers us as the body for our sake, through His Spirit, making His living power real within His church and receiving our prayers in communion with the Trinity.5,6 The epiclesis underscores the acts of offering sanctification and of receiving sanctification it emphasises Christs agency but also the role of the recipient, His real presence in the elements but that complete realisation when received by a communicant.7 In emphasising the work of the Spirit, Calvin argued such a position rightly put the emphasis on Gods gift rather than human process.8 Since then some of the debate has centred on whether the epiclesis evoked the language of transubstantiation, as suggested by Bishop Gardiner during the Reformation, or whether indeed the elements even needed an individual epiclesis as the people themselves were being consecrated through the Eucharist as suggested by Roman authorities.9 Protestant rationalism and the desire to have a Eucharist free from superstition but based on straightforward Augustinian theology ultimately resulted in the BCP version, even if subsequent efforts to weaken the epiclesis further were rescinded. Now that we have distance from the central emotion of the Reformation debates, and living in the light of the Oxford movement, there has been a freedom to express the ultimate truth of the Eucharist that during the epiclesis, by calling on the Spirit of God, Christs real presence is made manifest in and through the Church the communicating body of Christ.10 We are freer now to express exactly how we understand (or dont) the mystical processes at work without fear of being labelled a `papist as we are free to reject a literalist doctrine of transubstantiation with ensuing consequences. Common worship has replaced the hard headed scriptural theology of the BCP with the ineffable and the mystical without recourse to superstition. Eschatology Eschatology is to me the area which has made the most dramatic appearance in contemporary Eucharistic prayer. The Eucharistic prayers, although not all containing explicit reference to Jesus coming again in glory definitely are more thematically eschatological than the BCP. In the BCP the Eucharistic prayers make no mention of Jesus second coming, probably reflecting both the old Roman mass which it would have been based on,11 but also the an increasingly rationalistic approach to philosophy, but also theology. There is reference to our future life everlasting but no sense that this is in some real way, Christs gift to us now through the Eucharist, in which the eternal erupts into the temporal. The impression given is that Christs life on earth was a temporary event and although having eternal significance, the BCP lays a high (vaguely Pelagian) emphasis on the worthiness of communicants in receiving Gods good grace. It has been argued that concepts of community based on a linear association in time rather than an association through time led to a Eucharist which lacked eschatological emphasis, as the church sought to affirm the coherence of the living community of believers.12
5 6

McKenna J (1975) Richardson A & Bowden J (1983) 7 McKenna J (1975) 8 Hunsinger G (2008) 9 Hunsinger G (2008) 10 McKenna J (1975) 11 Cavanaugh W (1998) 12 Cavanaugh W (1998)

Eucharist & the Holy Spirit A New Dictionary of Christian Theology Eucharist & the Holy Spirit The Eucharist & Ecumenism The Eucharist & Ecumenism Eucharist & the Holy Spirit Torture & Eucharist Torture & Eucharist

Alcuin Alcuin CUP CUP Alcuin Blackwell Blackwell SCM

But with prayers in Common Worship, the earthly Eucharist can become the eternal earthly event in which Christ becomes manifest, becoming the consummation of all history.13 We are at once able to become an ecumenical community of believers across denomination and back and forward through time. We join with saints to come, saints and the apostles in glory and Christ Himself. Through the exchange in worship, between the giving Christ and the receiving church, she achieves an eschatological reality although neither wholly realised yet filled with the breath of the Spirit.14 Not that these factors arent realised through other Eucharistic prayers, but believers eternal identity is made explicit and celebrated.

Cavanaugh (1998), drawing heavily on patristic, and particularly Augustinian sources, argues that if torture is the imagination of the state, the Eucharist is the imagination of the church.15 But torture is merely a mechanism of state control, borne out of fear and designed to produce an orderly and compliant society; as true for the medieval church as for modern America. I would modify his statement, to instead argue that order, or perhaps control is the imagination of the state. Indeed good order has been cited as one of the most important factors in the life and work of the church and her priests,16 still perpetuating the idea that the church is an institution formed in and ordered in a stately way, with explicit law and the power to enforce. But the church is essentially organic a family, a vine, a body. The rules are implicit, based on faith not fear rooted through the Eucharist remembering that we are who we were and that, only through Christs redemptive work. The church is nourished through the Eucharist indeed only achieving its real identity through the Eucharist as she depends on the mystery of communion with Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit. And the life the church claims for her own is not that of a temporal state but that of a living, eschatological kingdom, bringing the heavenly into the earthly and the spiritual into the material.17 The changes brought by contemporary Eucharistic prayers bring added flexibility, mystery, accessibility and faithful celebration to the body of Christ. Never mind an ancient language which excludes and discourages ordinary people from meeting God, the language of contemporary Eucharistic prayers carries the theology in their narrative quality rather than spelling it out in lengthy exhortations. Anamnesis, epiclesis and eschatology are as such essential components in the salvation narrative within the Eucharist.

13 14

Cavanaugh W (1998) Torrance J (1996) 15 Cavanaugh W (1998) 16 Redfern A (2006) Longman & Todd 17 Cavanaugh W (1998)

Torture & Eucharist Worship, Community & the Triune God of Grace Torture & Eucharist Being Anglican Torture & Eucharist

Blackwell Paternoster Blackwell Darton, Blackwell