Eucharistic Epicleses, Ancient and Modern

This book explores the theological and textual connections among ancient and modern epicleses, primarily through analysis of a selection of epicletic texts in contemporary Western eucharistic prayers and the theological principles that shaped them. Liturgical scholarship on the Spirit's role in early liturgical prayers and texts conducted during the twentieth century contributed to the language and pneumatology of contemporary eucharistic prayers in the Western Christian tradition. More recent considerations of these ancient sources suggest ways to articulate and incorporate a more expansive understanding of the connections between the Holy Spirit and the Eucharist into the euchological repertoire of various ecclesial traditions.

The book by Anne McGowan, which is the Alcuin Club Collection for 2014, is a must-read for anyone with a serious interest in the Eucharist. McGowan investigates and assesses the place of the Holy Spirit in the texts of Eucharistic Prayers, ancient and modern, and she proves herself to be an adept "splitter", as she unravels the evidence and demonstrates the diversity of Eucharistic faith and practice. As McGowan reminds us in a comprehensive and elegantly written introduction to the book, there can be no real worship, let alone prayer, without the presence and in-breathing of the Holy Spirit. The book is divided into two parts. Part 1 marshals research into the epiclesis (the invocation, or calling, of the Spirit), and charts how scholars handled the evidence as the agenda for liturgical revision was beginning to take shape in the Western Churches. Part 2 provides an overview of how the Eucharistic epiclesis was adopted and modified in the framing of Eucharistic Prayers in the latter part of the 20th century. These texts are the assessed in separate chapters on the Roman, Anglican and Protestant ecclesial traditions. McGowan is a sure guide through the scholarly debate on the origins of the invocation of the Spirit in Eucharistic Prayer, and her close reading of liturgical texts leads her to make well-calibrated judgements on the place of the Spirit in the prayer of the Churches of the West. An appeal is made in the conclusion of the volume to refresh and extend how we speak of the Spirit by recovering the metaphors for the Spirit in the Bible and in the writings of Christian spiritual tradition. Due attention is also given to the rich contexts of global Christianity as a register of how we may speak of the Spirit today. More, I think, could have been made here of the transformative effect on those who gather to celebrate the Eucharist in an expectant and receptive way. St John’s Gospel presents the promised Spirit as the medium in which the abiding significance of Christ’s words and deeds becomes present and active. Such making present is at the very heart of what is invoked, celebrated, give, and received in the Eucharist, and that is why worship truly can, and does, change lives. The gift of the Eucharist enables us to become what we are made in baptism, namely, to be Christ in and for the world., An excellent study

Anne McGowan received a Ph.D. in Theology with a concentration in Liturgical Studies from the University of Notre Dame (2011). Her research interests include the textual and dialogical engagement of liturgical matters among various Christian traditions, East and West, ancient and modern. She spent the 2011-2012 academic year as a postdoctoral associate at the Yale Institute of Sacred Music and is currently a postdoctoral teaching scholar at the University of Notre Dame.