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COMMUNION AND COMMUNITY IN THE THEOLOGICAL THINKING OF ODO CASEL
Abstract
The aim of this article is to understand deeper the relationship between the communion with God carried out through the most important Christian celebration, the Eucharist, and the community that celebrates it, the Church, as seen by the Catholic theologian Odo Casel (1886-1948). First we explain why Odo Casel is considered to be the greatest liturgical theologian of the beginning of the 20th century. It was he who found the real and the earliest meaning of terms „mystery” or sacrament and „memorial”, but also their relationship with the Christian ritual of the Eucharist. The mystery is not a truth unreachable by the human mind, but the saving act of God through Jesus Christ. This mystery becomes present during the celebration of the Eucharist. The memorial is the key term to explain the celebration of the Eucharist as the sacrifice of Christ for the redemption of the mankind. The research provides three postulations. The Eucharist ensures the participation of the community to the redemptive act of Christ through the sacramental meeting with the Lord's body and blood, and because of this it enjoys a clear central stand among the Christian rituals. The second thesis explores the social dimension of the Eucharist, owing to the fact that the Eucharist represents and realizes the union of Christ with the Church as well as the union among the members of the Church. The third postulation relates to the Eucharist as the act that edifies and, at the same time, reveals the Church, as the Eucharistic celebration represents the key manifestation of the Church's mystery of communion in diversity. This study reveals the contribution of Odo Casel in understanding the social dimension of the main Christian ritual, the Eucharist. Through the Eucharist, the Christian community becomes a model of assimilating in the community the cultural and social differences of its members. Today's multicultural world is in great need of such models of unity in diversity.
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