Peter Loughran
The Eucharistic Mystery
Essay Paper 1
Too often an interviewer will look solely at a student’s GPA or at the prestige of
their previous internships in determining their potential as a job candidate. However, to
find a better indicator for potential, an interviewer should be analyzing their transcript.
The classes taken, the exact subject, and performance in that class all can make a
dramatic difference. Moreover, a course about liturgical theology can easily be defended
as intellectually stimulating and as a profoundly insightful semester spend at Notre
Dame. There are several intertwined reasons that articulate the fact that studying
liturgical theology is rewarding, such as conceptualizing what liturgical theology is, the
exchange between the love of the Trinity, how liturgy came about, understanding the
importance of worship, and differentiating between thick and thin liturgy. Jean Corbon
presents an accurate distinction between thick and thin liturgy by furthering the
understanding of both. A true understanding of liturgical theology is a necessary building
block for expanding any theological education.
The exchange of love within the Trinity and the outpouring of love are main
concerns of liturgical theology, since liturgy is our participation in this love. Love is
defined as an intense feeling of deep affection, yet this does not suffice Trinitarian love.
The river of love coming forth from the Trinity is infinitely beyond our logic and
rationality (Corbon 31). Although it is beyond of our understanding, man shares a unique
relationship with the Lord. Made in his image, man is the center of the outpouring of the
river of life. However, it is man’s job to receive and react to this incoming flow of love
(Corbon 33). The appropriate response to the agape, the incoming love, is liturgy. Liturgy
is connected to this response through anaphora: the carrying up of our love in reply. The
Lord’s outpouring of love to man is agape, shown in our spiritual and materialistic birth.
Man’s anaphora, offering up, is fulfilled in the Eucharist (Fagerberg 203). The rituals of
liturgy bring man into unity with Christ, through the bread and wine transformed by the
Holy Spirit. Therefore, man is brought into unity with the Trinity as a whole. Moreover,
because of the interaction between man, Christ, the Father, and the Holy Spirit, liturgy is
Trinitarian in nature. By partaking in the liturgy, and therefore Eucharist, man is
celebrating doxology, celebrating the Kingdom of God. The heavenly love transforms
man and man is making the Kingdom of God manifest in his acceptance. As Corbon
articulates, “the Father does not keep this joy for himself when he receives it but causes it
