For a new hermeneutics of the Eucharist

Abstract

This article presets a new reflection around the Eucharist, according to the thought of Ghislain Lafont. It is a synthesis that precisely thematizes precisely the requirement of a ‘new’ Eucharistic theology. The author identifies the space for a new Eucharistic theology, rescuing the Second Vatican Council and its three constitutions, in a ‘deconstruction’ of classical theology, to free it from a reading very marked by an interpretation of the sacrament of the altar as ‘remedy for sin’. A ‘Eucharist in Paradise’ becomes the provocation and theological challenge for a resystematization of classical knowledge about communion, the sacrament and sacrifice. This should not be lost but can only be preserved at the expense of a deep and enlightening rethought. Ghislain Lafont also used Massimo Recalcati’s text on sacrifice and recovered from it the definition of “symbolic sacrifice” as a notion capable of clarifying the truth of Eucharistic communion, another passage in the “translation of tradition”. Finally he resumes the intuition of a “Eucharist in Paradise” and interprets it as the “hermeneutic key” of the whole history of salvation, to the fullness of Christ and the mission of the Church. Before addressing the study of G. Lafont’s proposal, this article brings the semantic meaning of the Eucharist and also the Eucharistic demands of Jesus with his disciples as the New Covenant and its Memorial. From then on an analysis of Lafont’s “deconstruction” and of his concepts of the Eucharist such as sacrifice, sacrament, communion and spiritual praise are carried out. Based on the concept that the Eucharist is an alliance of love and communion, it concludes with a critical analysis of this new hermeneutic proposal by Ghislain Lafont.