Re-Receiving Catholic Eucharistic Theology from the Hymns of John and Charles Wesley

AbstractThis chapter explores the rich parallels between the Catholic philosopher P.J. FitzPatrick’s In Breaking of Bread and the understanding of Eucharist to be found in the eucharistic hymns of John and Charles Wesley. Like FitzPatrick, the Wesleys had serious concerns about the language of transubstantiation but are no less firm in upholding a doctrine of ‘real presence’. FitzPatrick challenges the ‘dark distortion’ of the Catholic language and celebration of the eucharist as it has developed in the later scholasticism of the second millennium with a devastating criticism. He offers an alternative approach to the eucharist by way of ritual and suggesting an encounter with Christ’s presence not specifically in the eucharistic elements but in the whole liturgical action. The Wesley brothers’ remarkable and moving hymns allow us to go rather further than FitzPatrick’s study in exploring positively the layers of meaning and resonance acted out in the eucharistic celebration.