A STUDY OF THE EUCHARISTIC TEXTS OF TEILHARD DE CHARDIN

This dissertation studies Teilhard de Chardin\u27s notion of the Eucharist. The chief method for the study is the phenomenological method, in which the texts are analyzed and interpreted to see the Divinity which shows itself in religious experience. The texts considered are: Christ in the World of Matter: Three Stories in the Style of Benson (1916), The Mass on the World (1923), The Divine Milieu (1927), and The Christic (1955). In the study, Teilhard\u27s years of formal theological training at Ore Place, in Hastings, England, are surveyed with a view to the quality and type of training he had received. The main issues in theological inquiry are suggested: the development of dogma, the reaction to the Modernist crisis, faith, and the Mystical Body of Christ. This study contends that Teilhard clarified his own vision through discussion of theological issues during this period of study. The first two of Teilhard\u27s texts: Christ in the World of Matter and The Mass on the World, were accounts of his own religious experience. These are analyzed and interpreted. The Divine Milieu and The Christic are presented as expressions of Teilhard\u27s convictions concerning the Eucharist. Johannine, Pauline, and Patristic themes which subtended Teilhard\u27s Eucharist are noted and explained with reference to his Eucharistic notion. The study concludes that the Eucharist in Teilhard de Chardin functioned as archetype of the process of universal transformation and completion in the Body of Christ