The theological restoration of the signs in the Eucharist

The history of the liturgy informs us that in the course of time the clarity of the signs, especially those that were created and introduced to the liturgy by people, lost their signifi-cance. Therefore on many occasions the Church spared no effort in the restoration of the lit-urgy following the principle that liturgia semper reformanda. The Constitution on the Litur-gy, issued more then 50 years ago, is an expression of such an activity. The considerable time that has passed from the edition of this first conciliar document shows that much work has been achieved in this aspect of education. Both clergy and laity have a deeper understanding of the liturgy and the participation in it through use of the renewed theology of the liturgical signs. Therefore those efforts should be further developed; this paper has been planned as an attempt to enhance the process of theological understanding of the signs applied to the Eucharist. The first part of the paper deals with the problem of the sign-character of the person who celebrates the Eucharist. The second part focuses its attention on the significance of the place of celebration. The final part of the paper studies the theological significance of selected elements of the Mass