#epiklesis

[revdrewdowns]

Epiklesis

Epiklesis - Deconstruct Church

The epiklesis is the magic moment of the Great Thanksgiving. It is the great crescendo of the service of Holy Eucharist. It is the “shhh, everybody, shh! Here it is!” moment of the preparation of the table for communion.

The prayer, which begins in a great gathering, tells of the great story, and reminds us of Jesus’s command to his disciples to break bread and remember, drives to a moment, this…

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[ulysseswake]

epiklesis

...As you will see in the first letter in the next section, he found another related word for the stories. He called them "epicleti." This word may refer to an invocation to the Holy Ghost (epiklesis) still used in the Eastern Church but not in Roman Catholic ritual. In this epiklesis, the Holy Ghost is besought to transform the consecrated wafer of bread and the wine into the body and blood of Christ. As Joyce explained to his brother Stanislaus, "there is a certain resemblance between the mystery of the mass and what I am trying to do ... to give people a kind of intellectual pleasure or spiritual enjoyment by converting the bread of everyday life into something that has a permanent artistic life of its own ... for their mental, moral, and spiritual uplift." The word "epicleti" has another related meaning in Greek, which Joyce may have considered. An epiklesis can also refer to a reproach or an imputation. And epikletos can mean "summoned before a court," or "accused." Thus the epicleti may be considered the accused, summoned up by Joyce to stand trial as specimens of Irish paralysis. The two great priestly powers of transubstantiation and judgment of the sinful were both relished by Joyce in bringing these Dubliners before us in their flesh of words.

-from James Joyce’s Dubliners (Text & Criticism), Epiphanies and Eplcletl, Penguin, 1996.