Community, Eucharist, and Spirituality

There can be no discussion of Eucharistic spirituality unless there is first of all, a Eucharistic celebration. Both the spirituality and the celebration, however, are unintelligible unless both exist within the reality of a Christian community. Major questions arise regarding the kind of community needed to ground both the celebration of Eucharist and the development of a Eucharistic spirituality. Through historic observation, Osborne challenges modern assumptions about Eucharistic spirituality. His assessment provides a healthy direction to the emerging 21st century understanding of the Eucharist. This book is based on the author's 2005 lecture at The Catholic Church in the 21st Century symposium held in Kansas City, MO.