A New Sacramental Theology for e-Eucharist?

Abstract

During the 2020–21 COVID-19 crisis, participation in the eucharist was largely reduced to watching a service on television or online. This article focuses on whether such a form of participation in the eucharist – perhaps enhanced by taking some bread and wine individually in front of the screen – could be called sacramental participation from the point of view of a (broadly Catholic) systematic sacramental theology. I argue that a spiritual form of real presence is possible by virtue of Christ’s omnipresence, but that sacramental presence is inevitably dependent on embodiment and locality.

Keywords

• online worship, sacramental theology, eucharist, incarnation, embodiment, local church