James
Chukwuma Okoye, CSSP
The
Eucharist in African Perspective*
In
this article, Nigerian James Chukwuma Okoye explores the idea
of an inculturated African Eucharist. After a discussion of the
possibility of a truly African Eucharist according to Catholic
teaching, Okoye outlines several elements that would need to
be present in any Eucharist that would claim to be authentically
African: it would be a sacrifice that would maintain the "ontological
balance" between God and human beings; it would be richly
communal in nature; it would function as an access to mystical
power; it would have a healing role in the community; it would
be a liturgy that would be celebrated in word, song, body movements
and dance. Okoye then briefly discusses the Zairean rite of Eucharist
as a concrete example of a eucharistic celebration that is rooted
both in the Roman Rite as well as in local, African traditions
Introduction
The
title of this article makes assertions which have not always gained
the assent of all. One is that any matter of faith (here the Eucharist)
can be understood and expressed differently across time and across
cultures. Another is that an African way of looking at things exists.
The first raises the question of the unity of faith in the diversity
of expressions; the second that of the unity of humanity in the
diversity of cultures. I here take up reflections begun in a paper
in 1992 entitled, "The Eucharist and African Culture" (Okoye
1992).
Questions
of Culture
Are
Africans really so different from others? Are there characteristic
traits which distinguish them from all others? Not long ago a missionary
in Africa had this to say:
in
an age of rapid translation, the mass diffusion of new books .
. . it would be as bizarre to expect the growth of a characteristic
African liturgy or theology as to expect the growth of English
ones (Hastings 1967: 31).
The "bizarre" is
actually in progress: elements of an African liturgy and theology
are in process. Some doubters point to the increasing impact of
globalization and internet culture: a global culture, it is affirmed,
is not only setting the pace but is actually in the process of
assimilating all cultures to that of Europe and the United States
of America. Any programs based on a supposed African culture would
be labor lost; what is more, it would be working against the insurmountable
currents of civilization. It would be like returning Africa to
the Dark Ages and snuffing out the light brought by colonization.
What
is culture, and how resilient can it be in the face of the onslaught
of "modernity"? Culture is not a reality on the ground:
it is in the mind. It is constituted by lines of demarcation that
the mind draws between peoples and groups. The mind may see all
persons as similar (over against animals for instance); it then
includes all persons in a species called humanity. When the mind
chooses to concentrate on what is proper to each, it discovers
not humanity but individuals, no two of whom on earth are ever
the same. All human persons are thus somewhat similar and somewhat
different. The mind may draw a line across peoples and discover
Americans. Americans drink coffee, the British drink tea; Americans
are warm, the British are cold. Americans play baseball and basketball,
the British play cricket and soccer. Advertisers know how to exploit
cultural sensitivities. Mazola oil is advertised in Britain as
healthy, in America as full of flavour.
When
the mind looks closer at Americans it finds Amerindians, African
Americans, Anglo Americans, Hispanic Americans and others.
It is the same with Africa. Depending on how the mind draws the
line it will discover an African culture or African cultures Bantu
culture, HamitoIslamic culture, Negroid culture and so on. What
the mind attends to are worldviews and spontaneous explanations
of reality, characteristic behaviors and institutions, elements
of history and tradition, characteristic differences in material
culture. All derive not from nature, but from nurture: culture
is learned through socialization. An example from the socialization
of children may help make the point. In the United States a parent
would say to a child, "look me in the eye and tell me what
happened". To avoid the parent's gaze would be to be caught
in a lie. In most of Africa children do not fix their eyes on parents,
nor young persons on elders; that would be gross disrespect, even
challenge to authority. But an African born and bred in the United
States would probably be socialized to look everyone in the eye,
including elders. Traits taken in isolation do not make a culture;
they must be viewed in concert with other traits and in context.
Are
human beings then imprisoned in culture? How is understanding and
communion between individuals and cultures possible? Difference
is never absolute; there is always an element of sameness. Further,
all share the same human quests of happiness, success, communion;
all are affected by the same vital passions of joy and sadness,
fear and hope. The configurations of these differ, however.
The
presence of a trait in a culture does not mean that every person
in that culture shares the trait. Some Americans actually prefer
soccer to baseball or American football! The line of culture is
the trend set by the dominant majority.
Culture
is not static: Americans have continued to change since 1776. But
just as a person retains identity while going through the life
cycle, so culture retains a certain homogeneity through all its
changes, unless it is violently altered, for example, through conquest,
exile.
There
are three levels of culture: material culture, institutions of
society, and worldview. Material culture house, furniture,
food, appliances is easily adaptable. Arab bedouins have integrated
cell phones and computers into their desert tent lifestyle! Old
habits are given up, new habits and skills are learned, but culture
stretches itself to integrate these. Societal institutions are more
resilient; for example, marriage and family mores, traditions of
sickness and death. The constitution of the United States is one
institution which is very significant for American culture; "amendments" keep
it in line with changes in society. The worldview, which
enshrines models of how the universe works, is at the deepest level
of culture and is least amenable to change. An element of the American
worldview is that all human persons are born equal and are subject
to equal treatment. Another is that the individual is paramount.
As
regards Africa, the seedbed of culture is village life. The African
is fully a person in his/her village life. "Man is man in
his village life … security, unconditional readiness to
share, complete surrender of individuation" (Taylor 1963:
86). Even with the advent of urbanization, "home" is
still the village. Some vital areas of life, like marriage and
death, are governed by the customs and mores of the village. Rural
populations still predominate in Africa: Malawi and Rwanda are
90% rural, Burundi is 95% and Tanzania 96% (Spearhead, 1984).
Africans bring the village to the city; they live in the city from
the worldviews of the village. There is western medicine and traditional
medicine. There is divination even in the cities. In the 1970s
Dar es Salaam had seven hundred full time diviners
who were consulted daily by ten thousand people; more than half
of these clients were worried about witchcraft (Shorter 1973: 41).
In the city Africans create associations of people from the same
home area for purposes of solidarity. That way they impose village
values upon urban culture. The African worldview may even enlist
aspects of Christianity and modernity! An example is how
some African Initiative Churches have pressed the biblical psalms
into service as alternatives for traditional charms. They group
the psalms into protective, therapeutic and success psalms. For
protection against fire disasters, soldiers, police officers and
fire fighters read Psalm 60 with the name Jah; Psalm 35 defeats
the evil plans of enemies, especially witches and evil men, when
read in conjunction with other prayers between midnight and 3 AM
in the open air while the reader is naked; for success in examinations
choose Psalm 4 (Adamo 1999: 75, 76, 82).
There
is no doubt that a global culture is being disseminated through
western education, urbanization, the mass media, and especially
the internet. The fact is, however, that some elements of this
global culture are reinterpreted by the local culture: instead of a
reduction into one, wI1at results are plural modernities colored
by the various cultures (Schreiter 1997: 10 11). In some places
local cultures have protected their values by regression to nativism.
Indeed even in the First World itself, the globalizing process
seems to have induced a search for identity through the revival
or accentuation of cultural traits. The outflow of modernization
curves back upon the West, creating multicultural societies in
previously monocultural situations (Ibid. 13).
Culture
and the Unity of Faith
There
have always been diverse ways of celebrating the Eucharist; rather
than hinder the unity of faith they give it vitality. Gregory the
Great (540 604) declared: “in una fide, nil officit
consuetudo diversa" (in the one faith there is
no harm in diverse custom). Various Rites developed in the ancient
patriarchates between the fourth and sixth centuries. The Roman
Rite is only one among many rites, and is itself a particular example
of inculturation. Others are the East Syrian and West Syrian (Jacobite,
Maronite, Byzantine and Armenian), and the Alexandrian Rites (Coptic
and Ethiopic). The Liturgy Constitution of Vatican II declared
that:
in
faithful obedience to tradition, … holy mother church holds
all lawfully acknowledged rites to be of equal authority and dignity;
that she wishes to preserve them in future and to foster them in
every way (SC, 4).
In
itself nothing prevents the emergence of an African Rite or even
of other rites. There is the Coptic Rite in Egypt, the Ethiopic
in Ethiopia and Eritrea. The Roman Rite came to the rest of Africa
with the missionaries who established their own way of worship
in what was then called the "missions." The church has
always accepted that the Roman Rite may need adaptations in order
to suit the genius of various peoples. At the Second Vatican Council
the church declared:
even
in the liturgy, the church has no wish to impose a rigid uniformity
in matters which do not involve the faith or the good of the whole
community. Rather she respects and fosters the spiritual adornments
and gifts of the various races and peoples (SC, 37).
On
the first visit of any pope to Africa in 1969, Paul VI gave the
go ahead to the emerging project of an African liturgy and
theology when he declared at Kampala:
The
expression, that is, the language and the mode of manifesting the
one faith, may be manifold . . . . From this point of view a certain
pluralism is not only legitimate but desirable. An adaptation of
the Christian life in the fields of pastoral, ritual, didactic
and spiritual activities is not only possible, it is even favored
by the church. The liturgical renewal is a living example of this.
And in this sense you may, and you must, have an African Christianity
(Paul VI, 1969).
In
1994, the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of
the Sacraments issued guidelines for the adaptation of liturgy
in a document, called The Roman Liturgy and Inculturation. It
states that the aim of adaptation is in order that "the liturgy
of the church must not be foreign to any country, people or individual,
and at the same time it should transcend the particularity of race
and nation" (Vatican 1994: # 18). Paragraph 40 of the SC states
that "in some places and circumstances . . . an even more
radical adaptation of the liturgy is needed, while the above mentioned
document on the Roman liturgy and inculturation emphasizes that "adaptations
of this kind do not envisage a transformation of the Roman Rite,
but are made within the context of the Roman Rite" (Vatican
1994: #63).
The
door is left open, however, for proposing "innovations" to
the Holy See after an Episcopal Conference has exhausted all the
possibilities of adaptation in the liturgical books and evaluated
these adaptations.
Elements
of Inculturation
Inculturation
is genuine when texts and rites are so inserted into culture that
they absorb its thought, language and ritual patterns; liturgical
celebrations thus become cultural events. Neither liturgy, nor
culture, is to impose alien meanings and patterns on the other
(Chupungco, 1989: 29). There was a feeling among some missionaries
that African culture had nothing to offer the faith. The contrary
is the case. Actually traditional religion has been a force in
the spread of Christianity; the core values of African religious
culture are at bottom Christian. J. V. Taylor wrote that "the
Christian understanding of man has far more in common with the
solidarities of Africa than with the individualism of the western
world" (Taylor 1963: 109). Furthermore, this religious culture
continues to be the underlying support and term of reference for
many African Christians.
Adaptation
must respect certain principles of liturgy. Chupungco distinguishes
the theological content from the liturgical form. The
Eucharist is a sacrifice, but not every model of sacrifice is suitable
for structuring it: the theological content of the Eucharist is
that of Christ's paschal sacrifice, its liturgical form is that
of a meal. Hence any adaptation of the Eucharist must have the
recognizable form and structure of a meal. The Eucharist is essentially
a prayer of praise (Eucharistein in Greek means to give
thanks) over bread and wine, resembling the Jewish blessing (berakah), said
over meals and especially over the Passover meal (Emminghaus, 1978:
20 23).
Jesus
reinterpreted its meaning to refer to the liberation to be given
in his death and resurrection. "Sacrifice" must be understood
in a Christian manner as "a person's total self surrender
to God represented in an exterior gift offering" (Jungmann,
1978: 99). With the words at the last supper Jesus laid down his
life and announced his future sacrificial death; in the Eucharist,
Christ re presents this offering, drawing the faithful into
his one self offering. No church is free to use whatever symbols
it likes; the symbols must relate to those arising from the very
ministry of Christ. Hence the symbols of bread and wine in the
Eucharist and the form of words said by Jesus at the last supper
are irreplaceable. The Eucharist involves a meal in which eating
is symbolic and sacramental (Emminghaus, 1978: 23).
Some
theologians have argued that bread and wine simply mean "food
and drink," and should be able to vary in different cultures.
Jesus used the elements of food and drink available in his culture;
the sacramental sign is not seen to inhere in the particular form
of food and drink. In fact, it is questioned whether he actually
used wheaten bread. Passover was the time of the barley
harvest; the harvest of wheat did not usually come till about Pentecost.
Traditional practice in the church has been to use wheaten bread
and wine from grapes. Such materials native to the Mediterranean
area cannot grow in many parts of the world. These theologians
are seeking a way to make what the African eats "proximate
matter" of the Eucharist (Okolo, 1978: 135; see also Uzukwu,
1980). Bishop Dupont of Pala (Chad) experimented with millet bread
and wine between 1973 and 1975 before Rome stopped the experiment.
But in a similar case there has been some change. Until 1971 the
oil for consecration on Holy Thursday (used in baptism, confirmation,
ordination and anointing of the sick) had to be olive oil;
since then other oils have been allowed.
Elements
of a Truly African Eucharist
In
the African worldview sacrifice maintains an "ontological
balance" between God and people, spirits and people, the departed
and the living, which when upset leads to misfortune, sufferings
and fear (Mbiti, 1969: 59). Africans are always conscious of their
interaction with the invisible world. The standard interpretation
of misfortune as given by diviners is some perturbation of the
relationship with the unseen world of spirits and the "living
dead." Africans understand the language of symbols and invest
them with meaning. Africans share a unitary vision of life in which
nature, humankind and the invisible world are linked in ongoing
communion. An African Eucharist would need to strongly symbolize
the active presence of God and of his Christ in the assembly.
The
African is a communal being; his very identity is defined by multiple
solidarities: "I am because we are, and since we are, therefore
I am" (Ibid.: 108). A celebration is a communal event; it
both expresses and builds up the community. There is no room for
a Eucharist where everyone is saying his or her rosary, nor where
each one worships on his/her own without concern for the needs
of the brother or sister. In Africa, the Eucharistic presence of
Christ in the species must relate to the assembly itself as a symbol
of Christ's Eucharistic presence (Empereur, 1987: 44). As the bishops
of Zaire (now Democratic Republic of the Congo) wrote, the Eucharist
is a meeting with God and with one's brothers and sisters, allowing
a new manner of conceiving the presence of God: in the fraternity
among the faithful and their engagement in the world (Zaire, 1989a:
5) Communal celebration in union with God and with one another
should be enhanced by the design of the church building. Such design
should enhance communion with the Invisible and promote communal
participation. Most African shrines are semi circular in shape
and even in a forest grove the offerers so sit as to form a semi circle.
An
African Eucharist could learn from the place of sacrificial meals
in Africa, as illustrated from the sharing of the sacrificed bull
among the Dinka of the Sudan. The bull represents the community
in its various parts and its mutual obligations. The people are
put together as a bull is put together. The various parts of the
bull will revert to different sections of the community. Bringing
the bull into the sphere of the invisible also binds them among
themselves and with the living dead and the spirit world (Taylor
1963: 100 101). Where there has been hurt between people or
the invisible beings have been offended, reconciliation must precede
the sacrifice or is effected in the sacrifice itself. Sacrifice
embodies the entire life of the community which it brings into
the sphere and sanction of the invisible world. "For the African," writes
Peter Sarpong, "life is one integral whole. There is an inseparable
link between politics, economics, spirituality, morality and indeed
every other aspect of life . . . . The African culture is a religious
culture" (Sarpong, 1986: 4).
The
African believes m mystical power. The universe is run or invisible
mystical forces and powers. Some people — spirits, medicine
men, witches, rain makers, priests — know how to access and
control these powers (Mbiti, 1975: 165). In March 1968 five rain
makers were jailed in Tanzania for causing too much rain (Mbiti,
1969: 180).
Disease
in Africa is a religious matter; medicine is both physical and
mystical (Ibid., 134, 170). "Guérir c'est
retrouver l'harmonie perdue" (to be healed is to recover
lost harmony) (de Rosny 1992: 129 130). Religious celebrations
mediate harmony between people, and between them and the invisible
powers. In this sense, the Eucharist must enhance the healing of
individuals and of the community.
Salvation
is not ethereal but concerns the human person in his/her total
context. It is bodily and spiritual, social and psychological.
The African does not wait for salvation after death; it must be
evident even now in the circumstances of life. Hence, salvation
is deliverance from the power of evil principalities and enclaves
of human enemies, from ill health and misfortunes of life. It is
wholeness and peace, the complete person in unity with God (Mbiti,
1986: 152). The blood of Christ did not just save me on the cross,
it continues to protect and save me now.
Worship
is expressed in word, song, body movements and dance; whole person
worships. Colors speak: red for funerals among the Ashanti (Ghana).
For certain rites the Igbo (East Nigeria) smeared themselves from
head to toe with charcoal on the left side and white chalk on the
right. This indicated a liminal state between human and divine
worlds.
The
Roman liturgy glories in rational symmetry; it appeals to the intellect.
It eschews repetition. Africa is an oral culture which uses words
for communicating feeling and beauty; repetition sustains and strengthens
feelings. The Roman liturgy privileges doctrine; Africa privileges
experience. Africans wish to experience God and God's power much
more than to know God. The purpose of the homily of course is instruction,
but much more does it play a vital role in bringing the African
to the experience of the mystery. The complaint has become general
that the training of the African clergy does not equip many of
them with the skills for leading the community's prayer and delivering
homilies that arouse and carry the experience of the congregation.
A truly African Eucharist cannot dispense with such "masters
of initiation" into the experience, and this may call for
changes in the recruitment and training of ministers.
The
Eucharist in African Perspective
An
African Eucharist would incorporate most of the above values within
the celebration. It would use African symbols and ways of worship
to draw Africans more fully into the self giving of Christ
to the Father and to his community. It would promote the solidarity
of brothers and sisters in the one faith. It would unite their
social and political living with the exigencies of their spiritual
lives. Of course the Eucharist is not everything and must not become
a panacea. Yet as a privileged moment of the life of the community
it both expresses and builds the church, and thus impacts every
aspect of the life of the community.
Efforts
at inculturating the Eucharist are going on in various parts of
Africa. The video cassette, The Dancing Church (Kane, 1991),
gives slices of celebrations in Zambia and Zaire, Cameroon and
Ashanti (Ghana). The Ndzon Melen Mass at St Paul's, Yaounde
(Cameroon) is modeled on a reconciliation assembly in which questions
are resolved and a common meal is partaken (See Abega 1978a and
1978b). In what follows I would like to concentrate on the Zairean
Eucharist (Zaire 1989b; Mpongo 1978; Uzukwu 1985).
The
project of the Zairean Mass was begun in 1969 and presented to
Rome on 4 December 1973 as The Zairean Rite of Eucharistic Celebration; it
was approved by the Congregation for Divine Worship on April 30,
1988 as the Roman Missal for the Dioceses of Zaire. Such
a designation assured both its being within the Roman Rite and
restricted in use to Zaire. Its influence has, however, spread;
the opening Mass of the African Synod in Rome in April 1994 was
an adaptation of it. The model is that of Palabre africaine (African
palaver) in which listening and talking leads to reconciliation
and communion. The priest is dressed in the robes and insignia
of a chief. All servers are adult (male and female) and carry spears
(the traditional guard of a chief). It is important to mention
that the office of a chief in the tradition was not merely political;
it was also spiritual and mystical. A role is created for an announcer,
as at public functions. The celebrant with the servers dance in
and circle the altar, which is venerated on all four sides by the
priest with arms outstretched in a V-form. There is then the invocation
of the saints and ancestors, who are ever present and guarantee
family and community functions. The penitential rite is transferred
until after the homily and creed (head slightly bowed, arms on
chest). The congregation is sprinkled with holy water and peace
is exchanged. During the General Intercessions a pot of incense
is left burning. At the offertory representatives of the community
dance in the gifts for the needy, saying:
"priest
of God, here is our offering, may it be a true sign of our unity".
For
the bread and wine, they say:
"O
priest of God, here is bread, here is wine, gifts of God, fruits
of the earth; they are also the work of man. May they become food
and drink for the kingdom of God".
People
echo and accompany the prayers by the priest with short responses;
all raise hands with the priest at prayers. The congregation sits
at the gospel. The Eucharistic prayer adapts the second Roman Eucharistic
Prayer punctuated by responses of the congregation, for example,
after the prayer for the dead, the response is "Seigneur,
souviens toi d'eux tous" (Lord, remember them all).
Until
He Comes Again
The
above adaptations achieve conscious and full participation of all
present. However, sometimes the focus may be so much on human confection
that the invisible ministry of the Risen Christ may take a back
seat. The effectiveness of traditional worship did not come from
human confection, but from the gods who were acknowledged as present
and active.
Some
experience tension between, on the one hand, the sacrament as means
of grace for the individual and his/her worship of God, and on
the other hand, the communal dimension of the Eucharist. Have I
come to worship and adore God or to express solidarity with my
fellows? Do we have an altar or a table? In fact some accuse the
present order of the Eucharist of reducing the altar of sacrifice
to a table for a meal. They approach the presence of Christ in
the Eucharistic species with adoration and dread, but ignore his
equal presence in the Eucharistic assembly of the faithful. In
a village in Nigeria, there was a chieftaincy dispute in a community,
such that all relationship between the two sides in quarrel was
banned. They did not buy from or sell to each other, nor would
they ever eat together. Yet all came to church on Sundays, occupying
different sides of the church. From its own angle each group went
to "communion" and returned without ever having to meet
the other group. There was not only no will for reconciliation
but threats of violence, even in church! Each went to feed his/her
soul oblivious of the traditional injunction to harmony. In traditional
religion what they were doing would be an abomination! Didache 14:2
says, "let no one who has a quarrel with his neighbor join
you until he is reconciled, lest your sacrifice be defiled".
The
Eucharist in Africa has yet to impact Africa's divisions along
language and culture lines. The Eucharistic assembly is in fact
meant to be the communion of all peoples and classes; the Eucharist
unites, it should never divide.
The
demand to have Eucharist in one's vernacular is legitimate, but
this should never be done without regard for the rights of others,
and definitely must never lead to discrimination.
Finally,
many of Africa's ills are certainly caused by the world economic
order. Yet Africans are not guiltless; there are more wars and
displacements of population in Africa than anywhere else, even
in some very Catholic nations. Major wars are in progress in Angola,
Mozambique, Ethiopia and Eritrea, the Sudan, Liberia; serious conflicts
are continuing in Namibia, Zaire, Chad, Somalia, Algeria, Rwanda.
Perhaps things will really change when the Eucharist becomes an
instrument of unity, according to the prayer in Didache 9:4: "as
this broken bread was scattered on the mountains, but brought together
was made one, so gather your church from the ends of the earth
into your kingdom".
Notes
*James
Chukwuma Okoye, CSSP, is Associate Professor of Old Testament
at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, Illinois, USA. He has
served as provincial of his congregation in Nigeria, as a member
of the Spiritan General Council in Rome, and as a peritus at
the 1994 African Synod. This article was originally given
as a paper at St. Lambert Parish, Chicago, IL, on May 4, 2000.
Address: 5401 S. Cornell Avenue, Chicago, IL 60615 USA.
E mail:
chukwuma@ctu.edu.
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Conférence Episcopate du Zaire. Missel Romain pour
les Diocese du Zaire. Kinshasa / Gombe: Editions du Sécrétariat
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