The Theological Sense of the Polish Antiphons: The Song and the Hymn from the Mass of the Lord’s Supper

Abstract

The Eucharist, a gift of God’s fatherly love, is the heart of the Church life. It constitutes the most important reality, but also a sacrament of everyday life. Awareness of that great gift leads to a deep need for gaining an insight into the beginnings of the Eucharist—the Mass of the Lord’s Supper. The aim of the present article is to investigate the theological content of the antiphons, the song, and the hymn included in the contemporary Polish Roman Missal. The Author will present a theological analysis of the Polish antiphons, the song, and the hymn from the Mass of the Lord’s Supper in the chronological order of their appearance in the contemporary liturgy. The texts will be subject to historical and linguistic analysis. The texts of the antiphons are rooted in the Bible. For that reason they will be first analyzed from the historical point of view, and then juxtaposed with the version from the Millennium Bible and with the original Greek text, in order to identify differences and analogies between them. Next, the texts will be analyzed from the linguistic and pragmatic perspective. The consideration will end with a short summary of the sources and theological motifs identified in the course of the analysis.