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".
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