I would like to draw the attention on two points:
1. We would gain a lot if we would give more space to the Eucharistic prayers which are utilized, and they are so many, in the Oriental liturgies, in order to be able to present a comprehensive vision of the theme of the Synod.
2. To shed some light on the conception of Epiclesis in the Syro-Maronite tradition, especially on St. Ephrem.
In this tradition, Consecration and Epiclesis are intimately linked, because they emerge from a global conception of the redeeming economy that has developed, from Creation till the Parousia.
Eucharistic prayers give an important place to the role of the Holy Spirit, who vivifies and deifies, not only the bread and the wine, but also the whole Christian Assembly celebrating the Saint Mysteries.
More precisely, the role of the Spirit in the Eucharistic celebration is linked to His role in the resurrection of Christ. In fact, the altar symbolizes the tomb, the species of the bread and wine, the body and blood of Christ delivered to the cross and buried. In the same way that Christ was resurrected by the force of the Spirit, thus are the species: bread and wine become body and blood of the Risen Christ. The Eucharistic prayer by St. Jacob, IV century, is enlightning enoug on this point.
It is clear that the dynamics of the Epiclesis is not bound by certain limitations; it has a more infinite ecclesial dimension.
St. Ephrem is more explicit when addressing the Church: “... eat the Fire in the bread; drink the Spirit in the blood; dress tourself with the Fire and the Spirit and enter the room of lights”.
Fire and Spirit are associated to the Eucharistic bread and wine because they translate the same pneumatic reality, acting throughout the Bible, especially at the Baptism of Christ, at His Resurrection and at the Pentecost. In the eyes of Ephrem, it is the same “pneuma” that acts also at the level of Christian life, personnel as well as community.
To receive the Spirit in receiving the Eucharistic body of Christ, is to constitute and to edify the Body of Christ, which is the Church, animated by the Spirit. Hence the Eucharist contains, at the same time, Christic, pneumatic and ecclesial dimensions.
Placing the emphasis on the Epiclesis shows that the Church admits pluralism and draws from her tradition, Oriental as well as Western, the richness of her multiform patrimony.
St. Ephrem!!!!!!!!!!