¹ Taille, Maurice de la, Mysterium Fidei: de augustissimo corporis et sanguinis Christi sacrificio atque sacramento, Elucidationes L in tres libros distinctae (Paris: Beauchesne, 1921, 1924, 1931)Google Scholar.

² Taille, Maurice de la, The Mystery of Faith and Human Opinion Contrasted and Defined (London: Sheed & Ward, 1930), 321Google Scholar.

³ D'Alès, Adhémar, ‘Mysterium Fidei’, Récherches de science réligieuse 22 (1932), 594Google Scholar.

⁴ Edward Kilmartin's comprehensive The Eucharist in the West (Liturgical Press, 1998)Google Scholar does not acknowledge de la Taille's contribution to eucharistic theology. Robert Daly, in his last testament to a lifetime's study of sacrifice, Sacrifice Unveiled (T&T Clark, 2009)Google Scholar, does not grant a footnote to Mysterium Fidei when treating modern theories of eucharistic sacrifice. James T. O'Connor, by contrast, does give a few brief pages to de la Taille in his The Hidden Manna: A Theology of the Eucharist (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1988)Google Scholar, but without accurately assessing de la Taille's teaching and significance (238–240). One happy exception to this oversight is a recent piece by David Fagerberg, “Divine Liturgy, Divine Love” (Letter & Spirit, Vol. 3, 2007, 95–112), where he retrieves de la Taille's thought in the course of connecting eucharistic sacrifice and divinization. Interestingly, de la Taille fairs slightly better in British and Italian works of historical and eucharistic theology; but because this attention is curtailed, it unfortunately often misleads. See, for example, Giraudo, C. S.J., Eucaristia per la chiesa: prospettive teologiche sull'eucaristia a partire dalla “lex orandi” (Morcelliana: Gregorian University Press, 1989)Google Scholar; Nichols, Aidan O.P., The Holy Eucharist: From the New Testament to Pope John Paul II (Dublin: Veritas, 1991)Google Scholar.

⁵ The accusation of heresy referred to view that de la Taille's thought flagrantly denied the Council of Trent's teaching on eucharistic sacrifice (Session 22).

⁶ The Dominican Vincent McNabb was probably de la Taille's most unrelenting critic. See the following articles for a sampling of his objections: McNabb, V., “A New Theory of the Eucharistic Sacrifice,” Blackfriars 4 (1923): 1086–1100CrossRefGoogle Scholar; “A New Theory of the Sacrifice of the Mass,” Irish Ecclesiastical Review 23 (1924): 561–73Google Scholar. See also Forrest, M., The Clean Oblation (St. Paul: Radio Replies Press, 1945)Google Scholar, whose entire work is a tirade against de la Taille's Mysterium Fidei.

⁷ Wengier's, F. Eucharist-Sacrifice (Milwaukee: Bruce Publishing Co., 1955)Google Scholar for a sampling of mid-twentieth-century manuals that badly misconstrue de la Taille's theory of sacrifice.

⁸ Taille, Maurice de la, The Mystery of Faith: Regarding the Most August Sacrament and Sacrifice of the Body and Blood of Christ, Book I: The Sacrifice of Our Lord (New York: Sheed & Ward, 1940)Google Scholar; The Mystery of Faith: Regarding the Most August Sacrament and Sacrifice of the Body and Blood of Christ, Book II: The Sacrifice of the Church (New York: Sheed & Ward, 1950)Google Scholar.

⁹ Emilio Doronzo, O.M.I., “On the Essence of the Sacrifice of the Mass.” The Catholic Theological Society of America: Proceedings of the Seventh Annual Convention (June 1955): 53–82.

¹⁰ I am thinking, for example, of theologians like Robert Daly (Sacrifice Unveiled), Louis-Marie Chauvet (Symbol and Sacrament (Collegeville: The Liturgical Press, 1995)), and Seasoltz, Kevin, (God's Gift-Giving: In Christ and Through the Spirit (New York: Continuum Books, 2007)Google Scholar), all of whom admit to being influenced by the thought of Réne Girard. A recent exception must be noted: Matthew Levering's book Sacrifice and Community (London: Blackwell, 2005)Google Scholar studies eucharistic sacrifice in the light of Hebrew sacrifice, suggesting that the sacrifice of the Mass achieves the end desired by the sacrifices of Israel, namely, perfect union with God. Levering's book, which relies upon Thomas's understanding of the Eucharist, marks a step towards the regeneration of the notion of sacrifice in eucharistic theology.

¹¹ See Daly, Robert, “Robert Bellarmine and Post-Tridentine Eucharistic Theology,” in Theological Studies 61 (2000): 239–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹² Louis-Marie Chauvet, Symbol and Sacrament, see especially, 260; also 240–244; 248–249; 256–260; 298–299; 310–311 et passim.

¹³ See, for example, the recent collection of scholarly essays in Ressourcement: A Movement for Renewal in Twentieth-Century Catholic Thought, eds. Flynn, Gabriel and Murray, Paul D (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012)Google Scholar; Boersma, Hans, Nouvelle Théologie and Sacramental Ontology: A Return to Mystery, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and, Mettepennigen, Jürgen, Nouvelle Théologie New Theology: Inheritor of Modernism, Precursor of Vatican II (London: T & T Clark International, 2010)Google Scholar.

¹⁴ Leeming, Bernard, “A Master Theologian: Father Maurice de la Taille,’’ The Month 163 (1934), 38Google Scholar.

¹⁵ Ibid., 39.

¹⁶ Nichols, Aidan O.P., “Thomism and the Nouvelle Théologie,” The Thomist 64 (2000): 7–11CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Nichols speculates that the phrase “the new theology” was likely “fed” to Pope Pius XII by Garrigou-Lagrange. In any case, Garrigou-Lagrange's Angelicum article, “La nouvelle théologie, où va-t-elle?” (1946: 126–45), determined its negative associations, at least until the far side of Vatican II.

¹⁷ In 1907, for instance, de la Taille was invited by the Catholic Faculties of the West to give an opening lecture in support of Pascendi gregis, a lecture at which there would have been a number of bishops and other dignitaries. In regard to the political situation of the Church in France, in 1907–1908 de la Taille wrote several essays advocating the formation of a Catholic political party. These writings about religious liberty were collected and published as a book, En face du pouvoir (Tours: Alfred Cattier, 1910)Google Scholar. When Pius XI later denounced the Action Française movement and its journal, de la Taille willingly withdrew his support from the Catholic politics in France.

¹⁸ There is, nonetheless, the occasional footnote excoriating Loisy's view of the Eucharist.

¹⁹ Taille, M. de la, The Mystery of Faith: Regarding the Most August Sacrament and Sacrifice of the Body and Blood of Christ, Book I: The Sacrifice of Our Lord. New York: Sheed & Ward, 1940, viiiGoogle Scholar.

²⁰ Like many of the “new theologians,” de la Taille would spend much time and energy responding to those critics who claimed that his theory of sacrifice was new, and a departure from tradition. See, among others, Swaby, Alfred O.P., “A New Theory of the Eucharistic Sacrifice,” American Ecclesiastical Review 69 (Nov. 1923): 460–473Google Scholar, and McNabb, Vincent, “A New Theory of the Sacrifice of the Mass,” Irish Ecclesiastical Record 23 (1924): 561–573Google Scholar.

²¹ “Preface,” viii.

²² De la Taille refers to Scheeben's seven-volume Handbuch der katholischen Dogmatik (1873–1887) with obvious appreciation in Mysterium Fidei (see, for example, 156n3, 179n4, 265n3). Apart from a shared interest in Eastern theologians, de la Taille seems also to have been attracted to Scheeben's sense of theology as an organic knowledge directed to the spiritual life of humans, and to Scheeben's focus on Uncreated grace and God's indwelling. De la Taille no doubt sympathized with the mystical temperament of this great German theologian.

²³ “Preface,” ix. De la Taille's the voluminous and web-like structure of Mysterium Fidei bears clear witness to this definition!

²⁴ Ibid.

²⁵ This project is much more evident in Daniélou than with de Lubac. See Nichols’ discussion in “Thomism and the Nouvelle Théologie,” 4–6.

²⁶ Chenu, , “Position de la théologie,” Revue des sciences philosophiques et théologiques 24 (1935): 232–57Google Scholar; and Une école de théologie: Le Saulchoir (Kain-Les-Tournai, 1937)Google Scholar. The question of the theological endeavor as a science would remain central to Chenu later in his life; see, for example, La Théologie est-elle une science? (Paris: Librairie Arthème Fayard, 1957)Google Scholar.

²⁷ See also Jürgen Mettepennigen's analysis of Congar's significant programmatic piece, “Déficit de la théologie” (published in the French Catholic newspaper Sept, 18 January, 1935), in Nouvelle Théologie New Theology: Inheritor of Modernism, Precursor of Vatican II, 43–44. I shall be focusing here on the connections between Chenu and de la Taille, though many of the same concepts appear in Congar's writing in the mid-1930s.

²⁸ Chenu, Une école, 39.

²⁹ Ibid.

³⁰ Chenu, “Position de la théologie,” 231–236, 242.

³¹ “Position de la théologie,” 235.

³² Ibid, 232–233; see also, Une école de théologie, 51.

³³ “Position de la théologie,” 239.

³⁴ Chenu, Une école de théologie, 73.

³⁵ Ibid., 71: “…l'une purement intellectualiste et scolastique, hérissée de formules que la vie religieuse peut parfaitement ignorer; l'autre positive et mystique où les besoins surnaturels, travaillant sur les données révélées authentiquement reconnues grâce à la théologie positive, construiraient un dogmatism enfin religieux, une sorte de théologie mystique qui n'aurait à tenir compte en aucune façon de la théologie scolastique.”

³⁶ “Position de la théologie,” 233.

³⁷ Ibid., 238.

³⁸ Chenu, Une école de théologie, 75.

³⁹ See Chenu's discussion in Une école de théologie, 54–56, 71ff.

⁴⁰ Mysterium Fidei witnesses to—indeed, advocates for—several concerns linked with early project of liturgical renewal: e.g., an attentiveness to liturgical prayer texts, the renewal of a biblical fluency along with the retrieval of patristic sources; the desire for fuller lay participation in the offering of the sacrifice and in the reception of communion; and, the deepening of liturgical prayer and spiritual practices tout court. The dedication of his tome to Pope Pius X bespeaks his affection for this pope's promotion of the Eucharist in the life of believers.

⁴¹ Rahner, Karl, “The Prospects for Dogmatic Theology,” in Theological Investigations (Baltimore: Helicon Press, 1965), 1:9–10Google Scholar.

⁴² “If I were asked which theological work written in Latin within the past generation ought to have been read by every theologian in the field of the new and actively researching theology, then I know of only one really indisputable example, viz. Mysterium fidei by M. de la Taille.” K. Rahner, “Latin as a Church Language,” Theological Investigations Vol. V, 397.

⁴³ In foregrounding the oblative element of sacrifice, de la Taille was picking up the threads of an earlier, seventeenth-century “French School” (P. de Bérulle, Charles de Condren, J.J. Olier) reaction to the oppressive focus on immolation. De la Taille, however, was the first to provide a full, systematic and historical defence of this approach to eucharistic sacrifice. See C. Giraudo, S.J., Eucaristia per la chiesa:prospettive teologiche sull'eucaristia a partire dalla ‘lex orandi’, 575–576; and Lepin, M., L'idée du sacrifice de la messe s'après les théologiens, depuis les origines jusqu’à nos jours (Paris: Beauchesne, 1926), 463–496Google Scholar.

⁴⁴ Mysterium Fidei, 7n1.

⁴⁵ Mysterium Fidei, 4 (see also note 1 on this page). De la Taille is emphatic here: it is God's high goodness and ‘lovableness’—not His omnipotence—which elicits from humans the cult of latria.

⁴⁶ Mysterium Fidei, 5; SCG III, 119 §1.

⁴⁷ Mysterium Fidei, 5–6.

⁴⁸ Luther maintained that the Mass could only be a gift received, and not offered. See “On the Babylonian Captivity of the Church,” in Martin Luther, Three Treatises, (Fortress Press, 1970), esp. 164–167. “When we ought to be grateful for benefits received, we come arrogantly to give that which we ought to take. With unheard of perversity we mock the mercy of the giver by giving as a work the thing we receive as a gift, so that the testator, instead of being a dispenser of his own goods, becomes a recipient of ours. Woe to such sacrilege!” (167).

⁴⁹ On the one hand, there are disciples of Heidegger and Derrida—themselves heavily influenced by a Foucaultian and Girardian critique of desire and power—who find in the category of gift, construed as ethical self-gift, not only the possibility for true human subjectivity, but also a defence against the onto-theological and idolatrous tendencies of modern thought. While Derrida's own radical position upholds that the only “pure” gift, i.e., the only gift that can finally be given, is death, some theologians have negotiated a less nihilistic notion of gift based on an anthropological model of gift-exchange (Louis-Marie Chauvet) or an apophatic phenomenology of divine Agape (Jean-Luc Marion, God Without Being (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1991)). On the other side, roughly speaking, are those like John Milbank, William Cavanaugh, and Catherine Pickstock, who want to reclaim what they fear is a far too secularised concept of gift. They counter with returning gift to its original, theological context, namely, to the site of the Eucharist (which invites the worshipper, by participation, into the ultimate reality of Gift: the Trinity). The work of theologians like Robert Daly, Chauvet, and Seasoltz, all point to a gift-only understanding of the Eucharist. What all these different articulations have in common, however, is the absence of an explicit effort to conjoin the concepts of sacrifice and gift.

⁵⁰ Without the element of penitential acknowledgement, along with an expression of the desire to make reparation, the offering in sacrifice of gifts or thanksgiving from sinful humanity to God would bear the “savour” of coming from one “both unworthy and unfriendly (ab indigno et inimico)” (Mysterium Fidei, 9).

⁵¹ “Since sacrifice belongs to the category of gift, it is necessary that some action be sensibly enacted in the presentation or rendering of the gift (Cum sit sacrificium in genere donationis, necesse est ut sensibiliter peragitur aliqua activa doni praesentatio seu redditio).” (Mysterium Fidei, 11)

⁵² Mysterium Fidei, 9.

⁵³ Mysterium Fidei, 12. “Ad verum igitur sacrificium sufficiet ut offeratur aliquid aut tanquam immolandum aut tanquam immolatum.”

⁵⁴ “At voluntarietas…non sufficit qualiscumque, sed requiritur involvens directionem doni in Deum, et quidem, ut talis, manifestata externe. Oblatio enim est quaedam activa doni exhibitio; oblatio autem sacrificalis oportet ut sit sensibilis.” (Mysterium Fidei, 29)

⁵⁵ McNabb, Vincent O.P., “A New Theory of the Eucharistic Sacrifice,” Blackfriars 4 (1923), 1086–1100, esp., 1095CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Swaby, Alfred O.P., “A New Theory of the Eucharistic Sacrifice,” American Ecclesiastical Review 69 (Nov. 1923), 460–473, esp. 467Google Scholar; see also Vonier, A. O.S.B., A Key to the Doctrine of the Eucharist, (Westminster: Newman Press, 1956), 156Google Scholar.

⁵⁶ Mysterium Fidei, 106. The crux of the difference between our author and his adversaries may be captured in this question: where does one place numerical distinctness? Are there three sacrifices (supper, cross, and Mass—each with oblation and immolation), or are there but two (supper-cross and the Mass)?

⁵⁷ “Una enim eademque est hostia, idem nunc offerens sacerdotum ministerio, qui se ipsum tunc cruce obtulit, sola offerendi ratione diversa.” (Council of Trent, Session 22, c. 2).

⁵⁸ The Church's offering is not a new, personal act of Christ—although the power is his and he associates the ecclesial sacrifice to his own. See Mysterium Fidei, 296: “Novitas tota est ex parte Ecclesiae, quanquam virtus tota est ex parte de Christi.”

⁵⁹ Mysterium Fidei, 195.

⁶⁰ See, Wengier, Francis, The Eucharist-Sacrifice (Milwaukee: Bruce Publishing Co., 1955), 271Google Scholar.

⁶¹ See Mediator Dei, nn. 24,31, 35; 85–104.

⁶² ‘The Church, therefore, earnestly desires that Christ's faithful, when present at this Mystery of Faith, should not be there as strangers or silent spectators; on the contrary, through a good understanding of the rites and prayers they should take part in the sacred action conscious of what they are doing, with devotion and full collaboration. They should be instructed by God's Word and be nourished at the table of the Lord's Body; they should give thanks to God; by offering the Immaculate Victim, not only through the hands of the priest, but also with him, they should learn also to offer themselves; through Christ the Mediator’ [n. 48].

⁶³ ‘For all their works, prayers and apostolic endeavors, their ordinary married and family life, their daily occupations, their physical and mental relaxation, if carried out in the Spirit, and even the hardships of life, if patiently borne-all these become “spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ”. Together with the offering of the Lord's body, they are most fittingly offered in the celebration of the Eucharist. Thus, as those everywhere who adore in holy activity, the laity consecrate the world itself to God’ [n. 34]

⁶⁴ Taille, Maurice de la, “Théories mystiques: A propos d'un livre recent,” Recherches de science religieuse XVIII (1928): 297–325Google Scholar.

⁶⁵ Cf., for example, Henri de Lubac, The Mystery of the Supernatural (New York: Herder and Herder, 1967), 4: “De la Taille's name brings to mind his Mysterium Fidei which might well be described as an essay in the liquidation of the over-complicated systems worked out in modern times, indeed ever since the Council of Trent, about the sacrifice of the Mass….One need not agree on all points with his masterly study in order to recognize that embarking on criticism of this kind de la Taille was doing something most salutary.”