THE RULE OF PRAYER IS THE RULE OF BELIEF: THE RENEWAL OF LITURGICAL THEOLOGY

THE RULE OF PRAYER IS THE RULE OF BELIEF: THE RENEWAL OF LITURGICAL THEOLOGY 

BY
Rev. David Andrew Fisher 

His body was newly mixed with our bodies, and his pure blood has been poured out into our veins, and his voice into our ears, and his brightness into our eyes. All of him has been mixed into all of us by his compassion, and since he loves his church very much, he had living bread for her to eat.
- Saint Ephrem the Syrian 

 

INTRODUCTION 

"I, Jesus, have sent My angel to testify to you these things for the churches. I am the root and the descendant of David, the bright morning star” (Revelation 22:16) 

The faith of Christians is grounded in the “apostolic witness” that Jesus Christ is Risen! This apostolic faith, is the ancient faith of holy Church, whose seeds were sown in the history, scriptures, and faith of the ancient Israelites. The one for whom this faith is grounded in, was born of the Virgin, Jesus the Christ, whose presence was heralded by The Forerunner John, he died on the Holy Cross for our sins, rose from the dead for our salvation, and has opened for us the gates of the Kingdom, for our divinization. 

The Church has been entrusted with this faith, not to remake it, not to reform it, or redefine it anew each day; rather to guard it, proclaim it, and live it anew each day. In particular the ancient churches that were once in communion during the first Christian millennium, have a profound obligation and ministry in keeping the traditions and beauty of this ancient apostolic faith alive. 

The Church is the holy mystery (sacrament) of salvation, in which the “two hands of the Father” (St. Irenaeus), the Son and the Holy Spirit, continually form its essential nature of being One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic. The being of the Church is constituted like the Lord Jesus himself as “love” and “freedom”. As Paul writes to the Romans, “Greet one another with a holy kiss. All the churches of Christ greet you” (Romans 16:6). Early Christians realized that the community of the Church was their family, not based on blood relation, or tribal and ethnic ties, but constituted through the liberating faith in Christ, creating a bond of love in which all who embrace this faith become one in Christ. “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28). 

The oneness of the Church is the unity of its Head, Jesus Christ, with its Body, the People of God, the holiness of the Church is that it is filled with the Holy Spirit, the catholicity of the Church is its evangelical mission to proclaim the truth of Christ to all men and women, and the apostolic nature of the Church is the fundamental witness of the apostles of Jesus, the Easter Proclamation, that Jesus is Risen. 

The firm belief that Christ is present in the eucharistic offering of his Spirit-filled Church, is held as an article of faith by all the ancient ecclesial communions: Jerusalem, Rome, Constantinople, Antioch, Alexandria. In the disciples encounter with the Risen Lord on the road to Emmaus, we come to understand that Jesus will always be present in the Holy Mystery of the Eucharist and the Proclamation of the Word. 

And it happened that, while he was with them at table, he took bread, said the blessing, broke it, and gave it to them. With that their eyes were opened and they recognized him, but he vanished from their sight. Then they said to each other, “Were not our hearts burning [within us] while he spoke to us on the way and opened the scriptures to us?” (Luke 24:30-32) 

The reawakening of liturgical theology that began in the nineteenth century, shows us that in a shared reflection upon the ancient maxim of lex orandi, lex credendi (the rule of prayer, is the rule of belief), the Churches of the first Christian millennium might once again reconstitute full communion with each other. 

Therefore, the hope of this study is that it might in some small way aid in the ecumenical necessity of discovering the mystery of the Eucharist and the Church in the saving economy of the Holy Trinity. By seeing the invocation of the Holy Spirit along with the anamnesis of the Son as integral and complimentary within the eucharistic anaphora, theology (arising from the liturgy) is led to a more balanced understanding of the fundamental roles of Son-Redeemer and Spirit-Sanctifier in making the Church. 

Further it is the Holy Spirit who not only reveals and incorporates human beings into the gift of the Father, which is Christ, but also leads us to our eschatological fulfillment. In this way the triad of Spirit-Eucharist-Church culminates in the movement Spirit-Son-Father. 

Finally, the burning desire for unity among the followers of Christ means that ecumenism need not and should not be seen as one area of theological reflection, rather it is the challenge of our day; it should permeate all our reflections on the Christian faith. 

CHAPTER ONE: Towards a more balanced Christology: Roman Catholic Pneumatology from 1878 until 1962. 

1. The Revitalization of Thomism, of Interest in Pneumatology, and of concern with Eastern Christianity 

In the pontificate of Leo XIII (1878-1903) there is found the beginnings of a search to rediscover the value of pneumatology as important to the overall understanding of the Christian life and mission. Also the desire which this pope showed for reconstituting the ‘unbroken Church’ of the first Christian millennium will in someway be an ideal and goal of each pontificate after him. 

Leo XIII had been since his time as a young seminarian interested in recovering the direct study of the theology and philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas. It had become common by his time to study St. Thomas through manuals of theological commentary on his thought, instead of directly grappling with the primary sources. It was a reawakening to the direct encounter of Thomistic thought spurred on by Pope Leo and like minds, that would eventually produce the twentieth century theologians that shaped the era of the Second Vatican Council; thinkers such as Karl Rahner, Bernard Lonergan, and Yves Congar. This new theological environment during the ponitificate of Leo XIII, along with his social encyclical Rerum Novarum, mark the start of a distinct modern theological period. 

In Christi Nomen Pope Leo remarked that he had consulted with the Eastern Patriarchs of the Catholic Church to see “how to bring about more readily the desired end, namely the union of the Roman and Eastern Churches”.1 We find in Satis Cognitum that Leo XIII wrote on the unity of the Church and spoke of it as “a society divine in its origin, supernatural in its end”2, which would involve the activity of the Holy spirit. In Fidentum Piumque Animum, Leo XIII affirmed at the end of his encyclical on the Rosary that his “prayer for the reunion of all Christians is united with the prayers of Mary, expecting with earnest hope and prayer the promised fullness of the Holy Spirit”.3 

Pope Leo’s greatest contribution to a greater pneumatological understanding of the Church is found in his encyclical Divinum Illud Munus, written specifically on the Holy Spirit. In the introduction of the encyclical Leo XIII linked the mission of Christ in cresting the church, to the mission of the Holy Spirit in sustaining it. He remarked that the work of Christ in calling all men and women to the church was not finished by him on earth, but that Christ “transmitted it for its completion to the Holy Spirit”.4 

In the second section of the encyclical he described the two principal aims that had been a part of his pontificate, one of which was the unification of Christianity. He went on to tie together his intention that the Church be one, with the “indwelling and miraculous power of the Holy Spirit”.5 

Leo XIII continued on in the third section of his encyclical on the Holy Spirit to speak of the great mystery of the Holy Trinity and at the end of this section of the encyclical he taught that, “the Holy Spirit is the ultimate cause of all things”.6 Included therefore would be the sacraments of the Church and the Church itself. 

In the fourth part he illuminated the various ways that the Holy Spirit is constitutive of the Incarnation of Christ. Most importantly he linked the Holy Spirit and Christ together to the Church, he wrote that, “by the conspicuous apparition of the Holy Spirit over Christ and by His invisible power in His Soul, the twofold mission of the Spirit is foreshadowed, namely, His outward and visible mission in the Church, and His secret dwelling in the souls of the just”.7 

From the previous point Pope Leo moved to a reflection on the Holy Spirit and the Church in section five. He began by writing that the Church which is created by Christ on the Cross, “first showed herself before the eyes of men on the great day of Pentecost”.8 Then he referred to the Spirit as guarantor and provider of truth within the Church. and as active in the ministry of the episcopal and priestly office. He ended this section once again as in section four linking Christ and the Holy Spirit together in making the Church; “Let it suffice to state that, as Christ is Head of the Church, so is the Holy Spirit her soul”.9 

In section six of the encyclical, Pope Leo charted the action of the Holy Spirit in the lives of the faithful and looking to St. Thomas Aquinas he remarked that it is the Holy Spirit that gives life and unity to the Church.10 Lastly, in this section he stated that, “the Divine Spirit...poured forth all his fullness upon Christ and upon His mystic Body, the Church,”11 once again noting the significant connection made in this papal teaching between Christ, the Spirit, and, the Church. 

Pope Leo XIII concluded his encyclical with a call for promoting devotion to the Holy Spirit, decreeing a Novena to that purpose; furthermore he “recommended to Catholics special prayers at the Feast of Pentecost, for the reunion of Christendom.”12 

The great contribution of Pope Leo XIII of pointing out the action of the Holy Spirit alongside that of Christ in making the Church and justifying the faithful, must be seen within the context of his neo-Scholastic terminology and his almost exclusive reliance upon the great teachers of the Christian West, Augustine and Aquinas.13 

In the second year of his pontificate, Leo XIII had written Aeterni Patris, in which was evident his almost unwavering conviction that Augustine and Aquinas were the only teachers worthy of representing the totality of Christian thought for all generations. In writing of the Fathers of the Church he remarked that, “Augustine would seem to have wrestled the palm from all.”14 In referring to St. Thomas Aquinas he wrote; “Among the Scholastic Doctors, the chief and master of all towers Thomas Aquinas, who as Cajetan observes, because ‘he most venerated the ancient doctors of the Church, in a certain way seems to have inherited the intellect of all.’”15 Important to note here is the quotation from Cajetan, for investigation into the sources used by Aquinas , those being especially the Sacred Scriptures and the Fathers of the Church, will contribute much to the theological renewal of the period here under study. 

Leo XIII had been greatly influenced in the formation of his thought by the nineteenth century thomist, tommasi Zigliara and the rector of the Roman College, Luigi Taparelli d’Azeglio who formed a secret Thomist study group (to read the primary works of Aquinas) of which Gioacchino Pecci, later to be Pope Leo XIII, was a member.16 

Near the end of the encyclical Aeterni Patris, Leo XIII expressed his desire that Scholasticism as represented by Thomism, should be seen as the norm of Catholic theology.17 

So although we find in the teachings of Pope Leo XIII a monumental move forward in pneumatology as it relates to christology and ecclesiology, his writings are definitely wedded to a Scholasticism that appeals almost exclusively to Thomism, although a more direct and pure form of Thomism, than the manual theologies of Thomistic thought of his time. Also, his great vision for Christianity included an earnest desire for the full communion of the Catholic and Orthodox Churches for in much the same was as his Russian Orthodox contemporary Vladimir Solovyov, Pope Leo realized the modern world needed the witness of Christian unity. 

Even with the pressures of two World Wars the Catholic Church continued to grapple with the renewal of theology, Scripture studies, and the need to establish constructive dialogue with the Eastern Churches.18 Examples of this would Pope Benedict XV and his establishment of the Congregation for Eastern churches, along with his encyclical on the Holy Spirit, Spiritus Paraclitus of 1920. Also, the encyclical Rerum Orientalium of Pope Pius XI in 1928, which entrusted the Oriental Institute in Rome to the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) and called for more training and action among the clergy to stimulate the process of unity between East and West. 

During this period the problems with Modernism led Pius X to move with caution and at times confront and stifle ideas and movements that could possibly be seen as undermining the integrity of Church teachings and authority. In 1907 his encyclical Pascendi was followed by the condemnation and oath against Modernism. In the same year the Holy Office issued its response to Modernism in Lamentabili.19 This had far wider significance than just dealing with Modernism for many outside of that controversy were too held suspect by the authorities within the Catholic Church. 

While laboring with the prevailing Thomism of the day, many Catholic thinkers were often called into accountability as concerned their loyalty to the Magisterium of the Church.20 It was possible to see however, among many theologians the slow process of evaluating the sources of the Christian faith for the present and future life of the Church.21 It was a period marked by great contributions on the one hand, rigidity on the other and hesitation in the middle, in which many desired to embrace the Orthodox East as a sister Church, but were ready to evaluate its theology only in the light of traditional Catholic teaching.22 

What would eventually mark a change in Catholic theology and an openness to 

dialogue with other Christians, religions, and the world as a whole was the continual research into the biblical, patristic, and liturgical heritage of Christianity. 

2. Theological Research into the Sources of Christian Tradition and its Effect on the Relation between the Liturgy and the Church 

The Catholic hierarchy within Germany was able, to a degree, to shield its theologians from the restrictions felt in the rest of the Church after the oath against Modernism took hold. The German theological tradition of employing philosophical and historical resources23 was done with an openness and creativeness, that was often met with silencing, in the other dominant Catholic theological country of France. 

Many types of renewal can be noted in first half of the twentieth century. For example, reflections on the ecclesial dimension of the Church as emerging from the lived tradition of the faithful was examined bu Romano Guardini and Karl Adam. The attempts to interpret St. Thomas Aquinas in a new light, given the name Transcendental Thomism, was given force by one of the most influential theologians of this period, Karl Rahner of the Society of Jesus. Eschatological theology was given shape by Jean Danielou, s.j., and the former Reformed Church minister who became Catholic and a priest of the Oratorians, Louis Boyer. Also, to be found in this half- century before the Second Vatican Council is the theological work of Henri de Lubac, s.j., known as la nouvelle théologie, which received much condemnation in some corners of the Catholic theological world at the time. In dogmatic/systematic theology there is the ecumenically sensitive work of Marie-Dominique Chenu, o.p., and Yves Congar, o.p., along with the aesthetic theology of Hans Urs von Balthasar from Switzerland. It is interesting to note that; de Lubac, von Balthasar, and Congar, would all be made Cardinals near the end of their lives for the service they gave to the renewal of Catholic theology. Lastly, in the field of liturgical theology much credit  should be given to the Benedictine Order with such thinkers as Abbot Odd Casel and the Anglican Benedictine Dom Gregory Dix. 

“The liturgical movement was an effort to reunite rites and content, for its aim was to restore as fully as possible the expressiveness and sanctifying power of the liturgy and to bring the faithful back to full participation and understanding.”24 Dom Gregory Dix of the Anglican tradition contributed greatly to this movement of pastoral reform, for as he noted the Eucharist is “the offering of the whole Church.”25 

In The Shape of the Liturgy, first published in 1945, Dix made a profound investigation into the role of the Holy Spirit in the Eucharist. In chapter nine, “The Meaning of the Eucharist,” he first linked the Spirit with eschatology; “The medium, as it were, by which Christians within time are already thus within the Kingdom of God in eternity is the Spirit.”26 In the same paragraph he explained by what means the Christians within time are united to the Kingdom by the Spirit: “And in fact the idea of the Spirit as it developed in the earlier New Testament documents is that of the power or presence of the Ascended Jesus in the eternal Kingdom of God energizing within time His Body the Church.”27 

Dix went on to examine the practice of the early Church of not allowing the non=confirmed to take part in the Eucharist.28 In the pre-Nicene Church he explained that it was felt that the Holy Spirit did not work outside the Church, but only among those who had received the sacraments of initiation. Baptism allowed the person to put on Christ,“but the gift of the Spirit in Confirmation is what makes him a living member of that Body within time. Thus only the confirmed may take part in the Eucharist, which is the vital act of the Body in time.”29 From this examination of the primitive Church, Dix presented to his readers the triad of Spirit, Eucharist, Church. In stressing the intimate bond between Christ and the Holy Spirit, the primitive Church realized that the essence of their being the Body of Christ in time, was constituted by the Holy Spirit active in the sacraments, especially the Eucharist which was the vital sign of their reality. 

Having established this active role of the Holy Spirit in the Church, as seen in his reflections on the primitive Church, Dix ended this chapter on the Eucharist by looking directly as the role of the Holy Spirit in that specific sacrament. He began by remarking that the most profound, if not most puzzling, patristic testimony to the reality of the Spirit in the Eucharist is found in the Syriac Fathers.30 Here the Holy Spirit dwells in the Eucharistic gifts, the Body and Blood, confirming their truth for the faithful who receive them, the Church.31 

From the Christian West, Dix cited Hippolytus as the oldest liturgical verification on the presence of the Holy Spirit in the Eucharistic sacrament, that those who receive it may be filled with the Holy Spirit and from there other later texts concur. 

Dix ended his reflections on the meaning of the Eucharist by restating the eschatological significance of the sacrament. The Church which is formed by the Eucharist and nourished by it has received these gifts by the power of the Holy Spirit. “As St. Thomas said, the spiritual benefit (res) received in this sacrament is the unity if the mystical body - and in the New Testament this unity is above all the unity of the Spirit.”32 

Although Dix did not explicitly refer to a double epiclesis in the primitive liturgical practice, his sources bare with to that effect. The early Christian Church realized in practice and in faith that the Holy Spirit was the active verification of the truth of the sacrament, the Body and Blood of the Lord received by those confirmed by the Holy Spirit in that same Body, which is the Church. 

In chapter ten of The Shape of the Liturgy, Dix explored the patristic understanding of the role of the Holy Spirit in the Eucharist at what he calls the consecration. For his own concerns about defending the traditional western understanding, his weighing of the patristic evidence should be considered in a very critical fashion.33 Dix was sure that the basic liturgical celebrations and eucharistic understandings of the West were directly derived from a primitive rite and theology. 

Dix argued that the pre-Nicene Church has possibly an implicit but not totally explicit understanding of the distinction between the Word and the Spirit of God. He felt that the term epiclesis in its original context, as seen in the writing of Theodotus and Irenaeus was an invocation of God to make sacred the gifts.34 In the fourth century and afterwards he believed that a new understanding of the Holy spirit as the power which brings about the conception of the Word in the womb of Mary the Virgin, instead of the older theology which saw the Word as bringing about his own conception, led to a new understanding of the distance role of the Holy Spirit in the Eucharist itself.35 Here especially Dix noted that it is primarily the Eastern Fathers, such as St. John of Damascus (c.690-760 A.D.) in his De Fide Orthodoxa, that believe there is a correlation between the Spirit-incarnation and Spirit-Eucharist relationships. 

The role of the Holy Spirit was further broadened and defined according to Dix by St. Cyril of Jerusalem who sees the “petition for consecration by the Holy Spirit as explicitly based not on a parallel with the Incarnation, but on a theological theory about the office and mission of God the Holy Spirit in Himself.”36 Therefore it can be concluded that as the Church came to a deeper understanding of God as Trinity and reflected on the mission of each Divine Person in the plan of salvation, the Holy Spirit’s active role in the Eucharist became more defined. So while possibly a more pristine ‘existential’ understanding of the Trinity had vanished, a deeper realization of this central mystery of faith emerged. Also, it must be noted again the presumptions that Dix brought to this study even though he provides a great wealth of scholarly reflection on the sources. For prior to St. Cyril of Jerusalem and the fourth century, there can be found a specific reference to the presence of the Holy Spirit in the ‘consecration’ of the Eucharist in the third century Syrian Didascalia Apostolorum.37 Dix dismissed this text however, as not being as representative of the Syrian tradition as the liturgical text of Addai and Mari, “with its eucharistic prayer addressed directly to the Son...in line with the rest of the Christian world in regarding the eucharistic consecration as effected by the Son, and not by the Spirit.”38 

In ending his chapter and reflection on the Holy Spirit in the ‘consecration,’ Dix offered a negative assessment of the Eastern Christian understanding of the Holy Spirit constituting the real presence of the Word in the sacrament which he felt was not found prior to the fourth century. 

In assessing this writing of Dom Gregory Dix one can conclude that although his own personal bias may influence his judgements, his scholarship allows for a transparent look into the patristic tradition, where once again there was found an intimate bond between Christ and the Holy Spirit in all that constitutes the sacraments and the Church. 

In his research into the primitive and patristic history of Christianity, the Jesuit theologian Jean Daniélou discovered that “three worlds went to the making of the Christian Church, three cultures, three visions and expressions of truth - the Jewish, the Hellenistic, and the Latin; and each of them produced it soon distinctive theology.”39 In discovering the roots of these traditions, Daniélou went on to develop an eschatological approach to theology in order to express a sense of hope and joy that was evident among early Christians. One example of this would be his study of the relationship between Word and Sacrament in The Bible and Liturgy. 

In chapter eight on the rites associated with the Eucharistic celebration, Daniélou pointed to the fact that in the early Church, “Baptism, Confirmation, and the Eucharist formed one whole, constituting the introduction of the new Christian into the Church.”40 Here again the existential nature of the sacraments; the very experience of initiation became a catechism which expressed the unity of Christ, the Holy Spirit, and the Sacraments in forming the Church. 

In The Lord of History, Daniélou offered a profound study of the meaning of salvation history as it unfolds in the lives of believers. The most important record of this history is to be found in the Holy Scriptures, especially the New Testament, although there are also many other things which Jesus did; were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written (John 21:25). The Christian, because of the Scriptures, can see “a series of divine operations, tracing a distinct line of development: each of these events marks a new stage in the actualization of God’s design, and a mutation of human life.”41 The Christian religion unlike other religions and cultures before it, presents a positive view of history. “The words ‘past’ and ‘present’ have here their full meaning. It is this belief in the irreversibility of salvation that gives rise to the Christian virtue of hope.”42 

Although this sense of salvation history as something unique to the Christian dispensation may have been present in the praxis of the early Church, it was not, as Daniélou pointed out, always present in its theology. “Curiously enough, the earliest Christian theologians were slow to realize the originality of their position, and in fact began by trying to eliminate it....”43 In St. Augustine’s Civitas Dei and in the writings of St. Gregory of Nyssa for example, a new dynamic sense of the unfolding of God’s plan in history is presented.44 

 _________________________

 FOOTNOTES:

1 Leo XIII, Christi Nomen, Acta Sanctae Sedis 27 (1894) 385, in C. Carlen, (ed.), The Papal Encyclicals 1878-1903 (New York 1990) 361. 

2 Leo XIII, Satis Cognitum, Acta Sanctae Sedis 28 (1896) 711, in The Papal Encyclicals 1878-1903, 396. 

3 Leo XIII, Fidentum Piumque Animum, Acta Sanctae Sedis 29 (1896) 136, in The Papal Encyclicals 1878-1903, 408. 

4 Leo XIII, Divinum Illud Munus, Acta Sanctae Sedis 29 (1897) 644, in The Papal Encyclicals 1878-1903, 409. 

5 Leo XIII, Divinum Illud Munus, Acta Sanctae Sedis 29 (1897) 645, in The Papal Encyclicals 1878-1903, 410. 

6 Leo XIII, Divinum Illud Munus, Acta Sanctae Sedis 29 (1897) 646, in The Papal Encyclicals 1878-1903, 411. 

7 Leo XIII, Divinum Illud Munus, Acta Sanctae Sedis 29 (1897) 647, in The Papal Encyclicals 1878-1903, 412. 

8 Leo XIII, Divinum Illud Munus, Acta Sanctae Sedis 29 (1897) 647, in The Papal Encyclicals 1878-1903, 412. 

9 Leo XIII, Divinum Illud Munus, Acta Sanctae Sedis 29 (1897) 647, in The Papal Encyclicals 1878-1903, 412. 

10 Cf. Leo XIII, Divinum Illud Munus, Acta Sanctae Sedis 29 (1897) 649, in The Papal Encyclicals 1878-1903, 414. Leo XIII cited St. Thomas Aquinas: “The heart has a certain hidden power, and therefore the Holy Spirit, who invisible vivifies and unites the Church, is compared to the heart,”; Summa Theologiae, 3a, q. vii., a. I, ad 3. 

11 Leo XIII, Divinum Illud Munus, Acta Sanctae Sedis 29 (1897) 649, in The Papal Encyclicals 1878-1903, 414. 

12 Leo XIII, Divinum Illud Munus, Acta Sanctae Sedis 29 (1897) 651, in The Papal Encyclicals 1878-1903, 416. 

13 Cf. J. Neuner and J. Dupuis, The Christian Faith in the Doctrinal Documents of the Catholic Church (Bangalore 2001) 828-829. This encyclical plays a major role in restoring pneumatology to a place of importance to theology, however the sources from which it draws are limited in scope. “After the Council of Trent theological attention became narrowly focused on the nature of actual grace. The doctrine of the indwelling of the Spirit in the justified, with which the Pauline epistles and the Greek tradition were deeply imbued, had receded to the background. Pope XIII’s encyclical Divinum Illud (1897) tries to restore this prominent biblical theme to the place of honor due it. Although epoch-making because of the central role it attributes to the person of the Holy Spirit, the encyclical is influenced almost exclusively by the Western Fathers, while the rich theology of the Spirit, characteristic of the Eastern tradition, is hardly represented in it. With regard to the mode of presence of the Spirit in the justified, the Pope adopts the classical theory of appropriation, prevalent at the time.” 

14 Leo XIII, Aeterni Patris, Acta Sanctae Sedis 12 (1879) 97, in The Papal Encyclicals 1878-1903, 22. 

15 Leo XIII, Aeterni Patris, Acta Sanctae Sedis 12 (1879) 98, in The Papal Encyclicals 1878-1903, 23. 

16 Cf. A. Nichols, The Shape of Catholic Theology (Edinburgh 1991) 328. 

17 Cf. Leo XIII, Aeterni Patris, Acta Sanctae Sedis 12 (1879) 101, in The Papal Encyclicals 1878-1903, 26. Pope Leo XIII instructed that Thomism shall be the norm within Catholic education. “Let carefully selected teachers endeavor to implant the doctrine of Thomas Aquinas in the minds of students, and set forth clearly his solidity and excellence over others. Let the universities already founded or to be founded illustrate and defend this doctrine, and use it for the refutation of prevailing errors.” 

18 Cf. A. Nichols, Rome and the Eastern Churches (Edinburgh 1992) 309. It should be remembered that positive actions were taken by all the pontificates from Leo XIII on for reunion with the Orthodox. “Leo XIII...established a permanent cardinalatial position to consider ways and means for the furtherance of unity. In 1917, Benedict XV transformed this into a full-scale ‘Congregation for the Eastern Churches’, whose responsibilities embraced not only Uniates but all questions touching the Christian East. Simultaneously, the pope created a Pontifical Institute for the study of the Christian East as a whole, based in Rome. In 1928, Pius XI, in the very year of his fulmination against the liberal and indifferentist tendencies of the wider ecumenical movement (as then established) produced the encyclical Rerum Orientalium which sought to stimulate all kinds of initiatives - movements, associations, publications - with a view to reunion. Meanwhile, historic anniversaries provided occasions for popes to look with longing eyes to the mother church of the Eastern doctors: Pius X in 1908, on the fifteenth anniversary of the death of Chrysostom; Pius XII in 1944 on the anniversary of the demise of Cyril.” 

19 Cf. M. Lagrange, La Père Lagrange: au service de la bible. Souvenirs personnels. (Paris 1985) 170. Lagrange who himself came under suspicion, gave an apology for the decisions of Pope St. Pius X. “This great Pope acted in certain cases like those leaders who proclaim a state of siege or martial law in circumstances where a pressing period demands exceptional measures. There was a peril, and the Pope knew it. It was up to him to re-establish general security, though this cost dear to some individuals.” 

20 Cf. A. Vonier, A Key to the Doctrine of the Eucharist (London 1925), 222. A good example of a disciplined critical approach to the texts of St. Thomas Aquinas, but very lacking in a connection between the Holy Spirit who acts in the humanity of Christ, also acting in the Eucharist. “Out of three divine persons, the Second Person only took flesh; yet we know all along that the Word is not without the Father and the Holy Spirit, that the three divine Persons dwell in Christ’s humanity. Yet it is the Son who is born, the Son who lived and died and rose again, not the Father nor the Holy Spirit. In divine things abundance of life is the rule; but in this abundance, division of Persons, division of Missions, remains infinitely clear. In the Eucharist we have not only an abundance of Christ; we have the whole Christ.” 

21 Cf. A. Nichols, The Shape of Catholic Theology, 331. Even the Pope himself had to go against members of the Roman Curia in giving access to scholars who wanted to research the Vatican Archives. “The struggle within Leo XIII’s Curia over weather to open the Vatican Archives to independent scholars showed how deep such anxieties could go.” 

22 Cf. C. Englert, Catholics and Orthodox: Can They Unite (New York 1961) 55. An example of such ‘tradtional’ evaluation. “Let us examine the arguments adduced by Orthodox theologians from the days of Nicholas Cabasilas until now. They say that the operation of each sacrament should be effected by an invocatory prayer. In the Mass it is done by invoking the Holy Spirit. Catholic theologians admit the operation of the Holy Spirit in all the sacraments, but deny that it has to be explicitly invoked in order to function.” 

23 Cf. F.H. Reusch, Kleinere Schrifte (Stuttgart 1980) 184, Ignaz von Döllinger said the German people, “cherished both eyes of theology; philosophy and history, with the same care, love, and thoroughness.” 

24 A. Bugnini, The Reform of the Liturgy, 1948-1975 (Collegeville 1990) 6. 25 G. Dix, The Image and Likeness of God (London 1953) 61.
26 G. Dix, The Shape of the Liturgy (London 1945) 259.
27 G. Dix, The Shape of the Liturgy, 260. 

28 Cf. G. Dix, The Shape of the Liturgy, 260. “We must remember that the two sacraments {Baptism and Confirmation/Chrismation} were normally conferred within five or ten minutes of each other. The idea of a baptized but unconfirmed Christian would have seemed to the pre- Nicene Church a monstrosity.” 

29G. Dix, The Shape of the Liturgy, 260-261. 

30 Cf. G. Dix, The Shape of the Liturgy, 266. “And there is in fact a whole class of liturgical and patristic passages from the first four centuries or so, which have proved something of a puzzle to students, which do speak precisely as though what was received in holy communion was an accession of Pneuma or Spirit.” 

31 Cf. G. Dix, The Shape of the Liturgy, 266. “The same idea is found in a number of Eastern writers, mostly Syrian, of whom the following quotation from St. Ephrem Syrus (fourth century) will give a sufficient idea: ‘...eat ye all of it, and in it eat the Holy Spirit; for it is in truth My Body.’” 

32 G. Dix, The Shape of the Liturgy, 267. 

33 Cf. P. Bradshaw, “The Homogenization of Christian Liturgy - Ancient and Modern” Studia Liturgica 1 (1996) 2-3. “Dix enabled the traditional theory of the existence of a single liturgical 

34 Cf. G. Dix, The Shape of the Liturgy, 274-275. Dom Gregory Dix speculated on the origins of the epiclesis. “We have already several times referred to that passage of Theodotus which relates the ‘transformation of the Bread into the spiritual power’ to the ‘hallowing by the power of the Name.’ A similar notion lies behind the phrase of Irenaeus that ‘the bread receiving the invocation (or, ‘naming,’ epiklesis) of God is no more common bread but Eucharist.’ It seems, indeed, likely that the whole primitive usage of the word epiklesis in connection with the Eucharist is intimately connected with this Jewish ‘blessing of the Name’ in all food benedictions, obligatory in Jews and primitive Christians alike in their table-blessing.” 

35 Cf. G. Dix, The Shape of the Liturgy, 276. “It is important to note that the pre-Nicene theology of the Incarnation as a rule regarded it, not as we do, as the effect of a conception ‘by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary,’ but as a conception ‘by the Logos (the Word, the Second Person of the Trinity) of the Virgin Mary.’” 

36 G. Dix, The Shape of the Liturgy, 277. 

37 Cf. R.H. Connolly, (ed.), Didascalia Apostolorum (edition 1929) 252. “Prayer is heard through the Holy Spirit, and the Eucharist through the Spirit is accepted and sanctified, and the Scriptures are the words of the Holy Spirit.” 

38 G. Dix, The Shape of the Liturgy, 279. 

39 J. Daniélou, The Theology of Jewish Christianity (London 1964) 1. 

40 J. Daniélou, The Bible and the Liturgy (Notre Dame 1956) 127. 

41 J. Daniélou, The Lord of History (Cleveland 1958) 1. 42 J. Daniélou, The Lord of History, 1. 

43 J. Daniélou, The Lord of History, 2. Daniélou referred specifically to Origen and Eusebius of Caesarea. 

44 Cf. J, Daniélou, The Lord of History, 3. Daniélou cited St. Gregory of Nyssa. “...it {God’s plan} proceeds from beginnings to beginnings, by successive beginnings that have no end.” (Hom. Cant. P:G:44:981C).