With the renewal of the Second
Vatican Council, certain Eucharistic heresies began to emerge
within the Church. Oftentimes one is tempted to blame their
resurgence on the reigning Roman Pontiff of the day, Paul VI. One
notes that Paul VI broke with many customs during the era of the
Second Vatican Council in his attempt to lead the Church towards
a renewal in her Divine mission. One ancient custom in particular
with which Pope Paul VI broke is that he interrupted an
Ecumenical Council to promulgate a papal encyclical. Previous to
the Second Vatican Council, it was unheard of that the Roman
Pontiff would do such a thing.
Nevertheless, in September of 1965
on the Feast of Pope St. Pius X, Paul VI interrupted the Second
Vatican Council to promulgate his papal encyclical Mysterium
Fidei. His purpose in so doing was to uphold the Church's
Traditional teaching concerning the Most Holy Sacrament of the
Eucharist, as well as condemn any false teachings that had begun
to surface within the Church. Although in promulgating this papal
encyclical during an Ecumenical Council Pope Paul VI broke with
lower case tradition which is the Church's custom, this
allowed him to strongly reaffirm the Church's Sacred Tradition
contained in the Deposit of Faith - i.e. the Tradition handed
down to the Church by Christ and His Apostles. For the serious
Catholic student, Paul VI's Mysterium Fidei provides the key for
unlocking the authentic interpretation of the Second Vatican
Council in light of the Church's Sacred Tradition.
This fact is readily seen in the
opening paragraph of Mysterium Fidei, where Pope Paul VI
introduces the Catholic faithful to mind of the Conciliar Fathers
as follows:
THE CATHOLIC CHURCH has always
devoutly guarded as a most precious treasure the mystery of
faith, that is, the ineffable gift of the Eucharist which she
received from Christ her Spouse as a pledge of His immense
love, and during the Second Vatican Council in a new and
solemn demonstration she professed her faith and veneration
for this mystery. When dealing with the restoration of the
sacred liturgy, the Fathers of the council, by reason of
their pastoral concern for the whole Church, considered it of
the highest importance to exhort the faithful to participate
actively with sound faith and with the utmost devotion in the
celebration of this Most Holy Mystery, to offer it with the
priest to God as a sacrifice for their own salvation and for
that of the whole world, and to find in it spiritual
nourishment.
In essence, at the Second Vatican
Council the Church sought not to deny the Holy Mystery of the
Mass, but to safeguard its central role in the sanctification of
Christ's faithful. Along with the other Fathers of the Second
Vatican Council, Paul VI considers active lay participation in
the Holy Eucharist of the utmost importance. Furthermore, he
reaffirms the sacrificial aspect the Mass in which Our Lord's
Real Presence is offered up to God the Father for the salvation
of the individual and of the whole world.
The importance of the Most Holy
Eucharist, especially with regards to the Holy Sacrifice of the
Mass, is upheld by Pope Paul VI within the following paragraph of
Mysterium Fidei:
For if the sacred liturgy
holds the first place in the life of the Church, the
Eucharistic Mystery stands at the heart and center of the
liturgy, since it is the font of life by which we are
cleansed and strengthened to live not for ourselves but for
God, and to be united in love among ourselves.
In short, the liturgy holds first
place in the Church for the liturgy is the Church's public prayer
whereby the faithful as Christ's Mystical Body unite with Christ
their Head in order to offer worship to God the Father. As
Christ's Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity substantially present
under the accidents of bread and wine, the Eucharist stands at
the heart of the liturgy since Christ is truly present in being
and not merely in action. As Christ's Real Presence, Paul VI
places the Eucharist (and rightly so!) at the center of our
spiritual lives as Catholics, through which God the Son is
offered to God the Father in atonement for our human sins.
Furthermore, through our participation in Holy Communion in which
we consume Christ's Real Presence, we are first drawn closer to
Christ in vertical communion, (and through Jesus Christ the
Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity to God the Father), and
then in being drawn closer to Christ we therefore come closer to
one another as Catholics in horizontal communion.
This dual blessing of the Mass, in
which Christ atones for our sins and in which we consume Christ's
Body and Blood - both in conformity with Holy Scripture and
Tradition - is again noted by Pope Paul VI in Mysterium Fidei as
follows:
In these words are highlighted
both the sacrifice, which pertains to the essence of the Mass
which is celebrated daily, and the sacrament in which the
faithful participate in Holy Communion by eating the Flesh of
Christ and drinking His Blood, receiving both grace, the
beginning of eternal life, and the medicine of immortality.
According to the words of Our Lord: "The man who eats my
flesh and drinks my blood enjoys eternal life, and I will
raise him up at the last day."
What one notices here is that Pope
Paul VI pays particular attention to Christ's Real Presence in
the Most Holy Sacrament of the Eucharist, a teaching of the
Church to which he goes through great pain to substantiate from
the Church's theological Tradition. For example, in the following
passage Paul VI upholds the Real Presence of Our Lord in the Most
Blessed Sacrament by referring to the teachings of a long chain
of Tradition. Pope Paul VI cites St. Thomas Aquinas' use of a
quotation taken from the Patristic Father St. Cyril commenting
upon a passage of St. Luke's Gospel account of Jesus Christ at
the Last Supper:
The scholastic Doctors often
made similar affirmations: That in this sacrament are the
true Body of Christ and His true Blood is something that
"cannot be apprehended by the senses," says St.
Thomas, "but only by faith which relies on divine
authority. This is why, in a comment on Luke 22:19 ('This is
My Body which is given for you'), St. Cyril says: 'Do not
doubt whether this is true, but rather receive the words of
the Savior in faith, for since He is the truth, He cannot
lie.'"
As one can see from this quotation
of Mysterium Fidei, not only has Paul VI uphold the Traditional
Catholic doctrines of transubstantiation and the Real Presence,
but he has carefully shown all the golden links in the chain of
Tradition which continue throughout the Second Vatican Council.
In short, the teachings passed down from Christ to His Apostles
through the Patristic Fathers and the scholastic Doctors find
voice in the teachings of Pope Paul VI and the Second Vatican
Council.
In fact Christ's Real Presence in
the Holy Eucharist, which we are called to consume, cannot but be
the teaching of the Catholic Church. For to whom can Paul VI turn
as the visible head of Christ's Mystical Body if not the
invisible head who is Jesus Christ? The teaching of Tradition
passed down by Christ to His Apostles, as Paul VI explains in the
following passage, is the only position the Church may preach
vis-à-vis the Eucharist:
Moreover, the Holy Gospel
alludes to this when it tells of the many disciples of Christ
who, after listening to the sermon about eating His Flesh and
drinking His Blood, turned away and left our Lord, saying:
"This is strange talk, who can be expected to listen to
it?" Peter, on the other hand, in reply to Jesus'
question whether also the twelve wished to leave, expressed
his faith and that of the others promptly and resolutely with
the marvelous answer: "Lord, to whom should we go? Thy
words are the words of eternal life."
As an aside, what is of interest
to note in the above citation taken from Holy Scripture is that
when all others have abandoned the Savior because of the
difficulty of his teaching, St. Peter is the one who turns to Our
Lord, and on behalf of the Apostles answers those who find Our
Lord's teachings too difficult, asking rhetorically "To whom
should we go?" In the face of apostasy, St. Peter is the one
who upholds the words of Our Lord as "the words of eternal
life." In short, against the unbelief of the world, St.
Peter upholds Christ's teaching concerning the Real Presence.
Could any less have been expected St. Peter's successor Paul VI
when the same Eucharistic doubts arose around the period of the
Second Vatican Council? Obviously the answer is no, which is why
Pope Paul VI through Mysterium Fidei diligently defended Our
Lord's Eucharistic teachings. Some may note that Paul VI was
unsuccessful in so doing, since there remains a Eucharistic
crisis within the Church -- however, how successful was St. Peter
in bringing back those who abandoned Christ in the above Gospel
account? Like his predecessor St. Peter, in the face of mass
apostasy Pope Paul VI could only uphold the teachings of Christ
and leave the rest to Our Lord's capacity to work His grace in
the hardened hearts of men.
"But did the Second Vatican
Council not change the language of the Eucharistic Mystery as
well as that of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass?" many have
objected during the Post-Conciliar era. Granted this is a strange
phenomenon taking place within the Church one cannot ignore,
however, neither has Pope Paul VI ignored it. In fact, speaking
on behalf of the Church in his papal encyclical Mysterium Fidei,
Paul VI addresses this problem directly with the following solemn
warning against those who would tamper with the Church's
Traditional doctrinal formulation concerning the Holy Eucharist:
The Church, therefore, with
the long labor of centuries, and, not without the help of the
Holy Spirit, has established a rule of language and confirmed
it with the authority of the councils. This rule, which has
more than once been the watchword and banner of Orthodox
faith, must be religiously preserved, and let no one presume
to change it at his own pleasure or under the pretext of new
science. Who would ever tolerate that the dogmatic formulas
used by ecumenical councils for the mysteries of the Holy
Trinity and the Incarnation be judged as no longer
appropriate for men of our times and therefore that others be
rashly substituted for them? In the same way it cannot be
tolerated that any individual should on his own authority
modify the formulas which were used by the Council of Trent
to express belief in the Eucharistic Mystery. For these
formulas, like the others which the Church uses to propose
the dogmas of faith, express concepts which are not tied to a
certain form of human culture, nor to a specific phase of
human culture, nor to one or other theological school.
Furthermore, as we see in the
following passage, Pope Paul VI has not ignored those who would
reduce the Real Presence to a meaningless doctrinal formula or a
mere symbol of the Reality of Christ's True Presence. Rather, he
continues to uphold the teaching of the Church concerning this
matter, providing a clear link with Tradition through both
references to Holy Scripture and the Patristic Fathers:
While the eucharistic
symbolism brings us to an understanding of the effect proper
to this Sacrament, which is the unity of the mystical Body,
it does not indicate or explain what it is that makes this
Sacrament different from all others. The constant teaching
which the Catholic Church passes on to her catechumens, the
understanding of the Christian people, the doctrine defined
by the Council of Trent, the very words used by Christ when
He instituted the Most Holy Eucharist, compel us to
acknowledge that "the Eucharist is that flesh of Our
Savior Jesus Christ who suffered for our sins and whom the
Father in His loving-kindness raised again." To these
words of St. Ignatius of Antioch, we may add those which
Theodore of Mopsueta, a faithful witness to the faith of the
Church on this point, addressed to the faithful: "The
Lord did not say: This is a symbol of My Body, and this is a
symbol of My blood but: This is My Body and My Blood."
He teaches us not to look to the nature of those things which
lie before us and are perceived by the senses, for by the
prayer of thanksgiving and the words spoken over them, they
have been changed into Flesh and Blood."
Moreover, less any doubt remain in
the hearts of the faithful as to what belief concerning the Real
Presence the Fathers of the Second Vatican Council upheld, Paul
VI reaffirms the Council of Trent's definition of
transubstantiation within the following passage of Mysterium
Fidei:
The Council of Trent, basing
itself on this faith of the Church, "openly and
sincerely professes that within the Holy Sacrament of the
Eucharist, after the Consecration of the bread and wine, Our
Lord Jesus Christ, true God and true Man, really, truly and
substantially contained under those outward
appearances."
Finally, while such a strong
profession of the Church's Traditional Eucharistic teaching may
be well and good from a theological viewpoint, Paul VI
nevertheless feels that pastoral action must be taken as well to
counter various Eucharistic heresies that arose around the time
of the Second Vatican Council. Therefore, in Mysterium Fidei Pope
Paul VI renews the following solemn exhortation of his
predecessors Pius VI and Pius XII to all priests:
[.] After the Council of
Trent, our predecessor, Pius VI, on the occasion of the
errors of the Synod of Pistoia, warned parish priests when
carrying out their office of teaching, not to neglect to
speak of transubstantiation, one of the articles of faith.
Similarly our predecessor of happy memory, Pius XII, recalled
the bounds which those who undertake to discuss the mystery
of transubstantiation might not cross. We ourself also, in
fulfillment of our apostolic office, have openly borne solemn
witness to the faith of the Church at the National
Eucharistic Congress held recently at Pisa.
In short, as part of the Second
Vatican Council renewal of the Church he envisioned, Pope Paul VI
renewed the obligation on parish priests to present the Church's
teaching on transubstantiation when carrying out their priestly
ministry among Christ's faithful. In so doing, he cites the
Council of Trent as well as his predecessors within the Petrine
succession in order to show continuity with the Church's
Tradition.
In conclusion, Pope Paul VI did
not abolish the Church's teaching concerning Christ's Real
Presence and transubstantiation. Nor did he abolish or downplay
the Church's Tradition vis-à-vis the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.
Rather, in Mysterium Fidei he upheld the Church's various
doctrinal formulations surrounding the Eucharist -- oftentimes
going to great pain to show continuity with Divine Tradition --
formulations which he held to be the key for interpreting the
texts of the Second Vatican Council. In the end, the Church may
have entered into a Eucharistic crisis after the Second Vatican
Council, however, such a crisis cannot be attributed to Pope Paul
VI who did his part through Mysterium Fidei to uphold the
Church's Eucharistic Tradition while combating the various
Eucharistic heresies that had arisen. Therefore, Mysterium Fidei
is Pope Paul VI's battle cry to all faithful Catholics, calling
us to gather around Christ's Real Presence in the Most Holy
Sacrament of the Eucharist. Have you the spiritual conviction to
respond?
______________________________________
Originally published
by "TCR News"
