Sacrifice As Gift

5. The Grace of the Redeemer

153 • How does the preceding discussion of the grace of union to Christ in the Eucharist fit into a broader theory of grace? In book 3 of Mysterium Fidei, de la Taille plunges into the depths of eucharistic grace, providing a treatment of sin and the salvific power of grace. We turn now to a more technical discussion of grace, sin, and soteriology, a discussion that commences with a careful analysis of grace in Christ and that concludes with a reflection on Christ’s headship and the necessity of the Eucharist. For it is Christ’s grace that permits the theologian to conceive and speak of the power of grace in believers, including that grace of union that flows from the Eucharist. If, as de la Taille proposes, the grace of Christ is the princeps analogum for the whole genus of created grace, and if Christ is indeed the fountain of all grace, a serious discourse on grace in the Redeemer is foundational to a theology of grace tout court. The discussion in this chapter confirms our view of de la Taille as a synthetic thinker, providing evidence of his conviction about the organic nature of theology. Grace in General Following an explication of the sacramentum tantum and the res et sacramentum of the Eucharist, de la Taille defines the res tantum as that invisible reality into which the Eucharist leads the believer—namely, into a participation in the grace of Christ: “According to the testimony of tradition, the grace we derive from incorporation to Christ in the Eucharist is a participation in the Lord’s own grace, imparted to us 5 154 • De Gratia through the living power of the Lord’s flesh.”1 At this point in Mysterium Fidei, de la Taille begins a full discourse on the nature of grace, seeking not only a general definition of grace and a more particular delimitation of eucharistic grace, but also focusing extensively upon the grace of the Redeemer, for he aims to show that all grace flows “mediantly ” from Christ’s humanity. That Christ is the mediant cause of grace is clear from his previous discussion of eucharistic union; yet de la Taille now sets forth a more classically structured and scholastic presentation , one that anticipates the style and content of his later journal articles. To reiterate, I contend that the context of eucharistic union must not to be forgotten—neither here, as de la Taille proceeds with his mini-treatise de gratia in Mysterium Fidei, nor in the reading and interpretation of his subsequent essays on grace. All grace, establishes de la Taille, can be understood by its single purpose (ratio), which is the ordering of all rational creatures to seeing God sicut est.2 Put differently, grace has the same form in all those being drawn to God: it prepares (coaptat) the created intellect for the beatific vision. In a rather theologically packed statement, de la Taille writes that grace “resides” in the souls of the just “by nature (per modum naturae ),” building upon and radically transforming that nature—“directly affecting of itself not the operation or faculty, but the substance of nature .”3 Two striking ideas emerge in this general description of grace in creatures, both of which intimate de la Taille’s position on the question of the supernatural, which would come to the fore in the decade after his death. First, if grace elevates and adapts the intellect for seeing God fully, it does so not by an extrinsic mode or alien imposition, but, as it were, from within nature, and by transforming that nature. Secondly, this “species” of grace is more than a polishing-up of a capacity to see God; it does not “speed up” a process of perfection obtainable without grace. Rather, this grace influences the very essence of human nature. This note of intrinsicism is sounded more unmistakably in his discus1 . MF, 513. 2. De la Taille acknowledges that all creatures—and not just rational creatures—have a “species” of grace proportioned according to their nature, by which they tend toward their end, an end which is itself “specified” by the ordering mind of the creator God; see MF, 513. 3. MF, 513. 155 • The Grace of the Redeemer sion of the sanctifying grace of the Eucharist, which we shall address shortly. But at this juncture, de la Taille focuses our attention upon the single ratio of grace...