Fr. Maurice de la Taille, S.J. (1872-1933) was a French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 priest whose writings influenced the Liturgical Movement

Liturgical Movement

The Liturgical Movement began as a movement of scholarship for the reform of worship within the Roman Catholic Church. It has grown over the last century and a half and has affected many other Christian Churches, including the Church of England and other Churches of the Anglican Communion, and some...

. He entered the Jesuit order in 1890 and taught theology at the Catholic University of the West in Angers

Angers

Angers is the main city in the Maine-et-Loire department in western France about south-west of Paris. Angers is located in the French region known by its pre-revolutionary, provincial name, Anjou, and its inhabitants are called Angevins....

. From 1916-1918 he was military chaplain to the Canadian army. From 1919 he taught at the Gregorian University in Rome.

His principal work, Mysterium Fidei, written in 1921, was a comprehensive study of the Mass. Dealing with the sacrifice once offered by Christ, he describes the Mass as the Sacrifice of the Church and the Eucharist as a Sacrament. His contention was that there is a unity between Christ's sacrifice begun at the Last Supper, consummated on the Cross and Resurrection and continued in the Mass. There was only one immolation, that at Calvary, to which the supper looked forward and the Mass looks back. He defended himself against his critics in The Mystery of Faith and Human Opinion (1930)

Published works

• The Mystery of Faith: Regarding The Most August Sacrament And Sacrifice Of The Body And Blood Of Christ (1921) (Mysterium Fidei)