http://sedevacantist.com/newmass/qtvjmcn.htm

 


APPENDIX 2



"LEX CREDENDI: LEX ORANDI"

     What people already believe is automatically and necessarily mirrored in the very words of the prayers they recite.  This truism is one part of the principle: "lex credendi: lex orandi," the law of belief is the law of prayer.  This principle works reversely also; that is to say, people can be led towards certain beliefs by means of the very prayers they are accustomed to saying.  And that is why parents teach their small children The Hail Mary, for example, and The Apostles' Creed, even though these little ones do not yet fully understand everything they are praying.  Now, whether or not these parents are familiar with the phrase, "lex credendi: lex orandi," they are nevertheless putting this principle into practice, for they are teaching their children to pray those things that they will ultimately come to believe.

EXAMPLE 1: Using a "good" word for an evil purpose.

     To see how the 16th-century Heretics-Schismatics employed the principle, "lex credendi: lex orandi" in order to "move the simple from the superstitious opinions of the Popish Mass," (Ridley), we need look no farther than the example furnished by their taking up a very good and "pious" word, spiritual, in order to use it for a most evil purpose.


     All the quotations which follow immediately below are taken from the writings of these 16th-century "Reformers."  In every instance their use of the word "spiritual" denotes the denial of the Real Presence of Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament; body, blood, soul and divinity.  This is because they are using the "good" word spiritual, and applying it to the Sacrifice of the Mass and to The Eucharist.  (The reader is asked to bear with me through these examples which follow, for there is an important point to be made.)


     (1) Wycliffe: "The Body of Christ is given, taken, and eaten in the Supper only after an heavenly and spiritual manner.  And the mean whereby the Body of Christ is received and eaten in the Supper is faith."


     (2) Ridley: "He left the same in mystery to the faithful in the Supper, to be received after a spiritual communication, and by grace."


     (3) Coverdale: "(W)e think not our Lord Jesus Christ to be so vile that He may be contained in corruptible elements.  Again, lest the force of this most sacred mystery should be diminished, we must think that it is wrought by the secret and wonderful power of God, and that His Spirit is the bond of this partaking, which is for that cause called spiritual."


     (4) Cranmer: "Although Christ be not corporally in the bread and wine ... He is effectually present, and effectually worketh, not in the bread and wine, but in the godly receivers of them, to whom He giveth His own flesh spiritually to feed upon."


     (5) Again Cranmer in replying to Gardiner: "Therefore ... we do not pray absolutely that the bread and wine may be made the body and blood of Christ, but that therewith in spirit and in truth we may be spiritually nourished."


     (6) Latimer: "Then we be assured that we feed upon Him spiritually."


     (7) The Liturgy, of King Edward VI: "For us He hath not only give His body to death and shed His blood, but also doth vouchsafe in a sacrament and mystery to give us His said body and blood spiritually, to feed and drink upon."


     " ... (F)or then we spiritually eat the flesh of Christ and drink His blood, then we dwell in Christ and Christ in us."


     "He hath left in these holy mysteries as a pledge of His love, and a continual remembrance of the same, His own blessed body and precious blood, for us spiritually to feed upon, to our endless comfort  and consolation."


     (8) Grindall: "This is the spiritual, the very true, the only eating of Christ's body."


     (9) Jєωell: "Thus, spiritually, and with the mouth of faith, we eat the body of Christ and drink his blood."


     (10) Beacon: "He is also eaten or received spiritually when we believe in Christ."


     (11) "The Book of Common Prayer" (1549): "but also doth vouchsafe in a Sacrament and mystery to give us his said body and blood to feed upon them spiritually."


     "Thou hast vouchsafed to feed us in these holy mysteries with the spiritual food of the most precious body and blood of thy Son."


     More examples could be given (there is no shortage of them), for indeed it is difficult to find any one of the 16th-century Heretics who failed to use the word "spiritual," when writing of the Sacrifice of the Mass and The Eucharist.


     But this very pious-sounding word, "spiritual" did not fool those who were true, orthodox Catholics.  Finally, the Fathers of the Council of Trent condemned for all times the heresy contained in this use of the word "spiritual": "If anyone says that Christ received in the Eucharist is received spiritually only, ... let him be anathema."  (Canon 8, Session XIII).

     THE NEW, ENGLISH CANON OF THE MASS MISTRANSLATES THE PRAYER "QUAM OBLATIONEM" TO IMPLY A SPIRITUAL OFFERING.  This prayer, which immediately precedes the consecration prayers, should read: "Do thou, O God, deign to bless what we offer, and make it approved, effective, right, and wholly pleasing in every way ..."  The bogus, heretical "Canon" now reads instead: "Bless and approve our offering; make it truly spiritual and acceptable."


     Obviously this is not just a "pious" use of the word spiritual.  For at no time did this particular word ever appear in "the holy canon, which is so free from error that it contains nothing that does not in the highest degree savor of a certain holiness and piety."  (Council of Trent, Ch. 4, Session 22).


     "Lex credendi: lex orandi."  Here is "orandi": "bless and approve our offering; make it truly spiritual."  Can "CREDENDI" be far behind?  Can it be very long before "the simple people are moved" away from the belief in the real presence?

EXAMPLE 2: A Sacrifice of "Praise and Thanksgiving."

     In the new, English "Canon" we find in two places (that is, prior to the consecrations of both the bread and the wine) the seemingly uncalled-for insertion of the words: and praise.  The original Latin reads simply, "gratias agens," giving thanks.  Why does the new, English "Canon" say, "he gave you thanks and praise"?


     It is true that the Mass is a sacrifice of praise, petition, thanksgiving, and atonement; but, obviously, that is beside the point here.  The simple words, giving thanks, are quite proper and appropriate in this place, for they have their basis in Holy Writ. Four different accounts - to wit, Matt. (26,27); Mark (14,23); Luke (22,19) and I Cor. (11,24) - all have either "He gave thanks" or else "giving thanks."  There is a special meaningfulness in these words, inasmuch as "giving thanks" is in Greek: Eucharist.  Hence these very words, when recited by the priest just before the two consecrations, remind us of the Sacrament of the Eucharist.


     There is no Scriptural account that makes mention that Our Lord on the occasion of instituting the Holy Eucharist gave thanks and praise.  So, what is the explanation for this change made in the Canon of the Mass?  Could it be another implementation of "lex credendi: lex orandi"?


     As applied to a sacrifice, this particular phraseology - that is, the words "praise" and "thanksgiving," taken together - did, in fact, convey a singular and especial significance to the 16th-century Heretics-Schismatics.  According to the scholarly Canon Estcourt, "Luther led the attack.  He denied the Catholic doctrine of the Sacrifice of the Mass in any other sense than as the sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving."  (E. E. Estcourt, The Question of Anglican Ordinations Discussed, p. 281, emphasis added).


     But let us hear it from the Hieresiarchs themselves.  First of all, Luther: "The Mass may be called a sacrifice, if it be understood as a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving, not of a work, nor propitiatory."  (De Usu Sacram, Euch. salutari, emphasis added).


     And by Cranmer, Luther's English counterpart, we are informed: "When the old fathers called the mass or supper of the Lord a sacrifice, they meant that it was a sacrifice of lauds (i.e., "praise") and thanksgiving ... but they meant in no wise that it is a very true sacrifice for sin."  (Cranmer, On the Lord's Supper, emphasis added).


     Thus to the Schismatics the Mass was a sacrifice of "praise and thanksgiving" which, in their argot, meant a bare commemoration of the Sacrifice of Calvary, or a spiritual and symbolic sacrifice. But not a real sacrifice, nor a sacrifice of propitiation.  This point Cranmer made quite clear, "And yet have I denied that it is a sacrifice propitiatory for sin."


     So well-known and infamous was the connotation the Schismatics had attached to the words "praise and thanksgiving" when applied to the Sacrifice of the Mass, the Fathers of the Council of Trent once and for all times pronounced this solemn curse on this heresy: "If anyone says that the Sacrifice of the Mass is one only of praise and thanksgiving ... let him be anathema."  (Canon 3, Session XXII).


     "Lex credendi: lex orandi."  Here is "orandi": He gave you thanks and praise.

EXAMPLE 3: "Ein' feste Burg ist unser Gott."

     At the peak of his rebellion, Martin Luther penned the hymn, Ein' feste Burg ist unser Gott.  It was "the production," says the historian Ranke, "of the moment in which Luther, engaged in a conflict with a world of foes, sought strength in the consciousness that he was defending a divine (sic) cause which could never perish."  "Ein' feste Burg ist unser Gott" was called by Heine "The Marseillaise of the Reformation."


     This battle-hymn of rebellion against the Catholic Church is now appearing on "hymn cards" in Catholic Churches.  (St. Thomas Aquinas Church in Palo Alto, California, for example.)  And as Catholics sing this hymn, "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God" do they yet realize that they are echoing the great hieresiarch in his apostasy, his rebellion against the One, True, Holy, Catholic, Apostolic Roman Church which was founded by the Son of God?


     "Lex credendi: lex orandi."  Here is "orandi": the Marseillaise of the Reformation.

EXAMPLE 4: "And I will go in to the table of God."  (New American version of Psalm 42, v. 4).

     "The destruction of the altars was a measure so distinct in its meaning that we have never been able to conceive how that meaning could be misunderstood.  The measure meant a bitter hatred of the Mass, and a hatred directed against the Mass itself, not merely against some obscure abuse ...  Surely if these reformers had desired only to remove an abuse, but were full of reverence for the great Christian Sacrifice itself, they would not have destroyed and desecrated the altars, and substituted tables in their place, alleging as their reason, in unqualified terms, that 'the form of a table shall more move the simple from the superstitious opinions of the Popish Mass unto the right use of the Lord's Supper.  For the use of an altar is to make sacrifice on it; the use of a table is to serve men to eat upon it.'  (Ridley's Works)." (Emphasis added).


     The foregoing were the words of the Roman Catholic Bishops of England in 1898. (Source: A Vindication of the Bull 'Apostolicae Curae', par. 38, titled "The Destruction of Altars")


"The law of belief is the law of prayer.."

Why is everything backwards with you?

The way you pray dictates what you believe, the maxim is: Lex Orandi, lex credendi -  "the law of praying is the law of believing".

Teach it the way the Church teaches it, not the backwards NO way.



 

The author points this out in the second sentence.  The axiom is true both ways, the focus of the appended article is on how the law of belief determines the law of prayer.  It's not backwards.

There is no "phrase" called "lex credendi: lex orandi" and because lex orandi lex credendi is the law, that is the only way it works.

The maxim lex orandi lex credendi means what it says, to say the maxim  backwards, then claim it says the same thing as it does forwards, is to reject the truth of the law entirely.

Well, Stubborn it seems to me that you are again in a minority that substitutes itself for the authority of the Church.

Are not your assertions already denied in the following teaching of Pope Pius XII?:

46. On this subject We judge it Our duty to rectify an attitude with which you are doubtless familiar, Venerable Brethren. We refer to the error and fallacious reasoning of those who have claimed that the sacred liturgy is a kind of proving ground for the truths to be held of faith, meaning by this that the Church is obliged to declare such a doctrine sound when it is found to have produced fruits of piety and sanctity through the sacred rites of the liturgy, and to reject it otherwise. Hence the epigram, "Lex orandi, lex credendi" - the law for prayer is the law for faith.

47. But this is not what the Church teaches and enjoins [My emphasis]. The worship she offers to God, all good and great, is a continuous profession of Catholic faith and a continuous exercise of hope and charity, as Augustine puts it tersely. "God is to be worshipped," he says, "by faith, hope and charity." [Enchiridion, c. 3.] In the sacred liturgy we profess the Catholic faith explicitly and openly, not only by the celebration of the mysteries, and by offering the holy sacrifice and administering the sacraments, but also by saying or singing the credo or Symbol of the faith - it is indeed the sign and badge, as it were, of the Christian - along with other texts, and likewise by the reading of holy scripture, written under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost. The entire liturgy, therefore, has the Catholic faith for its content, inasmuch as it bears public witness to the faith of the Church.

48. For this reason, whenever there was question of defining a truth revealed by God, the Sovereign Pontiff and the Councils in their recourse to the "theological sources," as they are called, have not seldom drawn many an argument from this sacred science of the liturgy. For an example in point, Our predecessor of immortal memory, Pius IX, so argued when he proclaimed the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary. Similarly during the discussion of a doubtful or controversial truth, the Church and the Holy Fathers have not failed to look to the age-old and age-honored sacred rites for enlightenment. Hence the well-known and venerable maxim, "Legem credendi lex statuat supplicandi" - let the rule for prayer determine the rule of belief.[De gratia Dei "Indiculus."] The sacred liturgy, consequently, does not decide or determine independently and of itself what is of Catholic faith. More properly, since the liturgy is also a profession of eternal truths, and subject, as such, to the supreme teaching authority of the Church, it can supply proofs and testimony, quite clearly, of no little value, towards the determination of a particular point of Christian doctrine. But if one desires to differentiate and describe the relationship between faith and the sacred liturgy in absolute and general terms, it is perfectly correct to say, "Lex credendi legem statuat supplicandi" - let the rule of belief determine the rule of prayer. The same holds true for the other theological virtues also, "In . . . fide, spe, caritate continuato desiderio semper oramus" - we pray always, with constant yearning in faith, hope and charity. [Saint Augustine, Epist. 130, ad Probam, 18.]

Ref: Pius XII, Encyclical “Mediator Dei”, 20 November 1947.

Since the Church is already in possession of the truth revealed by Christ, the Deposit of Faith is necessarily presupposed. Consequently, there is freedom for the abbreviation “lex credendi: lex orandi” to work both ways in this sense:
that whilst the Church's belief is expressed in its prayers, those prayers also provide evidence for the enquirer of what the Church’s believes.  

Well Sunbeam, again you missed the whole point. You use a papal encyclical which is all about warning about the dangers of changing the way we pray (the Mass) - why do you suppose he taught about these dangers?

... The maxim is Lex Orandi lex credendi, not the other way around.

On this subject We judge it Our duty to rectify an attitude with which you are doubtless familiar, Venerable Brethren. We refer to the error and fallacious reasoning of those who have claimed that the sacred liturgy is a kind of proving ground for the truths to be held of faith, meaning by this that the Church is obliged to declare such a doctrine sound when it is found to have produced fruits of piety and sanctity through the sacred rites of the liturgy, and to reject it otherwise.

Hence the epigram, "Lex orandi, lex credendi" - the law for prayer is the law for faith. But...

THIS IS NOT WHAT THE CHURCH TEACHES AND ENJOINS.

So, Stubborn, without again resorting to the language of the gutter, please explain why you insist that you are right and Pope Pius XII was wrong.