Orthodox Patriarchal Ecclesiastical School: Makarios III Archbishop of Cyprus Seminary
Course: Sacramental Theology I
Year: Three.
Semester: One
Instructor: Very Rev. Proto-presbyter Fr. Dr. Evangelos E. Mwaura Thiani
Student: OSEM02180-PSOO6
# Summary of the book, ‘For the Life of the World’. Fr. Alexander Schmemann. St. Vladimir’s
Seminary Press, Crestwood, N.Y. 1963.
1. For the Life of the World:
o The world was given by God to reveal Him to man.
- For communion with God.
o ‘Man is a hungry being’1.
- Hunger is the desire for God, whom he should continually bless for the blessings He bestows.
o This act of blessing is his ‘way of life’2, and makes him the priest of creation.
- In thanksgiving (Eucharist) he offers the world to God.
- He is centrally placed and unifies the creation with The Creator. Filling it with meaning and spirit.
o Eating what was yet to be given3 and blessed brought The Fall.
o The loss of awareness of God resulted to :
- Sin
- The loss of man’s position as the priest of creation
- And loss of Eucharistic life.
- Man’s slavery to the same world, leading the entire universe into darkness.
Overdependence on the world rendered man ceasing seeing the world as a sacrament of
o
communion with God,4 by diverting his hunger from God alone to the world- The Ancestral
Sin.
o Christ’s incarnation revealed God’s true nature, inaugurated the new life man had lost by
tumbling down the wall betwixt man and God and gave back life as sacrament and
communion5.
- Thus, Christianity is an action for the fullness of life.
2. The Eucharist:
o It’s a corporate participation in ministry on behalf of and for the entire community.
- Thence church is a corporate act of bearing witness to Christ and His dominion.
o Again, it’s the sacrament to which the church is called, in which she ascends into the
Kingdom.
- The divine ascension is the Church’s sole mission. Our heavenly entry announced with the exclamation
“Blessed is the Kingdom…’ is said with the destination in sight- union with God.6 While the priest is vested in
glory of the Kingdom7 the Church stands in Christ’s presence and the joy of expectation to meet the risen Lord
is expressed in singing, ritual, vesting etc.
1
Pg. 11
2
Pg. 15
3
The forbidden was not offered to man as a gift, pg. 16.
4
Pg. 18:4
5
Pg. 20
6
Pg. 29
7
The priest makes the priesthood of Christ present.
o Doxology is the key principle of creation, thus in the Kingdom, the Church participates with
the holy angels in the joyful expressions of singing God’s glory via the thrice Holy hymn and
the angelic song in Isaiah 6:6.
o In this world, there is no altar, thus Christ is the Only Altar and our access into heaven.
o In Christ man turns to God and vice versa as the priest gives the benedictions of peace.8
o The proclamation of the Word -the transformative Sacramental act that transforms human
words into God’s own words and manifests the Kingdom9 whereby, the receptive man is
transfigured into the receptacle of Christ and the Temple of the Holy Spirit follows. The
recipient is transfigured into a deity via the Word and they sing ‘Alleluia’ at the witnessing of
the glorious Parousia.10
o Man was created as a celebrant of Sacramental Life for transformation into life in God.
Christ’s advent restored man to the Eucharistic life11 owing to it that the world was created as
food for man. The great entrance shows the response of Christ’s cosmic love in which life is
restored and the church is constituted.12
-The Eucharist offers and consecrates these elements for man to commune.
o The anaphora- transformation of the elements as to man- begins with the elements concealed
just our life is hid with Christ in God.13Christ’s ascension has brought the totality of life
which lies hidden in God.
o The Eucharist is the anaphora- i.e. the offering- of man and the gifts that leads to the
transfiguring of the man and the elements through the divine ascent.14 Free from sin, all joy
restored and in the presence of God, man offers in thanksgiving- which is remembrance of
Christ.
o The Eucharist is the preface of the Eschaton and so the Church fulfills herself in that new age
which was inaugurated by Christ’s death and resurrection.15 As we rise into the ages to come,
into the eternal and salvific grace, we receive the New Life from God.16
o By grace, the bread and wine are raised up to the level of The Divine- i.e. the Body and
Blood of Christ.17This transformation can only occur in The Holy Spirit within The New
Age, i.e. our world perfect in Christ- The Kingdom. The epiclesis is a seal confirming our
ascension and the transformation of the Church.18
o Now that he is in communion with the Holy Spirit, he intercedes for the universe. He is able
to see the world through Christ’s eyes and the world is restored to its ancient solidarity.19
With his acquiescence to transfiguration through communing the Divine , man once again is
introduced into paradise.
o Having experienced our transfiguration, the age of salvation and redemption, we leave the
New Age
o The Eucharist is the Life of paradise and man’s response to God’s creation, redemption and
heavenly gift. And Christ is the ONLY perfect Eucharist- the thanksgiving of the world, for
He grants life by reconciling the world with Triune God thus offering forgiveness.
8
Pg.32. He is our communion, our peace, and our reconciliation with God.
9
Pg. 33.
10
Ibid. The transfiguring growth experienced herein is wrought by the Word and the Spirit of God.
11
He, Christ, is the perfect Eucharist and the Eucharist is His- in whose remembrance man and the world are offered back
to God.
12
Pg. 36
13
Ibid. Col. 3:3.
14
Pg. 37
15
Pg. 43; the church fulfills herself in the liturgy for the latter is the anaphora of the former.
16
Ibid. all our hunger was a hunger for God thus our very life in Him is a communion- i.e. Eucharistic.
17
Ibid. only when we are in heaven can we confess that the bread and wine are indeed the Body and Blood of Christ. St
Basil said, ‘this bread is in very truth the precious blood of our Lord, this wine the precious blood of Christ.’
18
Pg. 44.
19
Pg. 45
o The Eucharist is a transformative action that offers a new joyous reality.
3. The Time of Mission:
o Time is our fundamental reality, our optimism and pessimism and a mystery. Only through
time that man experiences life as a possibility, development death and dissolution.20
o In the church, only in the Divine Liturgy would time be adequately defined and new reality
(καιρός) is experienced.
o Conventional Christianity has created a chaotic mystery of time owing to ‘spiritualization’ of
Christianity into a religion that which exhorts Christians to live unconscious of time to the
extent of claiming time’s uselessness in the ‘beyond bounds of time’ Kingdom.
o Nevertheless, the key to the Christian experience is time.21The Lord’s Day from the very
beginning was Christianity’s own day of worship. Apropos of the Jewish Seventh Day, it
obtains its real significance. The Σάϐϐατο is the blissful embrace of the goodness of the
created world. It is an active participation in the sanctity and fullness of divine peace as the
crowning of time. Thus the Seventh Day has Cosmic and Eschatological connotations.22
o Yet world’s time alienates man from God owing to its rebellion and sinfulness. Thus the
Σάϐϐατο looks towards the salvific aspect of the Lord’s Resurrection Day. From the Jewish
apocalyptic writings emerges the idea of a day beyond the worldly time. It is the new era- of
the Kingdom, for it trounces over the limitations of the worldly seven days’ time. From this
the mystical Eighth Day bore the Christian Sunday.
o On the first day Life shone from the grave, bringing life and time with Him.23 Thus on this
day the Church celebrates the Eucharist- in which she ascends into the Kingdom and acquires
a fulfilled new life. This indicates the day as the beginning of the age to come and
transformed the other days into times of ‘expectation and remembrance’.24 The Anaphora and
the expectation of the Eucharist reveal Sunday as the first and the eighth day- or a day
without ending, while remaining as one of the seven days and gave all the others their true
meaning.
o Christianity was first preached in cultures which the Ecclesiastical Calendar transformed to
liturgical commemorations and celebrations- feasts. Besides, Christianity itself is a gift of a
feast which reveals joy-the transforming power of the Holy Spirit.25 The Church comprises of
commemoration of Christ’s salvific economy for He is ultimate fulfillment of time and life. 26
Through the manifestation of the Holy Spirit, the Church celebrates Paschal feast in deep joy
for man’s fulfillment.
o The normal time after the nightless Easter enters the eschatological experience of joy. 27
Paschal joy persists for the next 50 days. Here, time is experienced as a feast. With Pentecost
comes our return to the ordinary time- χρόνος. Kneeling for the first time after Easter is
perfected on Holy Spirit Monday night; darkness, isolation and desire have returned to their
place. Time after Pentecost is measured by numbers until the next Easter celebration.
o The daily cycle of services follow the anticipation and celebration of the Paschal
eschatological joy. The liturgical acts done hourly within the day are the intercessory mission
of the Church.
20
Pg. 47
21
Pg. 50
22
Ibid
23
In the Gospel of John, the Day is mentioned as the first and the eighth day in the same breath (John 20: 19 & 26)
24
Pg. 52
25
Pg. 55
26
Pg. 56. Christ’s salvific economy is the manifestation of the Holy Spirit as well.
27
Pg. 58
o Contrary to the conventional experiences of time, liturgical time begin with Vespers. At this
very moment, the Church sanctifies time.28 Vespers theme is suffering man’s crying out of
paradise.29 With Christ’s presence death is trounced, sin annihilated and the evening becomes
the real time of our life.
o In the morning we wake to our weakness and hopelessness, to absurdity and solitude. In the
amorphous darkness we discover stillness of life; we hunger and anticipate. The coming light
is the only solace thus the Church start Matins with joy of fulfillment. She announces the
God is the Lord and organizes her life around Him. Candles are lit as a foretaste of the sun,
darkness is dispelled. In each morning, we proclaim the expected messiah so we rejoice.
o Both matins and vespers are two dimensions of time as it affects life, and the church gives it
new meaning by transforming it to Christian time. The church expresses time between two
points of revelation, morning and evening, Sunday and Sunday, Easter and Easter and
between the two comings of Christ.
o The normal hustles of the day indicate the futility of time yet God revealed Eternal Life in
the midst of all human rush. It is this Eternal Life that gives meaning to life. 30The experience
of time as an expression of joy focuses us to the Eschaton. So the world’s self-sufficiency
begins the sacrament of fulfillment in Christ.
4. Of Water and Spirit:
o In Sacrament, there must be man’s renewal. And only through baptism that man reconciles
with God and is accorded the transforming grace. Thus Baptism is the very entry and
integration into the Assembly of God.
o Baptism gives ‘Ecclesiology’ its significance.
o Catechumenate was and still takes a great part of church life which indicates baptism’s
fundamentality in ‘religious education’.31
o At the Narthex, exorcism and renunciation of the devil incept the rite. The synergy of man
and God works to expiate the evil one. Exorcism leads to acknowledgement of evil’s
presence and power but also proclaims God’s ability to annihilate it.
o Conversion follows renunciation. The union with Christ is confirmed by the catechumen’s
professing the symbol of faith. Humility, obedience and discipline mark the beginning of
Church life. Slight prostration to The Trinity ensues.
o Blessing of the water- the basic element of life, death and purification that represents cosmic
matter, at the font is carried out. As a grace of redemption, water cleanses sins and
infirmities. By triple immersion, man is baptized into Christ (Romans 6:3)32
o Emerging from the cleansing waters, man is robed with the garments that symbolize
kingship.
Confirmation:
o Personal Pentecost, Personal ordination into royal priesthood and Confirmation of the body
as the Temple of the Holy Spirit.
o All heresies are denounced and man is called to fulfill his uniqueness. The seal is the wind of
God- who makes us available for the divine action and for man it means to become a reality.
It opens to man the catholicity of life. 33
28
Pg. 60
29
Pg. 104
30
Pg. 65
31
Pg. 69
32
Pg. 73
33
Pg. 76
o With the doors of the Kingdom open man enters into the liturgical movement- procession.
Penance:
o Sadly, some Christians perceive moral righteousness, soberness and warm philanthropy as
God’s meaning behind giving His Only-Begotten Son for the salvation of the world. And the
feeling of being saved fills them with self-satisfaction.
o Constantly do we fall into sin even after the redemptive renewal of life thus elongating the
war with sin. Baptism is the forgiveness of sins not removal.
o There is a sincere sorrow of one not being a saint, which rouses hunger for union with God-
theosis. This sword of Christ- of sorrow was introduced by baptism in our life and allows
sincere repentance.
o The Church provides forgiveness of sin, progressive repentance and joy of the age to come.
The church is the gift of the Kingdom that also marks our absence into the Kingdom- our
alienation from God.
o Repentance returns us to the heavenly feast whose anticipation puts us under judgment and
reveals to us our sinfulness and unworthiness.
o Penance offers the renewal of life as experienced in baptism while it is not a repetition of the
same. Baptism offers penance its sacramental character.
o Absolution indicates our return and reception into the heavenly banquet while the Eucharist
remains our ascension and acceptance into the heavenly banquet.
5. The mystery of love:
o Every sacrament is the sacrament of the Kingdom for it is always enabled by the Holy Spirit.
This way, the life of the Church is Sacramental translating our life into manifestation of the
New Life.
o Marriage is the restoration of the fallen and distorted marriage of the world through the
salvific economy of God.
o To bear the sacramental meaning, marriage concerns the whole church not the bridal couple.
The church is the sacrament of love thus marriage is the sacrament of love not family. Thus
the sacrament encompasses the church and the whole world.
o The sacrament of matrimony transforms ‘The natural law of love’ into the great mystery of
Christ and the Church.34Marriage in the early Church was fulfilled within the Divine Liturgy
thus in the Eucharistic communion it became the Sacrament of the Kingdom.
o Betrothal happens at the Narthex, rings are blessed and exchanged by the bridal pair. The
Narthex represents the hunger for the Kingdom for itself it is an exile from the Kingdom
o Through a procession, the priest leads the couple into the Church. In its true sense, the
entrance is the procession of the entire Church and the Marriage into the Kingdom of God.
o Each family is a miniature Kingdom, a little Church and so, the couple is crowned with the
crowns of glory and honor.35 Each of the couple are a king and queen to each other.
a) Crowns of Martyrdom: every marriage is a bearing witness of Christ in that self-
sufficiency and egoism are crucified for the sake of love. Christian marriage is a triad
of God- man- woman where God keeps it intact, sanctified and fulfilled.
b) Crowns of the Kingdom: their crowns are an anticipation of the ultimate reality, a
perfected growth in God’s love for He is the beginning and the end.
34
Pg. 88
35
Pg. 89
o The liturgical dance ensues. The priest leads the conjoined couple round the table. As
with Baptism, this procession symbolizes the eternal journey. Marriage is a hand in hand
walk in joy.
Priesthood
o It is a mystery of Christ and the Church thus a marriage to the Church. It is an acceptance
and a response of humanity to God.
o It is a sacrament of love which reveals the Church as the pure Body of Christ.
o Both sacraments are a revelation of human life as vocation i.e. the mystery of Christ and
the Church. In the Church, mankind learns to follow Christ in the fullness of His
Priesthood which is our ultimate vocation.
o Christ’s definite will is the fulfillment of mankind in the Kingdom’s abundant life.
6. Trampling Down Death by Death:
o The modern culture is death denying and Christianity has readjusted to it. She has learnt to
deny death in her sermons. This assumed attitude denies Christianity’s life affirming role
while death is the very reality of the world. Christ did not bring rest but life of the world. 36
o Today’s world expect optimism from the ministers even to the issues concerning death and
this falsifies man’s true being for it rushes to reconcile man with death while explaining it. In
this attitude, man consoles himself that death is a God given gift that belongs to the pattern of
life for several reasons, e.g.
- Liberation from a depraved old age
- Liberation from illness as punishment
- The hope and teaching that a part of him survives- the soul etc.
o According to Fr. Schmemann, this is secularized Christianity. He continues to say that being
secular is not absence of religion but an explanation and reconciliation of man with death.
Life in secularism ends with death. It has own eschatology and ethics thus a religion.37
o However, Christianity’s main purpose is to reveal the truth about life, death and dying. Life
finds its meaning in God alone. And so, Christianity need not eliminate man’s fear of death
but to reveal life and death. Christ is life and came to destroy death. It is the enemy that
needs no explanation.
o This world has normalized death thus life is loss. This reduces God’s creation to a cemetery
which according to Fr. Schmemann is a fall.38 Only in Christ is the fall reveal for only in Him
is fullness of life revealed to us.
o The fullness of Christ was given to us as the sacrament of Divine presence for only in
communion with God was man meant to be. Thus death is a separation from God and His
enemy.
o Christian approach towards death is sacramental.it is by God’s grace that that old nature
transforms to new nature. Every sacrament reveals Christ and so, this sacrament of healing is
an entrance into the Kingdom of God. It is ascension into the New Life.
o Death and illness reveal man’s defeat while Christ transforms suffering into victory. Defeat
becomes true healing. Thus the Church ushers man into love, light and life.
36
Pg. 96
37
Pg. 98
38
Pg. 100
o Suffering is the norm of the world but acquired a new meaning through Christ. Death
becomes the ultimate beginning.
o Therefore, Christianity is My Life centered belief and the Church is entrance into the risen
life of Christ or communion with God in joy and peace in the Holy Spirit. In Christ death is
an act of life.
7. And Ye Are Witnesses of These Things:
o Church is mission and vice versa.
o The common enemy to Christian confession is secularism; and to counter secularism values
while explaining itself, Christianity uses tools borrowed from secularism. Overcoming
secularism became surrender to secularism.
o Change of religion occurs when man accepts that which offers help not more truth.39 The
massive religious shifts into Orthodoxy in the West are due to the wrong identification with
the Oriental mysticism and wisdom.40
o Secularism resulted from Christian revolution thus rejecting it results to rejection of certain
fundamental Christian aspirations and hopes. It is a mission’s vehicle that validates the
dimensional thoughts which permeate other religions.
o It however is a tragic sin despite its Christian origin41 for it is a lie to the world.42
o Communion of saints, obedience to the Gospel and the Divine Liturgy and the Christian
tradition demands seeing everything in the world as God’s revelation.
o Since Pentecost, there is a seal of the Holy Spirit on everything. In Christ, the world in its
totality is a transformation. This background invalidates secularism.
o However, the battle between Christianity and secularism a false one.
o Mission is a Christian action that is achieved after the ascension of the Church into the
Kingdom. The ascension is the beginning of mission for the Church has already experienced
the True Light.
o For effective mission, organization, planning and human wisdom and intelligence are
required.43Above all Christian life mirrors mission’s success.
o Only in Christ that everything gains meaning and the world is transformed into a sacrament
of Christ’s return.
o A Christian is he who having looked finds Christ, rejoices in Him and his actions and plans
are transformed into mission. Mission is thus our witnessing for Christ through our daily life.
This transforms the world into the sacrament of Christ’s return.
8. Worship in a Secular Age:
o Even in the Orthodox Church there is no standard take concerning Worship and Secularism.
o Secularism is a negation of worship; it is a heresy against man, not God, for man is a
worshipping being. It rejects him as thus.
o Worship identifies, stamps and fulfills man’s position. It reveals man’s relation to God, the
world and himself while secularism rejects worship thus denying man’s relation with God.
39
Pg. 109
40
Pg. 110
41
Pg. 111
42
Pg. 112
43
Pg. 113
o Worship is the sacramental character of the world and man’s position in it. Sacrament is an
epiphany of God.44
o Worship directly engages with God and Communion with Him thus it is the ultimate
fulfillment of man and the world.
o Only in worship is the communion with God and all that exists is revealed and established. In
it the world is revealed as a sacrament. To know and commune with God, we need the
elements, i.e. water, oil, wine and bread.
o Worship is primordial and universal nature; it happens in time and consequently renews time.
o Christian liturgy stems from the faith in the incarnation. Thus the uniqueness and newness of
Christian worship is that continuity is fulfilled in Christ.
o Religion has reduced Christianity and its worship to pagan mystery cults while Christ is the
fulfillment of worship as adoration and prayer, thanksgiving and sacrifice, communion and
knowledge for He is the Epiphany of man as worshipping being.45
o By rejecting Christ, the world discontinued its vocation of worship. It rejected its own
destiny and fulfillment. Thus, for it to become the means of communion, it must die in man.
The very elements of the world- bread, wine and water must be lifted up- anaphora, to be
transformed into the Divine blood and body of Christ.
o Minding that incarnation is the basis of Christian worship, the cross and resurrection then is
its true content.
o It is during the Eucharistic ascension that the Church leaves this world and proclaims that the
heaven and the earth are full of God’s glory. This ascension is a divine discontinuity in the
Holy Spirit, who makes all things new. Thus worship is an expectation and anticipation of
God’s Kingdom- an eschatological aspect of the Christian liturgy.46
o Profoundly, worship is historical, cosmic and eschatological.
o Secularism is negation of worship which is the very grain of the world and man. A secularist
is not an atheist, the former accepts God’s existence while the latter denies. A secularist
simply rejects the world’s and man’s sacramentality. They view the world as containing
within itself its meaning and the principle of knowledge action.47 Paradoxically, secularism is
an obsession with worship. A secularist’s rejection of world’s and man’s sacramentality
reduces symbols to mere illustrations and ideas.
o However, whatever the degree of secularism or atheism, man remains a worshipping being.
Thus a fast and a vigil remain to be expectation and preparation hence symbolic.
o Traditional worship encompasses all aspects of human life, its ailing and tragedies, the world
and its components.
o A heresy is the breakup of catholicity and truth and thus requires an exerted Christian
thought and conscience. Secularism itself is the greatest modern heresy – a Christian bred
heresy, which requires the Church make an effort of understanding so it may ultimately be
overcome by truth.48
44
Pg. 120
45
Pg. 122
46
Pg. 123
47
Pg. 124
48
P. 128
o The downfall of Christian symbolism led to the dichotomy of the natural and supernatural as
the only framework of Christian thought and experience.49in both experiences the world
ceases to be the natural sacrament of God providing the supernatural worldly discontinuity.
o The end of the patristic fathers’ age defragmented the Eastern Church’s theological
framework into a rather Western aptitude hence the influence of the Western Church on the
acceptability of the Eastern Church. However, both the Western ideology of a secular
Christianity and the Orthodox Church legalistic-syllogistic conservativeness made the world
grace proof that ultimately led to secularism.50
o Sacrament is thus a revelation of the world’s meaning, restoration of its essence and
fulfillment of its destiny as a means of grace and worship.51 THUS there is no need for a new
form of worship for what is required is rediscovery of meaning and power of worship which
reinstates the liturgy as light and life, the truth and grace that are fulfilled in the Church.52
9. Sacrament and Symbol:
o Defragmentation of the patristic age saw the Church fumble for the meaning of Sacrament
and symbol from the Latin theological walls. This explains the numbering, definitions and
classification of Sacraments.
o The Patristic Sacramental theology explains Sacraments within the Liturgical context rather
than mentally as the Western Sacramental theology explains.53
o Every sacrament has a connection with the holy Eucharist, there however is a distinctive
edge called symbolism that has been theologically born to explain the seemingly ‘unreal’
aspect of the real Eucharistic presence.54
o In the Patristic Sacramental theology, symbol embodies the very expression and mode of
manifestation. The symbolical element of the sacrament is the very grain of the world’s
structure continuity.55
o Christ is the very reality Christian sacrament reveals and communicates. He is the ultimate
reality and destiny of the world as the sacrament presents. 56
o The institution of sacrament was through cognition and participation not ex nihilo and so in
Christ, the symbol is fulfilled and transformed into sacrament.57 Post-patristic theology
disconnected the Creator- Christ, with His creation thus, the institution, which is an intrinsic
revealing action, is taken as a formal extrinsic activity. This explains why transubstantiation
maims and kills sacramental theology and contradicts with the early Church.58
o For the Fathers, there is a living synthesis between symbol and sacrament. Symbol is the
sacramental mode of operation; it is the very revelation of the invisible, the unknowable and
the eschaton. It thus is the Epiphany59not mere means of participation for it can cause the
49
P. 129
50
P. 130
51
P. 121
52
P. 134
53
P. 137
54
P. 138
55
P. 139
56
P. 140
57
ibid
58
P. 144
59
P.141
divine presence, represent it or be the divine presence. The dichotomy between symbol and
sacrament is not traditional but an implant of doubt into the reality of the divine synthesis. 60
o Without losing touch with the Christian theology, the Fathers maintained its dynamic nature
of relating with the contemporary nature- a burden to any attempt for the revival of the
Fathers. 61
o To explain the anticipated divine experience, the term symbol is the most adequate for it
gains meaning within a theological and spiritual context.62 It is cognitive, participatory and
unifies knowledge with existence- It is the ‘Unitive Principle’.63
o A Christian’s portion is knowledge for by confessing Christ as the life and light of the world,
they indeed confess Him as the Ultimate Symbol, i.e. Symbol of all symbols.64
o Rejection and dissolution of symbol as the fundamental structure of Christian doctrine and
institution has deprived it its intrinsic power of epiphany. 65
o In-as-much-as God has revealed Christ to be The Symbol, deprivation of it may result to
chaos and destruction. 66 Christ’s salvific economy was meant to reinstate the world as the
symbol of God, as the hunger and thirst for fulfillment in God and the passage into the
Kingdom of God. The world’s self-sufficiency was destroyed and in its place the Church was
revealed as the symbol of the new creation and the world to come. Thus, true and honest
rediscovery of symbol can only be realized within the Church- Symbol of the world.67 This
redirects us to the patristic age theology.
o Post-patristic theological deflection of the connection between symbol and sacrament has
denied the sacramental reality of the Church, the World and the Kingdom.68
o Liturgy is the expression of Church life and faith. Thus, the rediscovery of the unity between
liturgy and sacrament and vice versa redirects Symbol to its liturgical reality. The ultimate
purpose of Liturgy is to congregate the Church, the World and the Kingdom into the Ultimate
Symbol- Christ. 69
o Only when human reality is transfigured by grace into God’s consummation will the Church
become The Body of Christ and The Temple of The Holy Spirit, i.e. the ultimate and unique
symbol.70
60
P. 142
61
P. 146
62
ibid
63
P. 147
64
P. 148
65
ibid
66
P. 149
67
ibid
68
P. 150
69
P. 151
70
ibid
