One of the most dramatic consequences of the original sin committed by Adam and Eve in Eden is blindness. Meditating on this situation that resulted after the fall, Saint Hildegard of Bingen speaks about the loss of ‘spiritual eyes,’ which occurred simultaneously with the opening of our physical eyes.
In other words, although we have knowledge of the sensible, material, physical world that surrounds us, we do not have direct knowledge of the spiritual world. Man has become incapable of seeing God’s world—the homeland of angels and saints who live in eternity there. This blindness has always been at the root of the gravest vice that can afflict man: unbelief. For it is quite simple to deny what you never see during this earthly life.
Knowing perfectly this major deficiency that resulted after the commission of the first sin, God has always sought to leave us signs to remind us of His existence and the Kingdom of Heaven. In the first chapter of his Epistle to the Romans, Saint Paul the Apostle speaks about the fact that through the act of intellectual reflection, we can deduce the existence of the Creator from His creatures. Based on this teaching, the saints have often spoken about vestigia Dei—the ‘traces’ left by God in creation. Pagan wise men, like Pythagoras, Socrates, and Plato, systematically meditated on the significance of certain elements of creation that prove the existence of a divine intellect that designed everything that exists. And yet, despite these traces, we still do not see the unseen world directly.
The most elaborate way in which God has addressed this deficiency of our fallen nature can be found, however, in the sacred texts of Holy Scripture. Here, the Author and inspirer of the prophets and evangelists has encompassed, as Saint Dionysius the Areopagite masterfully shows in his writings, a true language of sacred symbols. This language can be found in its entirety within the contents of the Holy Liturgy. Through it, the unseen world is made known to us, despite the fact that, for now, concrete experiences of ecstatic ascensions into Heaven and direct knowledge of the celestial Jerusalem remain rare. However, the biblical and liturgical symbols make the world of the spirit accessible to us. I should not forget to emphasize that this knowledge necessarily involves a true initiation of baptized Christians: mystagogical catechesis (i.e., catechesis about the mystical meanings of the Sacraments, the Bible, and the Liturgy).
Against the erroneous teachings promoted by liturgical revolutionaries, we must always insist on the fact that no element of the Holy Liturgy is self-explanatory. The idea of making the Church’s liturgy intelligible by itself, by simplifying or even eliminating sacred symbols, is simultaneously absurd and destructive. Without proper formation, no believer, whether a simple layperson, priest, bishop, or Pope, can understand the mysteries they are invited to contemplate in the sacred ceremonies. Unfortunately, however, if fundamental catechesis (the Creed, the Sacraments, the Law, and the Prayer) has been almost completely abandoned in recent decades, mystagogical catechesis has been and remains practically non-existent.[ii] This is why we have an urgent need to fill the void left by the destruction of traditional catechesis in general, and especially mystagogical-liturgical catechesis.
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