Theology of the liturgy : mystery-presence theory

Abstract

By His redemptive work Christ reconciled man with God, so that man's sin could be forgiven, and the way to Heaven was opened. The question is: How does all this profit each one of us? What view of the christian life resuIts from the work of Christ? I find it very difficult now, after years of viewing things from a liturgical standpoint, to recall the outlook on our faith in which I was brought up and which, I am sure, was not dispelled by what I was taught in Theology, but only made more detailed. But so far as I can remember, it was something like this: By original sin, man was estranged from God, deprived of grace and preternatural gifts, excluded from heaven. Christ, by his sufferings and death, placated God's outraged majesty and won pardon; He also won a vast ocean of grace which He was now in a position to distribute to men of subsequent generations, and He founded a Church, equipped to distribute this grace through the sacraments, guaranteed to teach truth, and give sure guidance in moral conduct.