Friday, June 26, 2009

Augustine's Mystagogy Of Identification

"Religious symbols are used by Augustine to draw believers ever more intimately into the divine life. The liturgy thus becomes the locus deificandi, the place where the drama of human salvation is not only reenacted but effected. Surrounded by the temple of praise and all that is within, human persons are to see how God bids them to become his living signs. Gold, oil, trees, the altar of sacrifice, the Sabbath, and the laud Christians sing are all constituted to cultivate the full life of the baptized so as to draw them into a closer union with the divine, becoming gods by becoming God's."

-David Vincent Meconi, S.J., in "Becoming Gods by Becoming God's: Augustine's Mystagogy of Identification," Augustinian Studies 39:1 (2008) 61-74.

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