Heaven on Earth: a Crucial Notion and the Symbolic Universe

The Major Difference Between a Sacred Symbol and a Profane "Symbol" (i.e., "an Arbitrary Sign")

Basilica of Saint Denis, France: chapel of the Virgin (source)

Visiting the sacred edifices of Catholic churches, such as Notre Dame de Paris, we realize that one of the fundamental dimensions of the Christian Tradition is the overwhelming richness of the multitude of symbols that we are invited to contemplate. It’s as if we hear the invitation that God addressed to Adam:

Of every tree of paradise thou shalt eat… (Genesis 2: 16).

Not by chance, Father Claude Barthe chose as the subtitle for his book La Messe (The Mass) a significant verse from Charles Baudelaire’s poem entitled Correspondences. Through a fortunate inspiration, the English edition bears the very same subtitle: A Forest of Symbols.¹ Not only the Liturgy—a synthesis of religious worship—but absolutely all the sacraments operate with symbols. Realizing this, we can say that in the Church, all Christians are invited to live in a symbolic universe. Just as Adam and Eve were invited in the pre-lapsarian beginnings of history to eat from every tree in Eden except for the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, after His first coming to Earth, God invites us in His Church—the Paradise on Earth—to nourish our minds with the divine meanings of these symbols meant to elevate us toward the Creator of all that exists.

From a complementary perspective, we understand that we are dealing with a symbolic universe that reminds us not only of a forest but also of a cathedral. It’s the beautifully ordered world as God created it before the Fall with Paradise in its center—a world that He invites us to contemplate now, after the fall, in the church, discovering the divine reasons behind all the symbols and the whole universe they constitute together.

In This point I must emphasize the gravity of eliminating any detail from this well-articulated universe. Just as each element carries its own significance, the ensemble itself holds a complete symbolic value. In the same way that the Roman Catechism states that none of the ceremonies accompanying the essential part of the sacraments “cannot be omitted without sin,”² similarly, no symbol can be removed from the Church without impoverishing and finally destroying the contemplative life to which all believers are invited. From this perspective, any pseudo-reform meant to change or eliminate a symbol—as well as the replacement of the Mass of the Roman Rite—is what our Lord Jesus Christ described as “the shutting of the kingdom of heaven against men” (Matthew 23: 13).

Unfortunately, the widespread abandonment of mystagogical initiation, have deepened the ignorance of Christians, turning them into illiterates of the mystical language of sacred symbols.

Symbols and Reality

Nowadays, to say that something is ‘symbolic’ sounds similar to when we say that, by convention, the red color of a traffic light symbolizes stop, while green symbolizes proceed. Such a choice of colors is entirely arbitrary. We can use—instead of red and green— any other colors we like: blue for stop and purple for proceed. Unlike these human conventions, sacred symbolism is not arbitrary. The Roman Catechism categorically states this, affirming that the sacraments “are signs instituted not by man but by God.”³

If in the realm of philology, we learn about the “arbitrary nature of linguistic signs” (Ferdinand de Saussure). This ‘arbitrariness’ is a phenomenon that occurred after Babel, and it has nothing to do with sacred symbols. Such a serious confusion simply destroys the notion of sign/symbol—because it would transform it into something conventional, unreal, thus ultimately untruthful. On the contrary, the religious symbols/signs in the Liturgy and Christian Sacraments—through the ontological participation on eternal archetypes—are the only things fully real, in comparison to everything contained in this fallen world, dominated by death and destined for final destruction by fire (II Peter 3, verses 7 and 12). Concretely, the consecrated Holy Altar placed inside in a church is absolutely real in comparison to the eroding stone from which it has been made. Why is so? Because the Holy Altar is in a mysterious relationship with its archetype that is God—the Rock—Himself, while the perishable stone is related only to the substantial form (in the Aristotelian-Thomistic language) of the ‘stone.’ Similarly, any sacred symbol is incomparable much more real than any common thing/creature from earth.

After succumbing to the temptation of the Devil ( = διάβολος—a Greek word that has a meaning that is the opposite of the σῠ́μβολον), original sin separated the first humans—Adam and Eve—from God, along with the entire world. Since then, everything is subject to death. The sacraments and the symbols, established by God Himself through the means of His Revelation contained in Holy Scripture and the Church, are the instruments through which we receive the graces lost by Adam and Eve in Paradise. In essence, before the incarnation of the Savior Christ, the world was like the basket of a balloon whose strings had been cut: thus, in free fall. After the incarnation, God, through the unceasing graces transmitted to us through the Holy Sacraments and all sacred symbols, reattaches the basket to His eternal world. And this is done with the golden cords (Lat. catenae aureae) of His Glory, Glory which He Himself bestows upon us when we offer Him our perishable, fleeting glory as a sacrifice.

What is a Symbol

If the term ‘symbol’ (Gr. σύμβολον) comes from the ancient Greek culture, in the Latin culture, the term that prevailed due to the enormous influence of St. Augustine is ‘sign’ (Lat. signum). These interchangeable notions are inseparably linked to that of ‘sacrament.’ The Roman Catechism makes this crystal clear:

Whoever peruses the works of Saints Jerome and Augustine will at once perceive that ancient ecclesiastical writers made use of the word sacrament, and sometimes also of the word symbol, or mystical sign or sacred sign, to designate that of which we here speak.⁴

One of the most well-known definitions of our concept was proposed by Saint Augustine in De Civitate Dei:

Sacramentum est sacrae rei signum (X, 5) – The sacrament is a sign (= symbol) of a sacred thing.⁵

We instantly notice the three key elements: the sacrament (for example, Holy Baptism), the sign/symbol (in the case of Baptism, water), the sacred thing (the sanctifying grace that is given to us through the sacrament). First, the Latin term sacramentum indicates what this is about: a medium for transmitting a holy thing (i.e., divine grace). The Greek word is equally significant: μυστήριον (i.e., ‘mystery,’ ‘secret rite’). The sacrament conveys to us in a hidden, unseen manner the sanctifying grace that God bestows upon all who receive it. Then, the definition tells us that it is a symbol/sign of a sacred thing. For example, after the exorcism and blessing, the water of Baptism is not just any water: it somehow becomes the very water from the beginnings of creation over which the Holy Spirit hovered (Genesis 1:2).

As we know from the conversation between the Savior Christ and Nicodemus (John chapter 3), every Christian is reborn, thus able to see the Kingdom of God. Re-birth literally means re-creation: each one of us has been entirely remade through God’s power through Holy Baptism. A remaking that, though incomplete (for our bodies are still mortal), gives us the possibility to enter directly into the Kingdom of God—if we die in a state of sanctifying grace. However, all these things are mysterious, hidden, being symbolized by the baptismal symbol, which is purified and blessed water. Yet, everything happens for the purpose of sanctifying us:

You shall be holy, for I am holy. (1 Peter 1:16)

Another similar definition has been proposed by Saint Bernard of Clairvaux:

A Sacrament is a visible sign of an invisible grace, instituted for our justification.

Through the correct performance of consecration and blessing rituals, profane elements from our world (salt, water, oil, church objects, the altar stone, etc.) are truly transformed into religious objects that are in a mysterious and powerful connection with the unseen, eternal world. Just as paradoxically, through baptism, the Christian is both on earth and in heaven. These sacred objects—symbols/signs—serve as windows to that heavenly world where God is glorified by angels and saints. The eyes through which we can contemplate the wonders of heavenly Jerusalem are the faculties of our mind, purified through humility, illuminated by baptismal grace, and formed through mystagogical catechesis.

1. The complete original French title is La Messe. Une forêt de Symboles (Via Romana, 2011). The full title of the English edition is A Forest of Symbols: The Traditional Mass and Its Meaning (Angelico Press, 2023).

2. Catechism of the Council of Trent for Parish Priests Issued by Order of Pope Pius V, Translated by John A. McHugh O.P. and Charles J. Callan O.P., New York, 1934, p. 152.

3. Op. cit., p. 146.

4. Op. cit., p. 142.

5. The complete text is as follows: “Sacrificium ergo visibile invisibilis sacrificii sacramentum id est sacrum signum est”—“A sacrifice, therefore, is the visible sacrament or sacred sign of an invisible sacrifice.”