God, however, didn’t set His creation in place as an everlasting witness to Himself and then withdraw from that creation. Rather, He is intimately present in it, always and everywhere. The sacramental worldview helps us see that, showing us that heaven and earth aren’t separated from each other by an unbridgeable gulf or an unbreachable wall. Man may have turned his back on God but God never turned His back on man. Even in the days before Christ’s coming, He was at work in the world, finding ways to speak to man from behind the veil. Then, when He became man, when He took on flesh, loving, suffering and dying for us, heaven came to earth.
And it still comes to earth, every day in every place where the holy sacrifice of the Mass is offered. Every time Christ’s sacrifice on Calvary is made present in time, so is heaven, with all its hosts. The veil between time and eternity is drawn back, and the angels and saints worship with us as we kneel before the Eucharistic Christ...
That’s the sacramental worldview. It’s a worldview where heaven comes to earth, grace penetrates matter, and every individual’s story is part of the cosmic story of salvation history. It’s a worldview where everything has a meaning, everyone has a purpose, and every moment is accounted for in a Divine Plan. It is, ultimately, a worldview that says Sartre was wrong and Flannery O’Connor was right. Hell isn’t other people. Other people are Christs.
Stimpson, Emily. These Beautiful Bones: An Everyday Theology of the Body (p. 24-25). Emmaus Road Publishing, 2013
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