By Robert Lazu Kmita.

But first a note from Robert Royal. Professor Kmita sharpens a point today that we've been trying to make with every column this week: that a perspective outside of the everyday - whether it be in literature, architecture, history, theology - though many think of it as irrelevant, actually brings greater relevance, fuller human and divine meaning to our lives. That's what we try to do every day of the year here at The Catholic Thing. If you're reading this, you probably know that. And it's what draws you here daily. So if you haven't already made your contribution to this work, what are you waiting for?

Now for today's column...

In an article dedicated to the reading of literary fiction, the remarkable Jesuit Father James V. Schall, one of the founders of The Catholic Thing, recalled the opinion of Rudolf Allers (1883-1963), who stated that it is always worthwhile to read literature. This assertion, Father Schall tells us, included even bad literature. The reason is that "we will almost always find there scenes of human reality that we would not notice otherwise."

From a very young age, I have been - and remain - an avid reader of fiction. Even my theoretical pursuits have always been subordinated to literature. This is because my mentor, a French professor named Marian Prada, taught me that writers and poets typically have a deeper vision of life, of the human being, and of the world, than most of us have. That may seem like a simplistic statement, one you've undoubtedly heard (or read) in one form or another. But when it is said at the right moment, by the right person, it takes on a value that can change your life. Allers's statement points in the same direction.

In his brief assertion, Father Schall was primarily referring to the depths of our life experiences, whose contents are often best highlighted by poets and writers. In addition to these distilled essences of humanity, works of fiction manage to offer vivid descriptions that can explain key concepts of Christian (i.e., Catholic) theology better than any rational-speculative discourse. "The sacred," "the profane," "sacrifice," or "symbol" are all such concepts. In a way that recalls the intuitive knowledge that mystics of all times strive to rekindle, the metaphors provided by a novel can reveal the cognitive value of such terms without leading you astray in the labyrinth of discursive knowledge.

For example, rereading The Mysterious Island (1875), a novel by Jules Verne (1828-1905), unexpectedly gave me a revealing image of the notion of "symbol" (synonymous with the Augustinian concept of "sign"). In this way, as I'll explain below, I was able to give our two younger sons (aged 12 and 16) both a catechism lesson and a lesson in literary aesthetics.

It is probably not necessary to explain very much why sacred symbols are of crucial importance in Christian (i.e., Catholic) theology. As evidence, it's enough to quote the definition of the Holy Liturgy proposed by the famous Benedictine liturgist Dom Prosper Guéranger (1805-1875):

The Liturgy, considered in general, is the ensemble of symbols, chants, and acts by means of which the Church expresses and manifests its religion towards God.

So, before anything else, the Liturgy is "an ensemble of symbols."

I hasten to add and emphasize that everything is symbolic in the context of Catholic Tradition: the architecture of the churches, the liturgical objects, the holy altar, the liturgical vestments, the liturgical gestures - in short, everything. It is no coincidence that one of Pope Benedict XVI's favorite liturgists, Romano Guardini (1885-1968), wrote a beautiful short monograph entitled Sacred Signs.

Simply put, the symbol creates a link between a consecrated object, which plays the role of the symbolizer, and the entity or being from the unseen world, which is symbolized. For example, the holy altar is in a mysterious symbolic relationship with the transcendent person of Our Lord Jesus Christ,...