Dedication

BEATAE MARIAE IMMACVLATAE
MATRI DEI INCARNATI
QVAE PER LIBERVM ARBITRVM
HVMILEMQVE OBOEDIENTIAM
CVM GRATIA DIVINA COOPERATA
HOMINIBVS VIAM AD LIBERTATEM PRIMA APERVIT
HOC OPVSCVLVM
FILIALI OBOEDIENTIA
DEDICAT AVCTOR

Preface

Chapter I. Some Basic Philosophical Concepts

The centrality of the Sacrament of the Altar--Two opposing views of the material world--The non-Christian analysis: world as essentially evil--The Christian analysis: world as essentially good--The source of evil traced to man--Christian idea of salvation--Non-Christian confusion in Christian thinking.

Chapter II. The Problem of the Redemption of the World: First Stage

Problem from the point of view of man: the obstacle of disorder in history--A practical illustration of the time problem--A philosophical illustration of the time problem--Problem from the point of view of God: obstacle of man's free reason--The Incarnation as the solution of both problems--Method of the Incarnation: its individual organism--Method of the Incarnation: its social organism--Summary: solution of the problems of time and of the conservation of human freedom--Our Lady as the prototype of redeemed and free humanity--Incarnational definition of redemption.

Chapter III. The Problem of the Redemption of the World: Second Stage

The redemption of man carries beyond the natural world--The limitations of perfection attainable in the natural world--Redeemed perfection in this world always contingent--Human salvation requires an absolute perfection--Mediation of the contingent into the absolute: the two natures of Our Lord.

Chapter IV. Mediation as Sacrifice

Failure of pre-Christian sacrifices--Our Lord's sacrifice: the full attainment of its end--The effects of mediating sacrifice--Contingent perfection as the necessary basis of absolute perfection

Chapter V. Metacosmesis

Remarkable qualities of Our Lord's earthly humanity--Our Lord's humanity a true humanity--Source of the remarkable qualities of Our Lord's humanity--Definition of Metacosmesis--Social extension of Metacosmesis during Our Lord's earthly life--Social Metacosmesis rendered incomplete by human sin.

Chapter VI. Metacosmesis after the Ascension

Problem of the continuation of Our Lord's social humanity after His individual ascension--What happened at Pentecost--Evidence of Metacosmesis in the life of the early Church--The means of the Church's access to the metacosmic process--Our Lord's historical life made eternally accessible--Historical and eternal aspects of Our Lord's life and work--The eternal Lord Incarnate present in His Memorial--The natural bread and wine of Our Lord's social humanity--Natural bread and wine as structures of creative social growth--Our Lord's Memorial as a two-fold movement--Contingencies found in the offered natural bread and wine--The absolute perfection of the bread and wine in their Consecration--The Memorial as a sacrifice--Completion of the cycle of Metacosmesis in the Holy Communion

Chapter VII. The Liturgy of the Memorial of Our Lord's Body and Blood

Its threefold structure--The Offertory--Misconceptions concerning the Offertory--The Offertory and the Immaculate Conception of Our Lord's Mother--The Offertory and the Baptized Community--The Offertory and symbolic Liturgical emphasis--The Consecration: Thanksgiving and Remembrance--The meaning of Thanksgiving--The meaning of Remembrance--Consecration as sacrifice--Priest and Victim within the Consecration--Representative character of the Church's ministers--The Holy Communion--Our Lord's Memorial as the Heart of His social humanity.

Chapter VIII. The Liturgy and the Atonement

Sins and contingencies--Defects with the Offertory: Penance and Absolution--Contingencies: their classification and the conditions for their Consecration--The contingencies of the first group--The attempted reduction of these contingencies by severing relationships with the world--The Incarnational method of dealing with contingencies--Conditions for the application of the Atonement to contingencies of the first group--Scientific economic understanding a modern development--The possession of a material basis for rational social planning also a modern phenomenon--Present meaning of reconciliation with our brother--Contingencies of the second group--Contingencies of the third group.

Chapter IX. Character of the Secular Order Now Demanded by the Liturgy

No answer in Christian dogma; a problem for enlightened human reason--Possibility and means of agreement among Christians upon secular problems--Some practical considerations--Problem of secular violence: relation of means and ends--Evolution and revolution in social change--Present social revolution moving in a Christian direction--Christian Offertory rooted in the world's material arrangements.

Chapter X. Material Basis of Metacosmesis

The material basis of spiritual relationships in the Offertory--Dangers of parallelism in thinking of spiritual and material things--The material basis of the Consecration--Metacosmic cycle borne upon a movement within the material level--Urgency of the Memorial.

Chapter XI. Characteristics of a Sacramental Metacosmic Humanity

The Apostolic Church--The Church in later ages--The natural and the supernatural virtues--The tension between personal freedom and corporate social allegiance--Human resolutions of this tension always sought in compromise--Full resolution found in the Incarnation-Sources of defects in the metacosmic humanity of the contemporary Church.

Chapter XII. A Metacosmic World Order

A redeemed social order must be Sacramental--The medieval vision and the source of its practical failure-Contributions of Karl Marx to scientific social understanding--Function of the political state--Marx's view of the function of religion--The Marxian social objective: "withering away" of the political state and the disappearance of religion--The Marxian view of the disappearance of religion--The necessary Christian witness--A Christian analogue of the Marxian error--Agreement of Christians and Marxists upon immediate goals--A brief recapitulation--The withering away of the state and the establishment of the Church--The Church's Offertory in a socialist order: the Christian duty to work for this end.

Appendix I. Christian Over-Pessimism versus Humanist Over-Optimism

Appendix II. Excursus on the Meaning of Concomitance

Appendix III. Practical Suggestions for a Liturgical Offertory

Appendix IV. Ecclesiastical Vestments and Catholic Democracy

Appendix V. The Liturgical Confession and Absolution

Appendix VI. Free Enterprise and War

Appendix VII. An Instance of Neo-Thomist Misunderstanding

Project Canterbury