This Is Really Important

Quoth HUvB:

For Maximus, both kinds of cult take their place alongside each other, implying a mutual interpenetration and transcendence in the direction of a cult that is truly comprehensive. For even the intellectual activity that seeks God through the symbolism of nature and Scripture has a kind of sacramental structure, while the sacrament, on the other hand, needs intellectual understanding if it is to be performed correctly. This understanding, however, is not something that empties the ritual act of its integrity; its intelligibilty is possible only within the performance itself, not alongside it, since it "binds us to God through what has been performed, in a condition and a form determined by the [sacramental] thing itself." (p. 315)