Wow

The difference between our contemporary understanding of the symbol and the original one consists in the fact that while today we understand the symbol as the representation or sign of an absent reality, something that is not really in the sign itself (just as there is no real, actual water in the chemical symbol H2O), in the original understanding it is the manifestation and presence of the other reality-but precisely as other, which, under given circumstances, cannot be manifested and made present in any other way than as symbol....

For the essence of the symbol lies in the fact that in the dichotomy between reality and symbolism (as unreality) is overcome: reality is experienced above all as fulfilnent of the symbol, and the symbol is comprehended as the fulfilment of reality.

Alexander Schmemann- The Eucharist