We do not simply hold onto traditions, they also hold onto us. Intimations of the revival of traditional forms are, of course, not the same as their revival. We still have a considerable distance to go in the recovery of the symbols whose very opaqueness had been responsible in considerable measure for the lonely odyssey of self-creation that is the modern world. All we have is a new hu­mility before the mysterious depth of traditional meaning. The remark of Stravinsky points toward the truth of Christianity, but it is not yet an embrace of it. This we might characterize as the first stage of the revival process. It begins with respect for the tra­ditional depths viewed from the outside. There is enough of a disposition toward them to move toward utilizing the forms of expression bequeathed by them. It is not yet an entry into the substance of their meaning itself. That is the crucial second stage toward which the formal attractiveness prompts us, prepares us, and even draws us part of the way. The aesthetic can be the first step toward the spiritual reality it embodies. It is in the nature of things that there cannot be an impermeable barrier between the symbol and the symbolized. The whole point of the symbol is indeed to disclose the reality. It is not surprising, therefore, to discover that a movement that begins merely with the aesthetic embrace of traditional spiritual forms ends up realizing an exis­tential participation in them as well.

The continuum between beauty and truth is, as the philoso­phers knew, seamless. To interpose an obstacle between them introduces a note of inauthenticity that threatens the integrity of the artistic enterprise. We cannot acknowledge the aesthetic truth of the spiritual movement without acknowledging its authorita­tive force in our own lives. Further, we are required to place our­selves under the guidance of the traditional sources of the mean­ing that discloses itself to us. That is the decisive turning point. It is no longer for us to make the traditions live again; rather, it is to allow them to work their enlivening effect within our lives. The resonances that still come to us, the intimations that disclose the transcendent mystery guarding our existence, can scarcely be known apart from the remnants of tradition still present within us. We realize that the exploration of mystery, far from being pos­sible by dint of our own creative efforts, would not even have a beginning without the fragmentary presence of traditional forms. It is not that the traditional sources of meaning have died so much as we have failed to awaken to them. Despite all its best efforts the modern world that sought to live outside of traditions now discovers that it has never really escaped their embrace. Without traditional forms there would simply be no meaning.