... the heart of the liturgy, the inner 'mystic' meaning, the manifestation of God's love in divine acts that  culminate in the incarnation... it is not concerned with thinking about God's love, or explaining it, but simply with experiencing it... the liturgical action is an invitation to open oneself to the divine love: to respond to that invitation is to allow the whole of one's life to be transformed, to be deified, to become a vehicle for God's love in the world. The liturgical invitation is addressed to human beings of body and soul: it is expressed in symbols and concepts, in liturgical actions and gestures, and hymns and prayers. To understand and respond is to enter the meaning of these ceremonies, which is God's philanthropia, his love for all humanity. And that response is required of all who take part in the liturgy... all the baptized are expected to contemplate, to watch, to take part,  to be involved in the movement of God's love.... Denys's vision is remarkable because, on the one hand, his understanding of hierarchy makes possible a rich symbolic system in terms of which we can understand God and the cosmos and our place with it, and, on the other, he finds room within this strictly hierarchical society for an escape from  it, beyond it, by transcending symbols and realizing directly one's relationship with God as his creature, the creature of his love. There is space within the Dionysian universe for a multitude of ways of responding to God's love. That spaciousness is worth exploring; and therein, perhaps, lies the enduring value of the vision of Denys the Areopagite.

- Fr Andrew Louth, in Denys the Areopagite