Without doubt, the gravest symptom in the crisis that the Western Church is currently undergoing — the effects of which on art have already been denounced in the author’s book The Symbolism of the Christian Temple — is the calling into question of the very meaning and content of the Mass, given that it is the heart and vital center of the Church. The intention of this book, however, is not to engage in theological disputes directly, but rather to survey the field from the vantage-point of the history of religions, and to unravel the characteristics of the Christian liturgy that link it to the universality of the sacred.