Glory to God for All Things: "In the classical Christian understanding of what it means to be human - we do not exist alone - but as participants in a common nature - and though our fall from grace has left us damaged - so that we generally experience ourselves as autonomous individuals - this is not our proper end - salvation restores us to a place of proper communion with God and with other persons. There is an extension, an enlargement of the self, such that our life can no longer be defined simply by reference to the self, but must be seen as it exists in communion with God and others. Thus love becomes the defining act of our existence."