‘Christianity owes it to the world to make
a clear connection between its testimony to the sole Redeemer, in whose name it
takes “every thought captive to obey Christ” (2 Cor. 10.5), and the witness of
the Holy Spirit, which causes the entire world to awake to a religious freedom
and universality which, left to itself, it could never attain nor imagine. … | Unless,
in Christ, the world has been given the trinitarian “Word of life” to hear, to
see and to touch; unless the preaching, the life and all the institutions of
the Catholic Church present divine life, opened up and rendered accessible to
[mankind], the world could justly regret the fact that man’s religious contemplation
has been taken over by dogma; indeed it would be right to regard it as the
greatest catastrophe in mankind’s religious history. So we see that the Christian has an absolute duty to
cultivate Trinitarian contemplation; he must come to see that what Jesus shows
us of himself, what he bids us imitate, is the inner life of God, appearing in
Person and overtaking us.’[1]
Monday, 17 June 2013
Children of Light
We ourselves do not become the light (Jn
1.8),
but we walk in the
light (Jn 12.35),
so much so that we become a witness
to the light for others, the Christian is made
so much so that we become a witness
to the light for others, the Christian is made
a light (Mt
5.15, Phil 2.15),
a child of light (Eph
5.8; I Thess 5.5)…
becoming light in the
Lord (Eph 5.8).
Prayer: God incarnate is trinitarian life made life for us
The essential shape of faith in God incarnate is Trinitarian. That God makes his home with us, that he abides in us, is the outcome of God’s
trinitarian life realised in the economy of history, and specifically, in the history of the Son of God made man in Jesus of Nazareth.
For von Balthasar, this essentially relational understanding of God makes us relationally accountable to the world. Insofar as God’s judging and redeeming love for the world is historically real in Christ’s Incarnation, it is also made real in and through us. This is nothing less than divine grace—granted, received and lived by faith—for the sake of others. For to live in grace is to have a share in the bond of love between Father and Son, which always includes, and therefore shapes our lives in terms of God's love of the world.
God's love is personified in the Holy Spirit.
‘[I]t is the freedom which reigns between Father and Son[,] from the “Spirit of the Father” and the “Spirit of the Son”, as the unity of both of them’.[1]
But in Christ, the Spirit also descends and goes out to humanity in life-giving and redeeming grace. Therefore, to live by grace is to exist in the counterflow of two movements: one of ascent, one of descent.
For von Balthasar, this essentially relational understanding of God makes us relationally accountable to the world. Insofar as God’s judging and redeeming love for the world is historically real in Christ’s Incarnation, it is also made real in and through us. This is nothing less than divine grace—granted, received and lived by faith—for the sake of others. For to live in grace is to have a share in the bond of love between Father and Son, which always includes, and therefore shapes our lives in terms of God's love of the world.
God's love is personified in the Holy Spirit.
‘[I]t is the freedom which reigns between Father and Son[,] from the “Spirit of the Father” and the “Spirit of the Son”, as the unity of both of them’.[1]
But in Christ, the Spirit also descends and goes out to humanity in life-giving and redeeming grace. Therefore, to live by grace is to exist in the counterflow of two movements: one of ascent, one of descent.
Prayer: God's particular, personal, trinitarian character and 'nature'
 |
| The Son reveals not divine 'nature' in the abstract but God's particular, personal 'nature' and character. |
Prayer: God as Trinity
 |
| This already suggests that the essential shape of the incarnation is trinitarian. |
Prayer: God as Person visible in the Son's descent
‘In the Son’s “descent” into flesh he first
of all reveals himself, his self-abasing, humble and obedient love. … [He is]
not only a sublime metaphor of
eternal love, but Eternal Love itself. Moreover, Eternal Love is not only present
in this man but also, in him, manifests and interprets its very nature and
renders it visible. … | [N]ot some neutral “nature” of God, but … the particular
“nature”, the innermost character of the Father who sent him. What entered
earthly visibility was the Father’s divine Image, his “Word”, …a Person: his
Son.’[1]
Prayer: the Holy Trinity, embracing the way to the Father
God's love in us is concretely realised in contemplation and discipleship: it makes us visible within the relationship between Father and Son,
in the bond of love which is the Holy Spirit:
‘This relationship is the path we must tread … so that
we may embrace the loving obedience of faith. Nor is it our work: it is the
Father’s “work” within us (Jn 6.28-29). It is the Father and Son “making their
home” in us (14.23)’. p. 189 (cf. ff. spiritual fruit Gal 5)[1]
Von Balthasar (1): early work
 |
| Hans Urs Von Balthasar (1905-1988) |
- Doctoral thesis, German philology, romantic literature and philosophy.
- Entrance into the Society of Jesus in 1929.
- 1934, Jesuit faculty at Lyons, to study theology in preparation for ordination as a priest.
‘[In Lyon] he came into contact with [Henri de Lubac and]
the revival of patristic studies then under way, a movement that was to have a
powerfully shaping effect on Catholic theology, spirituality, and worship in
the decades after World War II and that was to be one of the decisive forces
preparing the way for the Second Vatican Council.’[1]
Von Balthasar (4): theology on its knees
Von Balthasar
advocated fresh perspectives on Christianity for the 20th century. Question: is
it possible to do theology under the burden of prevailing logo-centric and
conceptual, analytical and rational models of thought? He believed this was a
problem because it made the Church and Christian teaching irrelevant to
everyday life and Christian experience. But ultimately because it was a detriment
of the ‘mystery’ which is to know and talk about God. He therefore placed
centrally the Incarnation and the Trinity as mysteries of God uniquely revealed. With
this, he proposed that theology should be theology on its knees, that as
theologians we could only do our work ‘on bent knee’.[1]
[1] Cf. H.U. von Balthasar, ‘Theology and Holiness’ (Theologie und
Heiligkeit), an essay written in 1948, in Verbum Caro. Schriften zur Theologie
I, Einsiedeln, 1960, 195-224.
Dermot A. Power recommends: ‘For a clear
elucidation of von Balthsar’s view of the synthesis between personal and ecclesial
holiness, cf. Antonia Sicari, 'Theology & Holiness', Communio, XVI (1989),
pp. 351-365.
Von Balthasar (3): touched as if by lightning!
‘Today, even
after thirty years, I would be able to find along this out-of-the-way trail in
the Black Forest of Germany... the tree under which I was touched as if by
lighting. I was taking part in a
30 day retreat while studying German philology. In this group, it would be considered a disgrace to defect
and take up the study of theology.
But it was neither theology nor the priesthood which came to mind at
this time. It was simply this: you
have nothing to choose, for you are called; ...you are but a small stone in a
mosaic conceived from the beginning.’[1]
[1] Pourquoi je me suisfait prêtre; témoignages recueillis, cited in Achiel Peelman, Le salut comme drame trinitaire: la “Theodramatik”
de Hans Urs von Balthasar (Montreal: Médiaspaul, 2002), p. 25.
Prayer: God is love, judging and redeeming love
‘Only when truth is seen to have a Trinitarian
form does the assertion that God is love—burning, consuming, judging and
redeeming love—become evident for the world as a whole. And truth can only be
seen to be Trinitarian when One of the Trinity becomes man and, in human form,
interprets eternal Love to us’.[1]
Sunday, 16 June 2013
1. Ascent
Ascent: In Christ, we are included in his self-giving
within divine life. How? In baptism we enter in his death, and emerge alive to
the power his resurrection. This continues in contemplation and prayer, in
sacrament and worship: we are raised to breathe from the air which Christ
himself breathes in his eternal communion with the Father.
This is nothing else
than our ordinary life made extraordinarily ample within Christ’s relationship with
the Father, so that our story also becomes Christ’s story told and relived
within the Godhead. ‘This relationship is the path we must tread … so that we
may embrace the loving obedience of faith. Nor is it our work: it is the
Father’s “work” within us (Jn 6.28-29). It is the Father and Son “making their
home” in us (14.23)’. p. 189 (cf. ff. spiritual fruit Gal 5)[1]
Luke 10.38-42
LUKE10.38-42: Now as they went on their way, [Jesus] entered a certain
village, where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. She had a
sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to what he was
saying. But Martha was distracted by her many tasks; so she came to him and
asked, ‘Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by
myself? Tell her then to help me.’ But the Lord answered her, ‘Martha, Martha,
you are worried and distracted by many things; there is need of only one thing.
Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.’
George Herbert
A man that looks on glass,
On it may stay his eye;
Or if he pleaseth, through it pass,
And then the heav’n espy.
Trinity: stained glass window
 |
| Trinity, David J. Hetland, Christian Life Center, Trinity Lutheran Church (Moorhead, MN). |
Trinity window (22 x 14 feet). Over 120 colors and textures of glass were hand-selected for this project which contains 5,500 individual pieces. An image of a serigraph reproduction of the original design is found below.
Behold, the sea..!
‘Theology on its knees’: Trinity and Incarnation—
H.U. von Balthasar’s radical, contemplative way
 |
| ‘Seascape with a Squall Coming Up’ (c.1803-4), J.M. Turner (1775‑1851). |
TEXT: First movement: ‘Song for All Seas, All Ships’, set to the poem by Walt Whitman.
2. Descent
Descent: Our ascent to the divine, however, the
intimacy we are given to
experience with God, because it is God-given and not of our own making,
involves us also in God’s mission for the world. So, being included in Christ’s
opening into divine life brings us back to the here and now. Consequently, we
are accountable and obedient to the particular ways in which God wills to
inhabit our world through the material makings of our lives.
‘The Risen One returns to the Father with his whole humanity [i.e., Jesus’ own human nature], including his body. This is what makes him the “firstborn” of many brethren.”[1] But he does this not in order to ‘liberate’ humanity from its earthly existence, i.e., by transcending the flesh and its material nature. Christ lives and offers his risen humanity to God precisely in order to offer humanity back to the human race, the life which God always in tended for us: life in the flesh made holy for God; human beings in communion with God.
‘For it is God who took clay and formed man, and who breathed life into his nostrils (Gen. 2.7); it is God who has given this human being, with his unity of body and soul, the power to hear him and sense his presence, the ability to walk with him and respond obediently to him. So much so that God’s revelation to [humanity] could never take place anywhere else but in the realm of the world and its history….’[2]
‘The Risen One returns to the Father with his whole humanity [i.e., Jesus’ own human nature], including his body. This is what makes him the “firstborn” of many brethren.”[1] But he does this not in order to ‘liberate’ humanity from its earthly existence, i.e., by transcending the flesh and its material nature. Christ lives and offers his risen humanity to God precisely in order to offer humanity back to the human race, the life which God always in tended for us: life in the flesh made holy for God; human beings in communion with God.
‘For it is God who took clay and formed man, and who breathed life into his nostrils (Gen. 2.7); it is God who has given this human being, with his unity of body and soul, the power to hear him and sense his presence, the ability to walk with him and respond obediently to him. So much so that God’s revelation to [humanity] could never take place anywhere else but in the realm of the world and its history….’[2]
Blank 1
H.U. vonBalthasar, Prayer (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1986), pp. 184-85.
becoming light in the Lord (Eph 5.8).
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