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]

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[1] H.U. vonBalthasar, Prayer (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1986), pp. 189.

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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]

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[1] H.U. vonBalthasar, Prayer (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1986), p. 263.

[2] P. 264. NB. The original creation reclaimed as a redeemed narrative which looks forward to eschatological consummation in God.

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