Active faith means following Jesus; but Jesus' mission leads him on a course from heaven deeper and deeper into the world of sinners, until finally on the Cross he assumes, in their stead, their experience of distance from God, even of abandonment by God,a nd thus of the very loss of that lucid security promised to the "proven" faithful. This paradox must be borne; and from the Christian point of view the juxtaposition of temporal moments -- of hours, days, years -- exists not least for the purpose of rendering possible the sequence of these seemingly incompatible Christian life experiences.

Paul experienced and formulated this paradox. He knows two things: that even amid all his sorrows (which can reach to the point of "despairing of life") God "comforts" him, and that his, Paul's, "sufferings in Christ" redound to the consolation and inner strengthening of the Church (2 Corinthians 1: 4-7). One can sense the many varied nuances possible here. A person can experience extreme affliction outwardly and at the same time be inwardly "comforted," that is, know that he is living fully within God's will: many martyrs knew this. It can also happen that a person experiences darkness in the depths of his being -- is submerged in God's "testing" -- and in his darkness radiates light to others, though he himself does not feel or realize it at all. . . .

It is God who arranges the "theological states" of the believer, plunging him at one time into the deep waters of the Cross where he is not allowed to experience any consolation, and then into the grace given by resurrection of a hope which brings with it the certainty that it does not deceive. No one is able or permitted to fit these "theological states" into a system that can be manipulated and surveyed to any extent by man. Their every easpect, even when they seemingly contradict one another, is christological and therefore left to God's disposition. [pp. 37-38]

* * *

The law of renunciation can become very difficult for the individual in times when genuine ecclesial life finds feeble expression and numerous sects offer the enticement of immediate "experiences." But no one who experiences this difficulty should think that the mystic, whith his apparently immediate experiences of divine things, has an easier life. For every true mysticism, however rich it may be in visions and other experiences of God, is subject at least as strictly to the law of the Cross -- that is, of non-experience -- as is the existence of someone apparently forgotten in the desert of secular daily life. Perhaps the mystic has to pass through dry periods that are even more severe. Where this is not the case, where we are offered acquirable techniques to attain a mysticism without bitterness and the humiliations of the Cross, we can be certain that it is not authentically Christian and has no Christian signficance.

• Author of new Mother Teresa book responds to Time Magazine article Catholic News Agency:

  In an interview with the Spanish daily La Razon, Father Brian Kolodiejchuk, author of the book Come Be My Light and postulator of Mother Teresa’s cause of canonization, said the revered nun “lived a trial of faith, not a crisis of faith,” and that she overcame it showing that the love “is in the will and not in feelings.”

  Come Be My Light is a collection of letters Mother Teresa written about various aspects of her life, some revealing that she suffered spiritual darkness for decades. Father Kolodiejchuk expressed regret that Time Magazine twisted the meaning of the book, whose title comes from “the words Jesus spoke to Mother Teresa in 1947. Time Magazine, even with the cover photo (of a Mother Teresa who appears depressed), has greatly manipulated world opinion. The book is about a trial of faith that Mother endured for 50 years, which is very different from a crisis of faith. This is not something new in the saints. This phenomenon of the dark night is well know in spiritual theology,” he said. . . . [MORE]

• The "Atheism" of Mother Teresa, by Father Raniero Cantalamessa, OFM Cap. National Catholic Register Sept. 9-15, 2007 Issue:

  Some have completely misunderstood the nature of these writings, thinking that they oblige us to reconsider the personality of Mother Teresa and her faith and holiness. Far from undermining the stature of Mother Teresa’s holiness, these new documents will immensely magnify it, placing her at the side of the greatest mystics of Christianity. . . .

  How wrong author and atheist Christopher Hitchens is when he writes “God is not great. Religion poisons everything,” and presents Mother Teresa as a product of the media-era.

  But there is an even more profound reason that explains why these nights are prolonged for a whole lifetime: the imitation of Christ.

  This mystical experience is a participation in the dark night of the spirit that Jesus had in Gethsemane and in which he died on Calvary, crying: “My God, my God, why hast thou abandoned me?”

  Mother Teresa was able to see her trial ever more clearly as an answer to her desire to share the sitio (thirst) of Jesus on the cross: “If my pain and suffering, my darkness and separation give you a drop of consolation, my own Jesus, do with me as you wish. ... Imprint on my soul and life the suffering of your heart. ... I want to satiate your thirst with every single drop of blood that you can find in me. ... Please do not take the trouble to return soon. I am ready to wait for you for all eternity.”

• Pope John Paul II on the "dark night of the soul", by Carl Olson. Ignatius Insight Sept. 9, 2007.

• The Dark Night of Mother Teresa, by Carol Zaleski. First Things May 2003:

  Mother Teresa is not the only modern saint to have undergone such a trial of faith; one thinks also of precursors like St. Paul of the Cross (1694-1775), founder of the Passionists, and St. Jane Frances de Chantal (1572-1641), foundress of the Visitandines, but above all of Mother Teresa’s namesake, St. Thérèse of Lisieux (1873-1897), the French Carmelite famous for her “Little Way" . . .

April 9, 2005 was the Feast Day of Blessed Teresa of Calcutta:

• Across India, rich and poor remember Mother Teresa AsiaNews.it Sept. 5, 2007:

  At Shishu Bhavan, Kolkatta the house where the MC welcomes abandoned children, orphans and babies saved from abortion, dawn mass was celebrated.

  Mother Teresa consistently battled against abortion, asking mothers to “gift” her their unwanted children.

  “I think – she said in ’94 – that the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion….if we can accept that even a mother can kill her child, how can we tell people not to kill one another?”.

  Fr. Bosco, the priest who celebrated mass in Shishu Bhavan, tells that after the celebration the flock of children dressed in festive costumes sang for Mother Teresa “the happiness of these little ones is infective – he adds – they bring such joy to us”.

• Marking the feast of Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta, a beautiful post (and photographs) by Cardinal Seán Patrick O'Malley, OFM Cap.

Labels: hans urs von balthasar, mother teresa

It was a fascinating exploration, watching this periodical grow from its initial 7 pages to the average 50+ of today. (An annual subscription to Communio in 1977 was advertised at only $8.00 -- times certainly have changed!).

Following are some of the "gems" that were unearthed during the course of my reading, which I thought might be of interest to our readers:

On Hans Urs von Balthasar

• Hans Urs Von Balthasar on the occasion of receiving an honorary degree from CUA - September 5, 1980 (FCSQ Vol. 4, No. 1. Dec. 1980):

  "Jesus' word can be understood by all, but only in the light of his testimony of being the Son of God does it become truly clear. Moreover, only in relation to his death and resurrection does it attain the fullness of its meaning: Jesus' entire being is one single word. This perfect being becomes manifest only from the testimonials of faith; those of Paul which are as important as the ones in the Acts of the Apostles; John is as authoritative as that of the Synoptics. They altogether form a magnificent poliphony - not a pluralism in the contemporary sense. They can be compared to views of a free-standing statue that has to be observed from all directions to understand its self-expression. The more facets we can view, the better we can grasp the unity of the inspiration. The professor of this inspiration is the Church, the early charisma of which was to compose the New Testament and establish its canon. Only her eyes of faith, guided by the Holy Spirit, could see the whole phenomenon of Jesus Christ."

  "Hence the fundamental principle that exegesis - which is indeed a legitimate theological science - can be practiced meaningfully only with the comprehensive view of the Church. If one stands outside, one will - unavoidably - begin to break up the indivisible unity of the figure (of Christ) by changing words to more fashionable ones which most likely do not mean the same, or to words that can be found also in other religions so that while one hears familiar expressions, these are merely generically religious and not uniquely individual (to Christianity). Such manipulations are just as destructive as if, for example, someone would omit every fifth or tenth beat from a phrase of a Mozart symphony or every second verse from Edgar Allan Poe's 'The Raven'."

• von Balthasar on Theology and Holiness, by Kenneth Baker, SJ. FCSQ Vol. 13, No. 2. March 1990. Recollections from a friend of the Swiss theologian:

  The center of his theology is Jesus Christ and the Holy Trinity. Jesus is the Revelation of the Father, the Word, the Voice of God. He is the true or sole "Theologian" because He speaks the final word about God (theo-Iogos). Faith in Jesus Christ, total response to Him and existential experience of Him go before all reflection or "theologizing" on the part of the would-be scholar. That is why the saints play such a large role in the theology of von Balthasar. They are theologians par excellence because they grasped God and were grasped by Him. They did not separate their faith into one compartment and their theologizing into another.

Henri DeLubac

• Fr. Henri De Lubac: Example of a Catholic Scholar, by Fr. JulioR. DeEscobar. FCSQ Vol. 4, No. 1, Dec. 1980:

  Frequently, today, the name of Fr. Henri DeLubac, S.J. is cited as an example of a Catholic scholar "persecuted" by official Church authority, only to be vindicated later. This at best is only a partial interpretation of facts. The impositions on him by officials of the Church are only one facet of his scholarly life.

  Little is known about his reactions to those impositions. A detailed account about the entire story (from both sides) is still to be written. For now, two things can be said. First, Fr. DeLubac has never written a single line manifesting reservations about or coldness toward Church authority. His hunger for truth, his critical mind, his evangelical freedom, his Catholic balance, his rejection of Modernism and Integrism (both) are all part of his priestly life.

  Secondly, his writings, hardly the work of a servile mind, speak for themselves. . . .

  DeEscobar goes on to provide quotations from De Lubac's work relevant to the current situation in Catholic theology (following the censure of Hans Kung and the question of a Catholic scholar's obedience to the Magisterium).

Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger

• Cardinal Ratzinger on "Handing on the Faith Today" [1983]. Excerpts from an address to a Paris symposium on January 16, 1983. The full text was originally published in La Documentation Catholique March 6, 1983. Ratzinger criticizes the encroachment of "radical anthropocentrism" and the historical-critical method and a consequent "crisis in catechetics":

  ". . . A German mother one day told me that her son, who attended an elementary school, was in the process of being introduced to Christology by way of the so-called Source regarding the "logia (sayings) of the Savior." As for the seven sacraments, the articles of the Creed, not a word has been breathed about them. The anecdote means the following: with the criteria of the earliest literary stratum as the most certain historical witness, the real Bible disappears for the sake and benefit of a reconstructed Bible, and for the benefit of a Bible such as it would have to be in their view. It is the same with Jesus. The "Jesus" of the Gospels is considered as a Christ considerably recast by dogma, behind which it would be important to return to the Jesus of the logia or of yet another alleged source in order to rediscover the authentic Jesus. This authentic Jesus says and does nothing more than what pleases us. He spares us, for example, the cross as expiatory sacrifice - the cross is reduced to the level of a scandalous accident, before which it is not becoming to pause too long.

  "The Resurrection also becomes an experience of the disciples according to which Jesus, or at least, His "reality" continues. One no longer needs to dwell on the events, but rather on the consciousness which the disciples and the community had about them. The certitude of faith is replaced by confidence in the historical-critical hypothesis. Now this procedure seems to me to be especially irritating. Caution regarding the historical-critical hypothesis, in a number of catechetical writings, assuredly is a step in the right direction towards the certitude of faith. . .

  Ratzinger's prescription: "resist theories which whittle away the Faith in the name of the authority of pure reason"; recall that faith is not merely an isolated individual encounter but -- as De Lubac demonstrates -- a commmunal encounter with the Church down through the ages ("When I say: "I believe," this means that I am going beyond the limits of my subjectivity, in order to identify myself with the "I" of the Church):

  "There is a widespread tendency today to avoid difficulty when the message of the Faith places us in the presence of material things by sticking to a symbolic interpretation of them: this begins with creation, continues with the virgin birth of Jesus and His Resurrection, and ends with the Real Presence of Christ in the consecrated bread .and wine, with our own resurrection and with the Lord's Second Coming. It is not a matter of theological discussion of slight importance when individual resurrection is situated at death and thereby denies not only the soul, but even the reality of salvation for the body. This is why a defmitive and decisive renewal of faith in creation constitutes both a necessary and preliminary condition for the credibility and deeper understanding of Christology as well as eschatology. . . .

  ". . . (The Church establishes the context within which Scripture is to be interpreted and is the only locus, place, site for acknowledging the writings of the Bible as holy Scripture and their declarations as meaningful and true. Translator's note.) There will, however, always be a certain tension between new issues raised by history and the continuity of the faith. But, at the same time, it is clearly apparent to us that traditional Faith is not the real enemy, but rather the guarantor of a fidelity to the Bible, which, however, may be consistent with historical methodologies."

  [Fellowship of Catholic Scholars Quarterly Vol. 6, No. 3. June 1983. pp. 11-12].

• Cardinal Ratzinger and Post-Conciliar Biblical Criticism Remarks by Cardinal Ratzinger prefacing his 1983 lecture on liberation theology. Translated by A.M. Paltrinieri. FCS Quarterly Newsletter Vol. 7, No. 3, June 1984. p. 13.

• Interview with Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, interview was given August 15-18, 1984 in Bressanone, Italy, with Vittorio Messori. [Basis for The Ratzinger Report]. Jesus, November 1984 issue, Milan, pp. 67-81. Excerpts republished in the Fellowship of Catholic Scholars Quarterly. Vol. 8, No. 2, March 1985. pp. 1-8.

Labels: hans urs von balthasar, kung

I was just discussing with my brother Jamie how reading of Balthasar is quite intimidating and almost presupposes a knowledge of Western (particularly German) philosophy and literature. I do recommend Edward T. Oakes' Pattern of Redemption as an overall introduction to his work, although I'm excited to hear about a collaboration of authors on the Companion including David Schindler and Fr. Aidan Nichols, both of whom have also written studies of Balthasar's work.

My brother also mentioned his personal preference for reading the Patristics over the contemporary theologians -- something I think even Balthasar himself would have approved of.

Labels: hans urs von balthasar

Karl Barth and Hans Urs von Balthasar

Barth was reputedly described by Pope Pius XII as "the greatest theologian since Thomas Aquinas" -- a quote I've seen before, usually in Protestant circles, but entirely absent of context. In any case, Hans Kung was not the only one to investigate his works. Fr. Kung's interest in Barth was actually spurred by his doctrinal advisor Louis Bouyer (who advised Kung to read Luther and Calvin on connection with Kung's study of justification), as well as Hans urs Von Balthasar, who had given a series of lecture son Barth in the Winter of 1948-49, later compiled as The Theology of Karl Barth: Exposition and Interpretation. According to Barth's biographer Eberhard Busch, Barth attended Balthasar's lectures when he could "to learn more about myself," and considered Balthasar's work "incomparably more powerful than most of the books which have clustered about me."

Balthasar and Kung ultimately ended up in different camps, the former joining Ratzinger and De Lubac in launching Communio, and opposing those who would distort the Council to further the dismantling of orthodoxy; Kung placing himself decidely in opposition to the Magisterium and going on to adopt more and more controversial ("progressive") stances on a number of issues in Catholic theology and morality.

Balthasar had his own reasons for studying (and dialoguing with) Barth. These are examined by Edward T. Oakes in the second chapter of Pattern of Redemption), which focuses on Balthasar's critique of Barth's commentary on The Epistle to the Romans -- a text for which The Old Oligarch has little love: "I grit my teeth all the way through Epistle to the Romans. Can you say, 'Radical hatred of the creation?' Why the incarnation isn't obscene to him is beyond me"

Balthasar saw something similar in Barth as our fellow blogger, although he didn't put it quite in those terms. According to Balthasar, Barth's emphasis on the complete distinction/opposition between God and man, Creator and creature, when taken to its logical conclusions leads to a parodoxical adoption of pantheism (or precisely theopanism) which abolishes the distinction between creature as creature, and undermines Barth's original position (Oakes, pp. 55-60). Oakes quotes Balthasar:

According to Oakes, Balthasar's devastating critique of Barth's early thought led him to "an ever greater recognition of the inherent rationality in theology . . . [and the acknowledgement of] the place of analogy in thelogical language." This in fact, says Oakes, is the single most important reason why Barth abandoned his first draft of a dogmatics and started it anew: he realized he was still too influenced by dialectics, and so he still saw God and creation too much as contrasting, even contradictory terms." [Oakes, p. 61]

That's enough Barth for one week. (Do check out Oakes if you're interested, however).

Labels: hans urs von balthasar

. . . music was no doubt a large part of what drew Balthasar to befriend Karl Barth and what made their friendship so mutually enriching. For here was a Protestant thinker who also instinctively rejected Kierkegaard's harsh disjunction between the aesthetic and religious sphere, and did so precisely because of music, or more specifically Mozart's music. As Balthasar explains in his own appreciation of Barth's musical sensibility:

This refutation of Kierkegaard, already evident and fully formed in the early Barth, is attributable to a final contrast: for Kierkegaard Christianity is unworldly, ascetic, polemic; for Barth it is the immense revelation of the eternal light that radiates over all of nature and fulfills every promise; it is God's Yes and Amen to himself and his creation. Nothing is more characteristic of the two men than the way they stand in relation to Mozart. For Kierkegaard Mozart is the very quintessence of the aesthetic sphere and therefore the very contrast to a religious existence. He had no choice but to interpret him demonically, from the perspective of Don Juan. Quite different is that view of Mozart by one of his greatest devotees, Karl Barth? [The Theology of Karl Barth: Exposition and Interpretation, p. 26]

Fr. Oakes supplements this with a moving passage from Barth's Dogmatics:

Why is it that this man [Mozart] is so incomparable? Why is it that, for the receptive, he has produced in almost every bar he conceived and composed a type of music for which 'beautiful' is not a fitting epithet; music which for the true Christian is not mere entertainment, enjoyment, edification, but food and drink; music full of comfort and counsel for his needs; usic which is never a slave to its techniques nor sentimental but always 'moving,' free and liberating because wise, strong and sovereign? Why is it possible to hold that Mozart has a place in theology, especially in the doctrine of creation, but also in eschatology, although he was not a Father of the Church, does not seem to have been a particularly active Christian, and was a Roman Catholic, apparenlty leading what might appear to us a rather frivolous existence when not occupied with his work? . . . [Becuse] he had heard, and causes those who have ears to hear, even today, what we shall not see until the end of time -- the whole context of Providence.[Church Dogmatics III/3, 297-298]

Pattern of Redemption is divided into four parts, the first charting the various "tributaries of influence" (Pryzwara, Barth, Goethe, Nietzsche and German Idealism, and the Church Fathers) and the remaining three covering his multi-volume works (Glory of the Lord: A Theological Aesthetics; Theodrama: Theological Dramtic Theory and Theo-Logik). I'm presently on the second part, discussing Balthasar's thought on aesthetics, in which Oakes writes:

. . . the disengagement of aesthetics from Christian thought has been a most fateful step for theology, and Balthasar devotes the entirety of the next two volumes [of the Dramatics] to analyzing how this came about . . . it is no secret to anyone, he says, that "the word 'aesthetic' automatically flows from the pens of both Protestant and Catholic writers when they want to describe an attitude which, in the last analysis, they find to be frivolous, merely curious or self-indulgent.

Count me among the latter. As one who was taken by Kierkegaard as a philosophy major in college, and especially with Kierkegaard's description of the "three stages" of spiritual development (the aesthetic, the ethical, and the religious), Balthasar's thought has made for some suprising and engrossing reading. Oakes continues:

It would be easy to verify this insight almost at random today, but I think it much more important to show how the denigration of aesthetics in contemporary theology constitutes the hidden presupposition governing theology across the board, from liberation theology (which might be regarded as that school of theology that is governed by an overemphasis on the Good, as a theology that recommends a praxis disengaged from the gratuity of sheer worship for its own sake, which only beauty can elicit) to the remarkable obsession which historical studies that has gripped theology since the rise of historicism in 19th-century Germany (a positivism which must surely have its roots in a hypertrophied emphasis on the True disengaged from the directness of perception that comes from a contemplative gaze on the beautiful).

Labels: hans urs von balthasar

It can be said with certainty that there is no Christian experience of God that is not the fruit of the conquest of self-will, or at least of the decision to conquer it. And among the manifestations of this self-will one must include every autocratic attempt of man to evoke religious experiences of his own initiative and by means of his own methods and techniques. . . .

Here, the Old Testament prohibition of images retains its timeliness even today: if "image" mean what is unequivocally expressed then -- the tangible presence of the divine -- so that the divine entered secretly or openly into the human sphere ofpower by virtue of the moment of experience -- any cult of images is likewise forbidden to us. This applies even to him who is expressly called "the image of the invisible God" (Col. 1:15), Jesus Christ, who always points away from himself to the Father and is present to the world only as one who has died and returned to the Father. A certain icon cult is frequently on the dangerous borderline beyond which unbiblical, forbidden experience begins. The image of God offered in Jesus Christ must by no means be misused in order to give us sensory experiences of God (the bridal mysticism of the Middle Ages also frequently overstepped the limits in this regard). Rather, it exists in order to transform us into his image, as Paul repeatedly urges (Rom. 8:29, 1 Cor 15:49, 2 Cor 3:18), and thus to mediate to us again the correct 'knowledge of God' (Hosea). [p. 28-29]

* * *

. . . It is only when we renounce every partial experience and every subjective guarantee of possessing what is experienced that we recieve totality of being, the divine mystery. God needs selfless vessels into which he can pour his essential selflessness.

The law of renunciation can become very difficult for the individual in times when genuine ecclesial life finds feeble expression and numerous sects offer enticement of immediate "experiences." But no one who experiences this difficulty should think that the mystic, with his apparently immediate experiences of divine things, has an easier life. For every true mysticism, however rich it may be in visions and other experiences of God, is subject at least as strictly to the law of the Cross -- that is, of non-experience -- as is the existence of someone apparently forgotten in the desert of secular daily life. Perhaps the mystic has to pass through dry periods that are even more severe. Where this is not the case, where we are offered acquirable techniques to attain a mysticism without bitterness and the humiliations of the Cross, we can be certain that it is not authentically Christian and has no Christian significance. [pp. 44-45].

Excerpts from "Experience God?" New Elucidations Ignatius Press, 1986.

Labels: hans urs von balthasar

Hans Urs von Balthasar, from Theo-dramatic Vol. III

Cited by Gerard Serafin in a discussion of the prospects of Orthodox-Catholic reunion over at Mark Shea's blog.

Labels: hans urs von balthasar

In the chapter "Mary - Church - Office," Balthasar impressively ties together -- in the space of ten pages -- man's relationship to woman, Mary's relationship to the Church, the proper interpretation of Paul's advice to spouses in Ephesians 5: 21-33, and how this pertains to the modern feminist identification of the sexes and the struggle for "female priests".

Someone who disregards the place of Mary in the history of salvation, as the Church has come to know it in her prayer and contemplation, will pay the price in the long run; he will sooner or later land in a feminism that demands the equality, which means in practical terms the identification, of woman and man. . . . [p. 88]

>Woman is the inseperable unity of that which makes it possible for the Word of God to take on the being of the world, in virtue of the natural-supernatural fruitfulness given to her. As the active power of receiving all that heaven gives, she is the epitome of creaturely power and dignity; she is what God presupposes as the Creator in order to give the seed of his Word to the world. In no religion (not even in those of matriarchal cultures) and in no philosopy can woman be the original principle, siince her fruitfulness, which appears more active and explicit in the sexual sphere than the fruitfulness of man, is always ordered to insemination. This is also true of Isis, Astarte and Cybele. In the philosophy of antiquity, man appears for this reason as number one and woman as the number two. Eve is drawn from Adam's side that his creaturely creative power may not be in vain. [p. 90]

The following words of Paul must be placed into this cosmic context: "Man is the image and reflection of God, while woman is a reflection of man." (1 Corin. 11:7). "Reflection" (doxa) in the last part of the sentence can and must be understood as "glory", i.e., that through which man is glorified. God does not need Adam in order to have his glory in himself. Adam, however, is poor and fruitless if he does not have that which brings forth fruit bodily and spiritually, that which, as the principle of fruitfulness and as wife and mother, fructifies him. "For as woman stems from man, so man in turn stems from woman, but everything [man and woman] stems from God. (1 Corin. 11:12). . . . [Christ] must represent the Father in the world by his Incarnation . . . but he does so as a man who comes from woman (the Old Covenant community of salvation, which finds its peak in Mary) and is again fruitful in woman (in the same community of salvation that becomes the Church in Mary. [p. 90-91]

One must pay attention to the connection between Mary and the Church. The assent given to the angel by the "lowly handmaid" on whom God has looked graciously is the fundamental act of her entire life. . . . at the Presentation of the Temple, she fundamentally offers and returns her child to God. On the Cross, this return -- in the same godforsakeness as the Son: "Woman, behold your son!" -- becomes a secret and indespensable part of the New Creation or birth. . . . [The Church] comes to be in virtue of the fact that the feminine assent to all that God wills becomes the inexhaustible fruitfulness of the new Eve. It is the Church that Paul (Eph. 5:27) calls the "immaculata", which, after all, she is truly and literally on earth only in her archetype, Mary. The Cross (to which Easter and Pentacost belong, inseparably) is the fulfillment of all the nuptial spirit between man and woman and indeed between heaven and earth. . . . [p. 92]

Situated withhin this comprehensive femininity of the Church is the eucharistic mystery that Jesus entrusts in advance to his Apostles . . . Men are to carry out the office in the Church; in so doing they are not to be Christ but merely to represent him. It is part of the nature of the office that it merely represents, so much that it can speak, not its own words, but the words of Christ: "This is my Body"; "I absolve you". It is completely unthinkable that Mary should speak such words. For under the Cross she did not represent the sacrifice of her Son -- but in being set aside and given away to another son -- she was a silent, invisible part of this sacrifice. For she, the woman, is the Church that gives her assent, and everyone in the Church has a part in this assent. Even the man, even the priest, is in this respect feminine, marian.

The woman that would strive for the male role in the Church thus strives for something "less" and denies the "more" of what she is. This can be overlooked only by a feminism that has lost the sense for the mystery of sexual difference, wich has functionalized sexuality and attempts to increase the dignity of woman by bringing about her identification with man. [pp. 93-94]

This complimentarity of the sexes and the distinct, yet I think equally dignified, roles of male and female, not to mention the interpretation of Mary as the mystical archetype of the Church, are worth consideration -- especially by those who approach the question of a female priesthood with a simple "well, why not?" ² There is much in Catholic tradition that would be lost by such an indiscriminate leveling of the sexes.

Balthasar's chapter reminded me of another article by Genevieve S. Kineke, on "The Lost Essence of Femininity" (Canticle No. 1), with which I think is fitting to close:

Emulation of the Blessed Mother would also be an intrinsic dimension of an authentic daughter of the Church. She would see in Our Lady the first fruit of God's plan of redemption and a perfect example of each human virtue. Through meditation on the Gospel texts referring to Mary and on the mysteries of the Rosary, she would see the delicacy and "feminine genius" of this beautiful woman. . . .

The difference that sets women apart is that she imitates the Church, the Bride of Christ. As peculiar as this might seem at first glance, let us consider what the Church does. In supernatural ways, the Church welcomes new members, she cleanses them in the waters of baptism, she feeds them at the Eucharistic feast, and she reconciles them in the confessional. She heals them with her anointing balm and finally lays each to rest in the hope of rising again. Throughout she consoles, sustains, and most importantly teaches each member in order that he might find his dignity and the meaning of his life.

What could be more feminine?

In a natural sense, this is where a woman finds her dignity and meaning. It is not a strict formula or a straight-jacket. On the contrary, she takes these elements, combines them with her talents and her circumstances in life, and forges a path unique and charged with beauty. With these elements as guides, she will ponder her vocation and discover what God wishes her to do that is squarely in the folds of the Mystical Body of Christ, and yet unrepeatable and life-giving to all who are touched by her influence.

1. I have recently begun to explore the writings of Hans Urs von Balthasar, finding his longer and more academic works a bit intimidating. Fortunately, many of his shorter books (published by Ignatius Press), however, are written for a popular audience. A Short Primer For Unsettled Laymen is definitely one that I think most any Catholic would enjoy, and very pertinent to our times.
2. For example, none of these factors come into play in the British historian Paul Johnson's almost-casual dismissal of gender differences and endorsement of female priests in The Quest for God: A Personal Pilgrimage (Harper Collins, 1996); which, I think, is an otherwise good read.

Labels: hans urs von balthasar

From what I could gather, Fr. Roderick is apparently preoccupied with his religious studies, as well as maintaining a number of websites for the Church in the Netherlands, forcing him to relenquish the pursuit of his personal hobbies, including a Star Wars fan site (for which he received international fame) and, I can only assume, his von Balthasar site as well. (I have no way of knowing for sure, having emailed him and awaiting a response).

I am terribly sorry to see it go -- in many ways, Roderick's website was an inspiration for www.ratzingerfanclub.com, and a great source of information for English readers of von Balthasar. In its absence, I took the liberty of scrounging the web for links and, over the weekend, put up a page of my own: http://www.ratzingerfanclub.com/Balthasar, which will hopefully be of assistance to those researching Balthasar on the web.

Anybody who has additional resources to contribute to these pages (particularly in the way of book reviews and essays by Balthasar scholars), your recommendations would be greatly appreciated.

Labels: hans urs von balthasar

. . .the present situation is characterized by a strong polerization in the Church, so much so that a dialogue between "progressives" and "traditionalists" succeeds only rarely. The camp of the progressives seeks to conquer the center; that of the traditionalists holds the fortress tenaciously as if it defended the center. Both sides distance themselves from the men in office and the small number of theologians who seek to maintain the true center.<

Where should one look to see a dawn? One should look to where in the tradition of the Church something truely spiritual appears, where Christianity does not seem a laboriosly repeated doctrine, but a breathtaking adventure. Why is all the world suddenly looking at the wrinkled but radiant face of the Albanian woman in Calcutta? What she is doing is not new for Christians . . . but suddently the volcano that was believed extinguished has begun to spit fire again. And nothing in this old woman is progressive, nothing traditionalist. She embodies effortlessly the center, the whole.

Hans Urs von Balthasar
A Short Primer for Unsettled Laymen

Labels: food for thought, hans urs von balthasar