Aphorisms

God's face like a countenance beaming forth from the darkness: in order to see it we throw everything we possess into the fire - the world, our joys, our hopes. The flame leaps forth, consumes it all, and in its glow the beloved Face lights up. But the flame dies down, and we feed it with what little remains to us: honor, success, our will, the intellect, our temperament, finally our very self: absume et suscipe - "take and receive". This is not simple self-giving, but, increasingly, the knowledge that I am being taken, that I must surrender. Grace is everything: the moment of God's appearing; grace also the every sacrifice the fire snatches from me.

from The Grain of Wheat - Aphorisms by Hans Urs von Balthasar, Ignatius Press