Back to Balthasar

It has been a long break from my Balthasar project. In 2007 I began this project with the intent of reading his trilogy, The Glory of the Lord, Theo-Drama, and Theo-Logic. Life events have gotten in the way. Yet Hans Urs von Balthasar continues to tug on my spiritual strings and so I return, picking up where I left off, at Volume 7 of The Glory of the Lord. I pray the Lord provides me the time and the determination to complete my project.

In the prelude to Volume 7 Balthasar describes it's purpose. He describes this work as unconventional and seemingly "amateurish" to professional theologians, but states, “ … it is more important to get at all costs to a point from which we can see the essential matter, than to lay down orderly roads that lead to that point.”

“It is considerably harder to clear a path in the new covenant to the prospect we seek, than in the old covenant; the latter unfolds in a history that can be followed clearly through centuries, but the new covenant bunches everything together into the shortest space of time, in the midpoint of which stands the breakdown-point which can be delimited in external chronology as the ‘Triduum Mortis’, but which internally means that time has come to an end and that there is a new beginning such that all temporal categories of ‘end’, ‘midpoint’, and ‘beginning’ are shattered; and this means that not only the main subject (the theological content of the fate of Jesus), but also the position of the existentially involved observer (the Christian who seeks to understand his faith, in order to live it) slip away at the very point where they ought to be made secure. But it is not our concern to get a secure place to stand, but rather to get sight of what cannot be securely grasped, and this must remain the event of Jesus Christ; woe to the Christian who would not stand daily speechless before this event! If this event truly is what the church believes, then it can be mastered through no methodology …." (Bold emphasis mine)

For an explanation of the Balthasar's concept of Triduum Mortis see his work, Mysterium Paschale. 

"Prayer", Hans Urs von Balthasar

When searching my small library for a book, I cannot help but pass by my shelf of von Balthsar's writings. His seventeen volume Trilogy, The Glory of the Lord, Theo Drama, and Theo Logic are neatly lined up in a row. I've only made it to Volume 7 of The Glory of the Lord. Yet, each time I pass my eyes over this shelf I invariably grab a small paperback volume entitled Prayer. 
This most recent time I pulled it off the shelf, fully forgetting my reason for scanning my book shelves, and I began to reread some of the book. Now, someone told me once, (my spiritual director I think) that it is not the number of books that you read that is a most important thing, but, the number of books that you re-read. I have not re-read the entire book. Each time I pick it up I go to certain sections that struck me as particularly meaningful or especially beautifully phrased.

I offer here a brief snippet from the very last chapter in the book, Cross and Resurrection
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But “God shows his love for us in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us … while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son” (Rom.5:8,10) … The sentence which in principle determined our fate was performed upon Jesus Christ on behalf of sinners: in him we were crucified and condemned to death; in him we were made the recipients of grace and adopted as children. In him and without any activity on our part, God’s anger toward us has changed into tender, caring love. All this has become a reality, in and through Christ, in the Father’s heaven: our task is to let it come true in all its fullness in our temporal existence on earth.

In the New Covenant “what we ought to do” follows from “what we are”. We are justified and should act accordingly. We have died with Christ, we have been buried and raised with him, and this should determine our behavior: we should no longer live in sin; the “old man” is dead and we should actually regard him as such, daily encountering his resistance to the death sentence served upon him, making him die daily (Rom 6). pp. 295-296