Lubac - Humanity created, fell, redeemed as a whole

The supernatural dignity of one who has been baptized rests, we know, on the natural dignity of man, though it surpasses it in an infinite manner (. . .) . Thus the unity of the Mystical Body of Christ, a supernatural unity, supposes a previous natural unity, the unity of the human race. So the Fathers of the Church, in their treatment of grace and salvation, kept constantly before them this Body of Christ, and in dealing with the creation were not content only to mention the formation of individuals, the first man and the first woman, but delighted to contemplate God creating humanity as a whole. "God", says St Irenaeus, for example, "in the beginning of time plants the vine of the human race ; he loved this human race and purposed to pour out his Spirit upon it and to give it the adoption of sons."¹ For Irenaeus again, as indeed for Origen,² Gregory Nazianzen, Gregory of Nyssa, for Cyril of Alexandria, Maximus, Hilary and others, the lost sheep of the Gospel that the Good Shepherd brings back to the fold is no other than the whole of human nature; its sorry state so moves the Word of God that he leaves the great flock of the angels, as it were to their own devices, in order to go to its help. The Fathers designated this nature by a series of equivalent expressions, all of a concrete nature, thus demonstrating that it was in their view a genuine reality.

They seemed to witness its birth, to see it live, grow, develop, as a single being. With the first sin it was this being, whole and entire, which fell away, which was driven out of Paradise and sentenced to a bitter exile until the time of its redemption. And when Christ at last appeared, coming as the "one bridegroom", his bride, once again, was the "whole human race".

Our early Fathers' habitual manner of thought must be borne in mind if we would understand certain strange ways of speaking—whatever their precise origin—that are met with in such writers as Methodius of Olympus, who appears to make of Christ a new appearance of Adam himself brought back to life by the Word.³ If several of them held so strongly, as we know, that Adam was saved, one of the reasons for it was undoubtedly that they saw the salvation of its head as the necessary condition of the salvation of the human race. "This Adam, within us all", says one of the homilies of Pseudo-Epiphanius.⁴ And another homily, of Pseudo-Chrysostom : "By the sacrifice of Christ the first man was saved, that man who is in us all." ⁵ Is not this also the inner meaning of the legend according to which Adam, who had been buried on Calvary, was baptized by the water which flowed from the side of Jesus? Surely, too, the many liturgical texts about the descent of Christ into " hell", where the first man is alone mentioned, are, like the works of art which correspond with them, indications that that same way of thought continued until much later. 

Before embarking on the study of this human nature, from its beginning until the end of the world, the Fathers made a fundamental examination of it in order to perceive the principle of its unity. Now this principle appeared no different to them from that on which rests the natural dignity of man. Was it not shown to them in Genesis, where it was taught that God made man in his own image? For the divine image does not differ from one individual to another : in all it is the same image. The same mysterious participation in God which causes the soul to exist effects at one and the same time the unity of spirits among themselves. Whence comes the notion, so beloved of Augustinianism, of one spiritual family intended to form the one city of God. 

(...)

Clement of Alexandria, in pages brimming over with poetry, after exposing the baseness of the pagan mystery cults, extols the mysteries of the Logos and displays the "divine Choregus" calling all men to him :

Be instructed in these mysteries and you shall dance with the choir of angels before the uncreated God, whilst the Logos will sing the sacred hymns with us. This eternal Jesus, the one high priest, intercedes for men and calls on them: "Hearken," he cries, "all you peoples, or rather all you who are endowed with reason, barbarians or Greeks! I summon the whole human race, I who am its author by the will of the Father! Come unto me and gather together as one well-ordered unity under the one God, and under the one Logos of God."¹⁵

1  Adversus Haereses, passim.

2  In Genesim, horn. 2, 5 ; 9, 3; 13, 2 (Baehrens, pp. 34, 92, 114).

3  Methodius of Olympus, Symposium, 3, c. 4-8 (French trans. by Farges, pp. 42-52).

4  Homily 2 (P.G. xliii, 460—I).

5  In Pascha, sermo 2; cf. sermo 1 (P.G. lix, 725 and 723).

15  Protreptic, c.12.

Henri de Lubac, Catholicism: A Study of Dogma in Relation to the Corporate Destiny of Mankind (1947; tr. 1958), 3-6

 

Pope Saint Paul VI - Touching Jesus in Our Suffering

To all of you who are visited by suffering under a thousand forms, the Second Vatican Council has a very special message. It feels on itself your pleading eyes, burning with fever or hollow with fatigue, questioning eyes which search in vain for the why of human suffering and which ask anxiously when and whence will come relief. We feel echoing deeply within our hearts as fathers and pastors your laments and your complaints. Our suffering is increased at the thought that it is not within our power to bring you bodily help nor the lessening of your physical sufferings, which physicians, nurses and all those dedicated to the service of the sick are endeavoring to relieve as best they can. 

But we have something deeper and more valuable to give you, the only truth capable of answering the mystery of suffering and of bringing you relief without illusion, and that is faith and union with the Man of Sorrows, with Christ the Son of God, nailed to the cross for our sins and for our salvation. Christ did not do away with suffering. He did not even wish to unveil to us entirely the mystery of suffering. He took suffering upon himself and this is enough to make you understand all its value. All of you who feel heavily the weight of the cross, you who are poor and abandoned, you who weep, you who are persecuted for justice, you who are ignored, you the unknown victims of suffering, take courage. You are the preferred children of the kingdom of God, the kingdom of hope, happiness and life. You are the brothers and sisters of the suffering Christ, and with him, if you wish, you are saving the world. This is the Christian science of suffering, the only one which gives peace. Know that you are not alone, separated, abandoned, or useless. You have been called by Christ and are his living and transparent image. In his name, the Council salutes you lovingly, thanks you, assures you of the friendship and assistance of the Church, and blesses you. 

Pope Saint Paul VI, (†1978) reigned as pope from 1963 to 1978. 

Magnificat - Feb 2022

Ciszek - Will of God is what He gives us to do today

Though our situation may have been somewhat unique, the temptation [to give up] was not. It is the same temptation faced by everyone who has followed a call and found that the realities of life were nothing like the expectations he had in the first flush of his vision and his enthusiasm. It is the temptation that comes to anyone, for example, who has entered religious life with a burning desire to serve God and him alone, only to find that the day-to-day life in religion is humdrum and pedestrian, equally as filled with moments of human misunderstanding, daily routines, and distractions. It is the same temptation faced by young couples in marriage, when the honeymoon is over, and they must face a seemingly endless existence in the same old place and the same old way. It is the temptation to say: “This life is not what I thought it would be. This is not what I bargained for. It is not at all what I wanted, either. If I had known it would be like this, I would have never made this choice, I would have never made this promise. You must forgive me, God, but I want to go back. You cannot hold me to a promise made in ignorance; you cannot expect me to keep a covenant based on faith without any previous knowledge of the true facts of life. It is not fair. I never thought it would be like this. I simply cannot stand it, and I will not stay. I will not serve.”

And then one day, together, it dawned on Father Nestrov and me. God granted us the grace to see the solution to our dilemma. It was the grace quite simply to look at our situation from his viewpoint rather than from ours. It was the grace not to judge our efforts by human standards, or by what we ourselves wanted or expected to happen, but rather according to God’s design, with the real world ordained by God and governed ultimately by his will…. Not the will of God as we might wish it, or as we might have envisioned it, or as we thought in our poor human wisdom it ought to be. But rather the will of God as God envisioned it and revealed it to us each day in the created situations with which he presented us. His will for us was the twenty-four hours of each day: the people, the places, the circumstances he set before us in that time. Those were the things God knew were important to him and to us at that moment, and those were the things upon which he wanted us to act. These things, the twenty-four hours of this day, were his will; we had to learn to recognize his will in the reality of the situation and to act accordingly. We had to learn to look at our daily lives, at everything that crossed our path each day, with the eyes of God; learning to see his estimate of things, places, and above all people, recognizing that he had a goal and a purpose in bringing us into contact with these things and these people, and striving always to do that will—his will—every hour of every day in the situations in which he had placed us. For to what other purpose had we been created? For what other reason had he so arranged it that we should be here, now, this hour, among these people? To what other end had he ordained our being here, if not to see his will in these situations and to strive to do always what he wanted, the way he wanted it, as he would have done it, for his sake, that he might have the fruit and glory? 

Servant of God Walter J. Ciszek, S.J.

Father Ciszek († 1984) was a Pennsylvania-born Jesuit priest and missionary who served secretly in the Soviet Union. He was convicted of being a “Vatican Spy” in World War II and spent 23 years in Soviet prisons. From He Leadeth Me © 1973, Fr. Walter J. Ciszek, S.J., Ignatius Press, San Francisco, CA. www.ignatius.com. Used with permission.

Magnificat - Feb 2022

Caussade - 4 - In What Perfection Consists

PERFECTION CONSISTS IN DOING THE WILL OF GOD, NOT IN UNDERSTANDING HIS DESIGNS.

The designs of God, the good pleasure of God, the will of God, the operation of God and the gift of His grace are all one and the same thing in the spiritual life. It is God working in the soul to make it like unto Himself. Perfection is neither more nor less than the faithful co-operation of the soul with this work of God, and is begun, grows, and is consummated in the soul unperceived and in secret. 

The science of theology is full of theories and explanations of the wonders of this state in each soul according to its capacity. One may be conversant with all these speculations, speak and write about them admirably, instruct others and guide souls; yet, if these theories are only in the mind, one is, compared with those who, without any knowledge of these theories, receive the meaning of the designs of God and do His holy will, like a sick physician compared to simple people in perfect health.

The designs of God and his divine will accepted by a faithful soul with simplicity produces this divine state in it without its knowledge, just as a medicine taken obediently will produce health, although the sick person neither knows nor wishes to know anything about medicine. 

As fire gives out heat, and not philosophical discussions about it, nor knowledge of its effects, so the designs of God and His holy will work in the soul for its sanctification, and not speculations of curiosity as to this principle and this state. 

When one is thirsty one quenches one’s thirst by drinking, not by reading books which treat of this condition. The desire to know does but increase this thirst. Therefore when one thirsts after sanctity, the desire to know about it only drives it further away. 

Speculation must be laid aside, and everything arranged by God as regards actions and sufferings must be accepted with simplicity, for those things that happen at each moment by the divine command or permission are always the most holy, the best and the most divine for us.

Jean Pierre de Caussade, Abandonment to Divine Providence (c.1740) Ch.4

Caussade - 3 - The Work of Our Sanctification

HOW MUCH MORE EASILY SANCTITY APPEARS WHEN REGARDED FROM THIS POINT OF VIEW.

If the work of our sanctification presents, apparently, the most insurmountable difficulties, it is because we do not know how to form a just idea of it. In reality sanctity can be reduced to one single practice, fidelity to the duties appointed by God. Now this fidelity is equally within each one’s power whether in its active practice, or passive exercise.

The active practice of fidelity consists in accomplishing the duties which devolve upon us whether imposed by the general laws of God and of the Church, or by the particular state that we may have embraced. Its passive exercise consists in the loving acceptance of all that God sends us at each moment.

Are either of these practices of sanctity above our strength? Certainly not the active fidelity, since the duties it imposes cease to be duties when we have no longer the power to fulfil them. If the state of your health does not permit you to go to Mass you are not obliged to go. The same rule holds good for all the precepts laid down; that is to say for all those which prescribe certain duties. Only those which forbid things evil in themselves are absolute, because it is never allowable to commit sin. Can there, then, be anything more reasonable? What excuse can be made? Yet this is all that God requires of the soul for the work of its sanctification. He exacts it from both high and low, from the strong and the weak, in a word from all, always and everywhere. It is true then that He requires on our part only simple and easy things since it is only necessary to employ this simple method to attain to an eminent degree of sanctity. If, over and above the Commandments, He shows us the counsels as a more perfect aim, He always takes care to suit the practice of them to our position and character. He bestows on us, as the principal sign of our vocation to follow them, the attractions of grace which make them easy. He never impels anyone beyond his strength, nor in any way beyond his aptitude. Again, what could be more just? All you who strive after perfection and who are tempted to discouragement at the remembrance of what you have read in the lives of the saints, and of what certain pious books prescribe; O you who are appalled by the terrible ideas of perfection that you have formed for yourselves; it is for your consolation that God has willed me to write this. Learn that of which you seem to be ignorant. This God of all goodness has made those things easy which are common and necessary in the order of nature, such as breathing, eating, and sleeping. No less necessary in the supernatural order are love and fidelity, therefore it must needs be that the difficulty of acquiring them is by no means so great as is generally represented. Review your life. Is it not composed of innumerable actions of very little importance? Well, God is quite satisfied with these. They are the share that the soul must take in the work of its perfection. This is so clearly explained in Holy Scripture that there can be no doubt about it:“Fear God and keep the commandments, this is the whole duty of man”(Ecclesiastes xii, 13), that is to say—this is all that is required on the part of man, and it is in this that active fidelity consists. If man fulfils his part God will do the rest. Grace being bestowed only on this condition the marvels it effects are beyond the comprehension of man. For neither ear has heard nor eye seen, nor has it entered the mind what things God has planned in His omniscience, determined in His will, and carried out by His power in the souls given up entirely to Him. The passive part of sanctity is still more easy since it only consists in accepting that which we very often have no power to prevent, and in suffering lovingly, that is to say with sweetness and consolation, those things that too often cause weariness and disgust. Once more I repeat, in this consists sanctity. This is the grain of mustard seed which is the smallest of all the seeds, the fruits of which can neither be recognised nor gathered. It is the drachma of the Gospel, the treasure that none discover because they suppose it to be too far away to be sought. Do not ask me how this treasure can be found. It is no secret. The treasure is everywhere, it is offered to us at all times and wherever we may be. All creatures, both friends and enemies pour it out with prodigality, and it flows like a fountain through every faculty of body and soul even to the very centre of our hearts. If we open our mouths they will be filled. The divine activity permeates the whole universe, it pervades every creature; wherever they are it is there; it goes before them, with them, and it follows them; all they have to do is to let the waves bear them on.Would to God that kings, and their ministers, princes of the Church and of the world, priests and soldiers, the peasantry and labourers, in a word, all men could know how very easy it would be for them to arrive at a high degree of sanctity. They would only have to fulfil the simple duties of Christianity and of their state of life; to embrace with submission the crosses belonging to that state, and to submit with faith and love to the designs of Providence in all those things that have to be done or suffered without going out of their way to seek occasions for themselves. This is the spirit by which the patriarchs and prophets were animated and sanctified before there were so many systems of so many masters of the spiritual life.[It would be a mistaken idea of the meaning of the author to imagine that he would urge anyone to undertake to lead a spiritual life without the guidance of a director. He explains expressly elsewhere that in order to be able to do without a director one must have been habitually and for a long time under direction. Less still does he endeavour to bring into disrepute the means made use of by the Church for the extirpation of vice and the acquisition of virtue. His meaning, of which Christians cannot be too often reminded, is, that of all direction the best is that of divine providence and that the most necessary and the most sanctifying of all practices is that of fulfilling faithfully and accepting lovingly whatever this paternal Providence ordains that we should do or suffer.] This is the spirituality of all ages and of every state. No state of life can, assuredly, be sanctified in a more exalted manner, nor in a more wonderful and easy way than by the simple use of the means that God, the sovereign director of souls, gives them to do or to suffer at each moment.

Jean Pierre de Caussade, Abandonment to Divine Providence (c.1740) Ch.3

De Caussade - 2 - The Duties of Each Moment

THE DUTIES OF EACH MOMENT ARE THE SHADOWS BENEATH WHICH HIDES THE DIVINE OPERATION.

“The power of the most High shall over-shadow thee” (Luke i, 35), said the angel to Mary. This shadow, beneath which is hidden the power of God for the purpose of bringing forth Jesus Christ in the soul, is the duty, the attraction, or the cross that is presented to us at each moment. These are, in fact, but shadows like those in the order of nature which, like a veil, cover sensible objects and hide them from us. Therefore in the moral and supernatural order the duties of each moment conceal, under the semblance of dark shadows, the truth of their divine character which alone should rivet the attention. It was in this light that Mary beheld them. Also these shadows diffused over her faculties, far from creating illusion, did but increase her faith in Him who is unchanging and unchangeable. The archangel may depart. He has delivered his message, and his moment has passed. Mary advances without ceasing, and is already far beyond him. The Holy Spirit, who comes to take possession of her under the shadow of the angel’s words, will never abandon her.

There are remarkably few extraordinary characteristics in the outward events of the life of the most holy Virgin, at least there are none recorded in holy Scripture. Her exterior life is represented as very ordinary and simple. She did and suffered the same things that anyone in a similar state of life might do or suffer. She goes to visit her cousin Elizabeth as her other relatives did. She took shelter in a stable in consequence of her poverty. She returned to Nazareth from whence she had been driven by the persecution of Herod, and lived there with Jesus and Joseph, supporting themselves by the work of their hands. It was in this way that the holy family gained their daily bread. But what a divine nourishment Mary and Joseph received from this daily bread for the strengthening of their faith! It is like a sacrament to sanctify all their moments. What treasures of grace lie concealed in these moments filled, apparently, by the most ordinary events. That which is visible might happen to anyone, but the invisible, discerned by faith, is no less than God operating very great things. O Bread of Angels! heavenly manna! pearl of the Gospel! Sacrament of the present moment! thou givest God under as lowly a form as the manger, the hay, or the straw. And to whom dost thou give Him? “Esurientes implevit bonis” (Luke i, 53). God reveals Himself to the humble under the most lowly forms, but the proud, attaching themselves entirely to that which is extrinsic, do not discover Him hidden beneath, and are sent empty away.

Jean Pierre de Caussade, Abandonment to Divine Providence (c.1740) Ch.2

De Caussade - 1 - The Hidden Operations of God

FIDELITY TO THE ORDER ESTABLISHED BY GOD COMPREHENDED THE WHOLE SANCTITY OF THE RIGHTEOUS UNDER THE OLD LAW; EVEN THAT OF ST. JOSEPH, AND OF MARY HERSELF.

God continues to speak to-day as He spoke in former times to our fathers when there were no directors as at present, nor any regular method of direction. Then all spirituality was comprised in fidelity to the designs of God, for there was no regular system of guidance in the spiritual life to explain it in detail, nor so many instructions, precepts and examples as there are now. Doubtless our present difficulties render this necessary, but it was not so in the first ages when souls were more simple and straightforward. Then, for those who led a spiritual life, each moment brought some duty to be faithfully accomplished. Their whole attention was thus concentrated consecutively like a hand that marks the hours which, at each moment, traverses the space allotted to it. Their minds, incessantly animated by the impulsion of divine grace, turned imperceptibly to each new duty that presented itself by the permission of God at different hours of the day. 

Such were the hidden springs by which the conduct of Mary was actuated. Mary was the most simple of all creatures, and the most closely united to God. Her answer to the angel when she said "Fiat mihi secundum verbum tuum” contained all the mystic theology of her ancestors to whom everything was reduced, as it is now, to the purest, simplest submission of the soul to the will of God, under whatever form it presents itself. This beautiful and exalted state, which was the basis of the spiritual life of Mary, shines conspicuously in these simple words,“Fiat mihi”(Luke i, 38). Take notice that they are in complete harmony with those which Our Lord desires that we should have always on our lips and in our hearts: “Fiat voluntas tua.” It is true that what was required of Mary at this great moment, was for her very great glory, but the magnificence of this glory would have made no impression on her if she had not seen in it the fulfilment of the will of God. In all things was she ruled by the divine will. Were her occupations ordinary, or of an elevated nature, they were to her but the manifestation, sometimes obscure, sometimes clear, of the operations of the most High, in which she found alike subject matter for the glory of God. Her spirit, transported with joy, looked upon all that she had to do or to suffer at each moment as the gift of Him who fills with good things the hearts of those who hunger and thirst for Him alone, and have no desire for created things.

Jean Pierre de Caussade, Abandonment to Divine Providence (c.1740) Ch.1

Balthasar - Water and wine: all human activity/inactivity taken up and transformed, offered to the Lord

The wedding of Cana: Mary has to show our poverty to the Lord—“They have run out of the wine of love.” She orders us to fill the stone jars with the clear water of pure readiness, and the Lord transforms the water of nature into the wine of grace. Not one little glass of wine results from ten jars of water, but all of the water of human life—all man’s activity and inactivity, all his sleeping, eating, loving, and dying—everything is taken up into the transformation, and in the end we have the privilege of serving this wine—our best wine, saved up for last—to the Lord.

Hans Urs von Balthasar, The Grain of Wheat: Aphorisms (1953), chapter titled Christ

Balthasar - Christ not afraid of suffering because "from all eternity he is absolute dependency"

The courage of Christ: to take his stance in the most vulnerable location possible, to place himself between sin and God’s wrath—the very spot where the lightning bolt (and what lightning!) must strike him. But he lacks every trace not only of fear and insecurity but also of bravura. Rather, he is the very embodiment of simple, trusting shelteredness. What can happen to him? Fall out of the Father’s hand he cannot, since he has himself chosen absolute dependency, or, rather, since from all eternity he is absolute dependency.

Hans Urs von Balthasar, The Grain of Wheat: Aphorisms (1953), chapter titled Christ

Balthasar - Christ's sufferings both temporal and supra-temporal; He suffers until the end of time

Like everything in his temporal existence, the Lord’s sufferings were at the same time supra-temporal: every moment of his suffering has an “eternal” intensity, and, precisely because of this, it towers far above chronological time. Thus we can in truth say that he suffers until the end of time. The fact that at the same time he can abide in a glory from which all suffering is absent is a contradiction only for our temporal manner of thought. The most contrary currents converge “at the same time” in Christ’s supra-temporality as in an ocean.

Hans Urs von Balthasar, The Grain of Wheat: Aphorisms (1953), chapter titled Christ

Balthasar - Christ wholly universal and wholly concrete, is simultaneously in every human situation

Humanly speaking, the Lord is astounding because he displays a purely divine quality—that of being at once wholly universal and wholly concrete—now within the human reality. Thus did he truly become all things to all men, and he simultaneously stands on every level of human experience and is to be found in every human situation, even in those that fully contradict and exclude one another. And yet, in so doing, he does not cease being wholly human. And he gives his holy ones a participation even in this quality. 

Hans Urs von Balthasar, The Grain of Wheat: Aphorisms (1953), chapter titled Christ

Balthasar - “Omnitemporality” of Christ - every moment of His human life is eternal

Every moment of Jesus’ life has an eternal meaning: it is taken up into his eternity and represents not only his abiding in his Mother’s womb but also his dying on the Cross and his Resurrection. He is now, simultaneously, everything that he could then be only within temporal succession. This is why Mary, too, eternally remains in the situation of the Pregnant Woman—like the envelopment through which alone Christ operates—and also in the situation of the Woman Giving Birth and of the Mediatrix of Graces. In this form of Christ’s “omnitemporality”, we can see something of our own form of existence in eternity.

Hans Urs von Balthasar, The Grain of Wheat: Aphorisms (1953), chapter titled Christ

Balthasar - Jesus' life and sufferings are a direct revelation of the interior life and intentions of God

All external scenes of Jesus’ life and sufferings are to be understood as a direct revelation of the interior life and intentions of God. This is the fundamental meaning of biblical symbolism and allegory, without which the whole gospel remains nothing but superficial moralism. Thus, for instance, Jesus’ silence before Caiaphas, the Ecce Homo episode with Pilate, the figure of the Lord covered with the cloak and flogged, his nailing to the Cross, the piercing of his Heart, his words on the Cross, and so on. All of this is a direct portrayal and exegesis of God (John 1:18), accessible to the senses.

Hans Urs von Balthasar, The Grain of Wheat: Aphorisms (1953), chapter titled Christ

Balthasar - All human life illumined by the Sacred Humanity of Christ

“There is no moment, there is no place, there is no circumstance that is not illumined either by the operation or by the suspension of some grace or admirable effect that the humanity of Jesus was intended to bear within itself.”    [quotation from Pierre de Bérulle] 

Hans Urs von Balthasar, The Grain of Wheat: Aphorisms (1953), chapter titled Christ

Balthasar - All Christ's actions in His humanity are signs of spiritual realities

We cannot look directly at Christ any more than we can look directly at the sun. He has to be “interpreted”. His works, words, miracles are one and all signs that point to something: they do not signify only themselves. They possess an unbounded depth into which they attract and invite us. But we do not find the truth behind them, at a second, purely spiritual level (as the Fathers often thought: that was the eggshell of their Platonism). Rather (and the Fathers affirmed this as well): the Word became Flesh, the eternal Meaning has become incarnate within the temporal symbol. What is signified must be sought within the sign itself, the “moral” within the history, the God within the Man. No one shall ever leave Christ’s humanity behind as obsolete instrument.

Hans Urs von Balthasar, The Grain of Wheat: Aphorisms (1953), chapter titled Christ

Balthasar - Christ radically present in all creation, greatest condescension in the Eucharist

Christ as recapitulation of creation: as new Adam he encompasses everything human, but he also incorporates the animal realm in himself, since he is lamb, scapegoat, sacrificial ox, ram, and lion of Judah. As bread and as vine he incorporates the vegetative. Finally, in the Passion, he became a mere thing and thus reached the very bottom of the world’s structure. This reification is most evidenced in the sacraments and especially in Christ’s quantification in Communion wafers and in his multilocation: Christ as printing matrix, as generic article. Such reification has its cause, not at all in a subsequent desacralization of the holy by the Church, but in an intensely personal decision of the Redeemer and in the strongest possible effects of the redemption itself, whereby the Lord makes himself irrevocably a thing at the disposal of anyone who requests it.

* * * 

Christ’s holy humanity as embracing all that is possible in this world, as plaything and universal instrument of love: abraded by rolling in every gutter and every possible hell, shattered in the abyss of all nights, cast up to the heights of bliss, fragmented as food in a billion places and yet located above space, no longer time-bound as we are and yet not outside of time but always sharing in our own temporal condition and history. . . . In Christ is found the experience of all situations, existentially: the sum total of the world’s reality.

Hans Urs von Balthasar, The Grain of Wheat: Aphorisms (1953), chapter titled Christ

Balthasar - Clash between “to be” and “ought to be” shows our limitations, is reconciled in Cross

Nowhere is the creaturely nature of our thought more emphatically evident than in the problem posed by the clash between “to be” and “ought to be”. Here it is clearly shown to us that there are problems we are not intended to solve, no more than Adam should have eaten the apple in paradise. For, on the one hand, we are not permitted to think that everything already is as it should be: no one has the competence to calculate sin into a stable picture of the world and thus usurp for himself the vantage point of the redemption, which God alone occupies. But neither are we entitled to doubt the fact that everything is as it should be, that is, that God’s will is absolutely superior to man’s and that it does prevail against it. The sting of this aporia makes itself keenly felt in a practical way when we must unite an absolute impatience with regard to sin with an absolute calm that trusts in God—a dead-serious desire to have the world be different with an equally dead-serious desire that nothing should be other than God wills it. Once again, the problem must be relocated, transferred into Christ. For him it was unbearable that the world should be as it was, and so he bore the unbearable in obedience to the Father. The real Passion lies at the crossroads of these two things; but there we also encounter the overcoming of the contradiction in the one and only Cross.

Hans Urs von Balthasar, The Grain of Wheat: Aphorisms (1953), chapter titled Christ

Lubac - Salvation not only "individual"

The joy of Jesus can be personal. It can belong to a single man and he is saved. He is at peace, he is joyful now and for always, but he is alone. The isolation of this joy does not trouble him; on the contrary: he is the chosen one. In his blessedness he passes through the battlefields with a rose in his hand. . . .  

My joy will not be lasting unless it is the joy of all. I will not pass through the battlefields with a rose in my hand.¹

What Christian has not encountered such an accusation? How many souls have not encountered upon their course this stone of stumbling? . . . 

"How," they ask in particular, "can a religion which apparently is uninterested in our terrestrial future and in human fellowship offer an ideal which can still attract the men of to-day?" . . . 

 "[The Christian] withdraws from the converse of men, exclusively preoccupied with his own salvation, which is a matter between God and himself" [as opposed to] "the modern man who . . . cannot detach himself from other men: fully conscious of the solidarity which unites him with his fellows, which makes him in a sense dependent on them, he knows that he cannot work out his salvation by himself".² 

. . .

In answer to all this we may quote this simple assertion of a believer and a theologian: "Fundamentally the Gospel is obsessed with the idea of the unity of human society."³ This shows the full extent of the misunderstanding. We are accused of being individualists even in spite of ourselves, by the logic of our faith, whereas in reality Catholicism is essentially social. It is social in the deepest sense of the word: not merely in its applications in the field of natural institutions but first and foremost in itself, in the heart of its mystery, in the essence of its dogma. It is social in a sense which should have made the expression "social Catholicism" pleonastic. 

Nevertheless, if such a misunderstanding has arisen and en-trenched itself, if such an accusation is current, is it not our own fault? We can leave on one side what is only too obviously groundless in certain objections, those which are bound up with a purely extrinsic and secular conception of Catholicism or of salvation or based on a complete misunderstanding of Christian detachment. Nor need we insist on the failings, serious though they often are, which may have given rise to these misunderstandings: the selfish piety, the narrow religious outlook, the neglect of ordinary duties in the multiplication of "devotions", the swamping of the spiritual life by the detestable "I", the failure to realize that prayer is essentially the prayer of all for all. These are all deviations to which all believers, being human, are exposed, and which it is easy to criticize. But are they in fact sufficiently recognized as such? Does not neglect of dogma increase the extent of moral failure? And if so many observers, who are not all lacking in acumen or in religious spirit, are so grievously mistaken about the essence of Catholicism, is it not an indication that Catholics should make an effort to understand it better themselves? 

1  Jean Giono, Les vraies richesses, 1936, pp. v and viii.

2  Les affirmations de la conscience moderne, 3rd edn., 1906, pp. 108-9 ; and p. 56: "Our morality is less and less Christian just because it is more and more social". p. 108 : "the Christian, like the Stoic, is sufficient unto himself". 

3  E. Masure, conference in Semaine sociale de Nice, 1934, p. 229.

Henri de Lubac, Catholicism: A Study of Dogma in Relation to the Corporate Destiny of Mankind (1947; tr. 1958), viii-x

Balthasar - Death necessary for our fulfillment/completion

“The life of man reaches fulfillment through a succession of many deaths.” BASIL

After all is said and done, death still remains the decisive situation of life. From it everything Christian could be derived. Fénelon used to say that the art of asceticism consists in the soul’s dying before the body. Paul’s mortui estis [“you have died”] in the end includes not only continual mortification but also the knowledge that everything that has not yet died possesses a merely preliminary character (this includes my virtue and my whole spiritual life and effort). Death is above all poverty, but also obedience and chastity.

 Hans Urs von Balthasar, The Grain of Wheat: Aphorisms (1953), chapter titled Parting

Balthasar - Our actions like a child's, used by God

Before you exert yourself, be aware that before God every exertion is but a game accepted in grace, a game that is not of itself important but that grace draws into the sphere of the important. Allow the tension of your efforts to be enfolded by the relaxed abandonment of a child’s helpless faith.

Hans Urs von Balthasar, The Grain of Wheat: Aphorisms (1953), chapter titled Parting