Quotes from Hans Urs von Balthasar

Thus it seems that the Cross of Christ, laden with every sinful refusal of man, must stand at the very last extremity of hell; indeed, it must stand beyond hell, where the Son is forsaken by the Father in a way that only he can know.

Every kind of integralism, open or disguised, is contrary in principle to true catholicity, which can win to itself and comprise all things only if it delivers itself up and dies like the seed to rise again.

The Fathers of the Church say that prayer, properly understood, is nothing other than becoming a longing for God.

Such a person can see without "pre-judice", that is, without judging in advance; he will judge only on the basis of what he has really seen for himself.

It is impossible to contemplate the word without the serious intention of doing justice to it in practical behavior. It demands love for God and our neighbor, and does so with such immediacy and unmistakable urgency that it is pointless even to pause before this demand unless we are willing to respond.

The beautiful is the radiance which something gives off simply because it is something, because it exists.

In the end, only something endowed with mystery is worthy of love. It is impossible to love something stripped of mystery; at best it would be a thing one uses as one sees fit.

The Word, then, came into the world - came to what was his, but those who were his did not receive him. He beamed into the gloom, but the darkness turned away. Thus had love's revelation to choose a struggle of life and death. God came into the world, but a bristling barrier of spears and shields was his welcome. His grace began to trickle, but the world made itself supple and impenetrable, and the drops fell to the ground.

To live with another within the compass of one heart: I must move to the side, must make myself small, so that the other has space and does not feel crowded.

The theme, then, that will be with us throughout this study is the reciprocal relationship of God's transcendence and God's immanence;

Maximus knows and expressly states that "faith is true knowledge based on unprovable principles, because it is the testimony to things that lie beyond both theoretical and practical reason."

God is so wide that, within his spaciousness, even the longing for unfulfillable longing can soar freely.