Hans Urs von Balthasar Quotes
Hans Urs von Balthasar was a Swiss Catholic theologian and philosopher and one of the most wide-ranging Christian thinkers of the twentieth century. After early studies of German literature and many years of Jesuit formation, he left the Society of Jesus in 1950 to co-found with the mystic Adrienne von Speyr the secular Community of St. The quotes below are attributed to Hans Urs von Balthasar, organized by topic.
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Hans Urs von Balthasar on God
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Attributed to Hans Urs von Balthasar:
“Glory is what shines forth in love that gives itself away.”
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Attributed to Hans Urs von Balthasar:
“Christianity is the dramatic encounter between divine and human freedom.”
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“Only by presupposing God's prior and inconceivable forgiveness can the limitations of human good will be transcended, and only thus can the danger of human pride be avoided.”
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“Christ's Passion , viewed from within, is of a diversity that the biblical texts and images leave hidden; but numerous mystics through the centuries have been allowed to experience a great deal of it in ever-varying aspects—if only by drops, as it were, compared with the Son of God.”
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“What deserves to be called mysticism—not in the vague sense of the history and philosophy of religion, but rather in the Catholic-ecclesial sense—occurs when God's Word is heard, not only with exegetical and theological understanding, but with the whole heart, the whole being, when one is steadfast before the self-disclosure of the heart of God despite fire and night.”
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“There were many mystical phenomena in Adrienne 's life—stigmata, transferences, the radiating of light, levitation, speaking with tongues, and other things of that kind, but they all occurred in a totally unemphatic way. They were mere accompaniments to show forth the heart of the matter: what was to be passed on to the Church, invisibly through prayer and strenuous penance, visibly through the dictated works. The criterion of her mysticism's authenticity lies primarily, if not exclusively, in the quality of what she did and what she had and has to say.”
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“In his Gospel, St. John , through long and deep contemplation, acknowledges Jesus to be the Logos of God. In his epistles he points entirely away from himself toward Christ. Finally, in the Apocalypse, in the vision of the Lamb of God, Old and New Testaments are united, and the whole drama of salvation is summed up.”
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Hans Urs von Balthasar on Knowledge
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“The Mystical Body of Christ does not rest on abstract principles but on concrete persons who have missions, or on missions which are personal.”
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Hans Urs von Balthasar on Life
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“Adrienne von Speyr has brought mysticism back from the clandestine existence into which, increasingly misunderstood, indeed scorned, it had been exiled and silenced by official theology and proclamation and has returned it to the center of salvation history.”
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Hans Urs von Balthasar on Love
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Attributed to Hans Urs von Balthasar:
“We do not enter the truth except through love.”
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“The exalted moment of love is always full of promise: it is not closed in on itself, but open; we see its natural fruitfulness revealed in the child, even if its spiritual fruitfulness remains hidden.”
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“The inner reality of love can be recognized only by love.”
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Hans Urs von Balthasar on Time
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“Charisms are not distributed at random but are dispensed by God to supply what is needful and lacking in his Church at each historical moment. If they are from God, they usually do not flow with the latest fashionable trend but much more likely contain an antidote and remedy for the perils of the time.”
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Hans Urs von Balthasar on Truth
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Attributed to Hans Urs von Balthasar:
“The truly beautiful is what most fully reveals being.”
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Attributed to Hans Urs von Balthasar:
“The form of beauty is the form of truth.”