Hans Urs von Balthasar
Hans Urs von Balthasar
Hans Urs von Balthasarwas a Swiss theologian and Catholic priest who was to be created a cardinal of the Catholic Church but died before the ceremony. He is considered one of the most important Roman Catholic theologians of the 20th century...
NationalitySwiss
ProfessionTheologian
Date of Birth12 August 1905
CountrySwitzerland
love faith religion
Even if a unity of faith is not possible, a unity of love is.
friday easter expectations
Without Easter, Good Friday would have no meaning. Without Easter, there would be no hope that suffering and abandonment might be tolerable. But with Easter, a way out becomes visible for human sorrows, an absolute future: more than a hope, a divine expectation.
two decision demand
Our situation today shows that beauty demands for itself at least as much courage and decision as do truth and goodness, and she will not allow herself to be separated and banned from her two sisters without taking them along with herself in an act of mysterious vengeance.
lovers theologian knows
Lovers are the ones who know most about God; the theologian must listen to them.
christian jesus easter
It is to the Cross that the Christian is challenged to follow his Master: no path of redemption can make a detour around it.
christian children essence
Only the Christian religion, which in its essence is communicated by the eternal child of God, keeps alive in its believers the lifelong awareness of their being children, and therefore of having to ask and give thanks for things.
eternity
Every experience of beauty points to [eternity].
aunt saint sense-of-humor
The saints are never the kind of killjoy spinster aunts who go in for faultfinding and lack all sense of humor.
christian community consistency
We are not only interested in those aspects of the mystery of the Roman Catholic Church which set her apart from the other Christian communities, but also to show how often they are central beliefs by describing what is specifically Catholic in such a way that the partner in dialogue can see, even from his own standpoint, the inner consistency.
christian philosophy men
St. Paul would say to the philosophers that God created man so that he would seek the Divine, try to attain the Divine. That is why all pre-Christian philosophy is theological at its summit.
christian humanity church
One can understand nothing of Christ without the mystery of the Trinity, nothing of the Church without faith in the divinity and humanity of Christ, nothing of the sacraments without the bridal mystery between Christian life without Christian faith. Thus, the present sermons revolve around the same center--the inexhaustible mystery of the one indivisible faith.
farewell sadness leaving
Beauty is the disinterested one, without which the ancient world refused to understand itself, a word which both imperceptibly and yet unmistakably has bid farewell to our new world, a world of interests, leaving it to its own avarice and sadness.
issues life-and-death god-life
But the issue is not only life and death but our existence before God and our being judged by him. All of us were sinners before him and worthy of condemnation.
christian order sight
Consequently, Christian meditation is entirely trinitarian and at the same time entirely human. In order to find God, no one need reject being human personally or socially, but in order to find God all must see the world and themselves in the Holy Spirit as they are in God's sight.