a word from Balthasar:

It is possible for us to hear the word of God because God’s world is open to us.  Most Christians do not realize that this is by no means a matter of course, but a miracle of the Father’s utterly free love. Every day it should astonish us anew, just as a lover is transported in bliss through the answering love of the woman he loves.

Only more so: for however exalted the beloved woman may be, she is still only human; the love between them is human, rooted in the lover’s nature. Whereas here it is God, the Eternal, the Wholly Other, he who has no need whatsoever of creaturely love, who owes this intimacy to none of his creatures, who opens himself and gives himself to us. He gives himself to us by inviting us, lifting us up and ennobling us so that we may participate in his own divine nature. It is easily said; we are used to the words; but through hearing and contemplating the words we should unaccustom ourselves to them so that we can once more become aware of the gigantic implications of God addressing us.

The word which God addresses to us is a word of love: he utters it in a loud, manly voice in broad daylight, almost menacing, causing man to start out of his dreams and take notice of what he hears–yet it is also a word whispered in the night, soft and alluring, beyond comprehension, a mystery incredible even to the strongest faith, which no creature, however long he lives, will fathom. For this voice from eternity whispers and breathes right through everything that exists in the world, all intramundane values; and, without depriving the things of this world of their meaning and value, it lends them a bottomless dimension, exploding whatever is closed, relativizing whatever seems ultimate, revealing hidden depths in what seems simple, sweetening pain and bringing reconciliation to what is tragic.

–Han Urs von Balthasar, Prayer [emphasis added]

sent as a little love note from my sweet husband



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