Christian Meditation
Digital Verbum Edition
Overview
Christian Meditation is at once a book about what meditation is, in light of God’s revelation, and a book that assists believers in meditating. In a treatment that is both fresh and profound, Hans Urs von Balthasar describes the central elements of all Christian meditation, provides a guide for meditation, and then points the way to the union that prayer achieves in the footsteps of Mary, both within the Church and for the world.
Top Highlights
“God’s Logos is a whole: his physical Body is inseparable from his just as physically expressed Word (always understood in all its dimensions). Hence, in the liturgy, Word and sacrament are inseparable, but the same unity persists also in meditation. And this unified making-present is primarily the work of the Holy Spirit.” (Page 29)
“If we want to hear something we must prepare ourselves to perceive by being still. If we ourselves are talking, or if our own thoughts, wishes and concerns are speaking within us, the noise they make will render us unable to hear. Hence directions for meditating always begin by requiring us to create inner stillness and emptiness as a means of making room for what is to be received.” (Page 18)
“According to Jesus’ demand, then, the condition for mutual love, true Covenant love, between God and man is love for him, the God-Man and perfect embodiment of the Covenant. He is the twofold channel—of God to us and of us to God.” (Page 13)
“For if we did not have this Word and this self-expression on God’s part, we would not know that in the midst of all gloom ‘God is love’, a statement that no other religion in the world has dared to make.” (Page 14)
“Jesus’ miracles demonstrate two things: that physical healing or feeding points to God’s concern for the healing and feeding of souls but also that what is physical is a genuine image and true expression of his words: ‘Which is easier to say—‘Your sins are forgiven’ or ‘Stand up and walk’?’ (Mt 9:5).” (Page 16)