Credo: Meditations on the Apostles’ Creed

In the 12 months before his sudden death, Hans Urs von Balthasar had been writing a series of reflections on the 12 articles of the Apostles’ Creed. These texts, which are among the last things he wrote, take on the character of a legacy, a spiritual testament. For in their extraordinary compactness and depth they amount to a little “summa” of his theology. What he had set out in detail in numerous books over five decades, he summarizes here in contemplative plainness and simplicity. All the characteristics that make von Balthasar’s work so distinctive and valuable are to be found here: breadth of vision, loveliness of style, and an intuitive-contemporary passion that allows him to “pray intellectually and think ‘cordially’.” In his extensive introduction to the book, MedardKehl speaks of von Balthasar’s “unclouded, almost childlike joy in the richness and beauty of the Mystery” of the threefold God, which “is evidenced in his interpretation of the creed.”