A Short Primer for Unsettled Laymen
Overview
Hans Urs von Balthasar addresses the critical issues facing today’s Catholic layman in a clear and readable manner. Speaking plainly on those ideas and questions which have unsettled many of the Catholic faithful, he brings much needed clarity into the contemporary confusion.
Top Highlights
“What has to be brought together today is the justified concern for the future of mankind, which has more than ever been entrusted to human capacity and responsibility, and the inalienable demand that every individual think here and now of his relation to God and his eternal salvation. Man must give himself completely in two directions: the horizontal ‘forward’ and the vertical ‘upward’. And this should be accomplished in such a way that each direction does not hinder the other but on the contrary furthers it.” (Pages 24–25)
“The upcoming generation is understandably highly suspicious of the image which the Church presents by and large. Thus it easily becomes the prey of the magic of youth religions which demand some wild and often absurd commitment.” (Pages 17–18)
“The only thing that brings salvation is concentration upon the one form which is at the same time unequivocal and eucharistically all-embracing, the only one that is wide open to the infinite, to triune divine love, and just as open to creation, since everything exists for the sake of that form and has its stability in it, everything which through it is to be sheltered in absolute love. Only this form—and thus the end returns to the beginning—is finally the incomparable.” (Page 129)
“One can safely say that this unrest which followed the Council came mainly from the clergy and religious. By leaving their state of life in large numbers and by the secularization of the theology, catechesis and preaching that they practiced, they proved that they thoroughly misunderstood the ‘opening of the Church to the world’ intended by the Council.” (Page 11)