The chapter “The Sacrament of the Brother” from Hans Urs von Balthasar’s The God Question and Modern Man felt like a glass of cold water thrown in my face, shocking me out of the red haze of self-pity I’ve been weeping through all week. The reminder, in stereo, that love of neighbor is in fact a simple proof of love for God, was exactly the song the Holy Spirit needed to sing to me to get me back on my feet, shoulder this blessed Cross, and sing along in praise to God the Giver of every good and perfect gift. Where every attempt towards kindness is repudiated is precisely where God’s love is best demonstrated. Balthasar did not mince words any more than Jesus did about what my response must be, and how this love cannot be found only in my own heart, but must flow through me from God, and to God.
I think we know we’ve heard from the Lord when our conscience is pricked in such a way that we are left feeling inspired—how correction always comes inextricably tied to consolation—and while recognizing anew what my duty is, I was granted the comfort of knowing that my own insufficiency to the task is not a personal shortcoming, but rather the whole point of the thing. I cannot love enough—and it is not with my love that I should be loving anyhow. Rather than bewail my inability to stoke the fires of human affection in the face of pain and hurt, I am encouraged rather to bury myself deeper in the bottomless depths of His love, to love Him more and let His love work through—and perhaps most importantly, in—me. As Balthasar put it, to find that I am “no match for it” but am instead to simply and humbly obey. The grace of hope chases despair and revivifies courage.
“Astonishingly, the success of the Son’s saving mission is made to depend upon the consent of a single human being, in whose hands the fate of the universe will literally hang. And she remains free, utterly free, to refuse. This singular creature of God, this luminous reed of the Spirit, is at liberty to sing whatever song she pleases; she cannot be made to sing the canticle of the Lord, even if in magnifying Him, her spirit too will soar. And so all eternity trembles before the unforced fiat of the woman whose submission to grace may only be asked, never coerced–no, not even to secure our salvation. Of course, in saying yes to God, Mary finds true freedom; her dispossession of self becomes the source of an undreamed-of self-possession. As a result, her life assumes a purity of transparence so powerful that in the future, all grace courses through her. “Surrender to God,” writes Le Fort, “is the only absolute power that the creature possesses.”” -Dr. Regis Martin, What is the Church
So true of Mary, yes; and in that way, so true of the Bride, His Church, and thus (in a potential way) of each believer. Salvation comes to the world through and from Christ, through our “unforced fiat”. How alike are the postures of arms open for an embrace–releasing, yielding–and those of Christ’s outstretched arms in the Crucifixion. Release, embrace; receive, give; all exactly the same action along a spectrum of movement: love.
Balthasar entertains a certain tension between tradition and holiness, and how refreshing a perspective in a conundrum which so often pits tradition against innovation. Rather, the enthusiastic “all-in” fiery passion –so natural to youth–is juxtaposed against the wisdom, quietude, and reserve of time-honored tradition. They need each other–they are not opposed. It is breathing in, and breathing out.
Release, embrace; receive, give.
Love.
This surrender is literally the air I must breathe right now; acceptance of divine Providence is the only path to peace. “A purity of transparence so powerful that…all grace courses through her”: what freedom in that! I don’t have to be enough; I need only consent, give my “yes” and go on giving it, and through that transparency the grace of God can flow, bringing salvation to me, to those around me, to the whole world. “All eternity trembles” indeed at the thought of it. To be so exalted by humility; to be so enlarged by littleness. Praise be to the Lord; Holy Mary, pray for us!
