Hans Urs Von Balthasar sounds like the full name of the black Magi, but adopted by German parents. But he’s not. He’s a famous 20th century Catholic theologian that I heard about first from Professor Mac, a friend and mentor of mine in college. I also hear a lot about him currently (and most consistently) from Bishop Robert Barron, leader of the media apostolate Word on Fire Catholic ministries. Von Balthasar is infamous for his 1988 musings in Dare We Hope? That All Men Be Saved, a question arising from interpretation of the Gospel itself, especially in Paul’s first letter to Timothy:
Sacred Scripture states, "God... desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. For there is one God, and there is one Mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself as a ransom for all" (1 Timothy 2:4).1
But what I know Von Balthasar for personally is for writing this fantastic little book on Prayer in 1955. Here’s the bit that I wanted to share with you today:
The Son is “sent…to bless” (Acts 3:26): he is the Father’s subsistent word of grace and prayer sent to the world, enabling all the world’s re-echoing prayers to reach God.2
Balthasar tells of how Jesus is the culmination of all prophecy and prayer in the Old Covenant, how he himself as God enfleshed is the New Covenant, the New Testament in his blood. What we do in prayer, especially in passing from chaotic petitions and temperamental involvement with God to a lasting relationship of contemplative life, is know this truth. Knowing this as true is not a mere cognition or thought, it is a beating heart, a spirit of life breathed into our own that changes everything. To have this spirit is to be in the triune life, for the spirit spirated by the Son is the Holy Spirit from the Father, procendenti ab utroque.
Von Balthasar goes on:
Since our existence rests upon this “blessing”, there is in principle no need for any special way or effort in order to rise from nature to supernature. According to another' of revelations’s key words, we have received a parrhesia from God. Originally this word refers to the privilege of the full citizen’s freedom of speech; it indicates the right to “say everything” and the corresponding interior attitude, i.e., frankness of speech, including “openness to the truth”. Truth itself presupposes the element of openness, of nonconcealment, of sincere self-communication and manifestation.
Unveiling the divine beauty before us is the role of Jesus the Son of God. He gives over the divine nature, strips it down to nakedness for us on the Cross, proposes marriage to us in all purity. The unveiling language reminds me of St. Paul’s discussion of glory in his Second Letter to the Corinthians. Reflecting on the Old Covenant becoming new and perfect in Christ, Paul says:
7 Now if the ministry of death, carved in letters on stone, was so glorious that the Israelites could not look intently at the face of Moses because of its glory that was going to fade, 8 how much more will the ministry of the Spirit be glorious? 9 For if the ministry of condemnation was glorious, the ministry of righteousness will abound much more in glory. 10 Indeed, what was endowed with glory has come to have no glory in this respect because of the glory that surpasses it. 11 For if what was going to fade was glorious, how much more will what endures be glorious.
12 Therefore, since we have such hope, we act very boldly 13 and not like Moses, who put a veil over his face so that the Israelites could not look intently at the cessation of what was fading. 14 Rather, their thoughts were rendered dull, for to this present day the same veil remains unlifted when they read the old covenant, because through Christ it is taken away. 15 To this day, in fact, whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their hearts, 16 but whenever a person turns to the Lord the veil is removed. 17 Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. 18 All of us, gazing with unveiled face on the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, as from the Lord who is the Spirit.3
The giving over of the Spirit of the Lord is the freedom of the people of God. This freedom manifests itself in a particularly human way as the liberty of speech before God. In the Old Covenant, but also in our weakness and laziness, we have mediators between us and God. Moses spoke for the whole people of Israel who were terrified to ascend Mt. Sinai and speak to the Lord for themselves. Joshua listened to the Lord and mediated for Israel in the Conquest. Elijah, Elisha, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel were some of the prophets who brought the Word of the Lord to the people unhearing and unseeing. But our final mediator, our final triumphant one is the Lord Jesus who mediates for us between the Father and all of humanity, each one. Through him and his gift of the Spirit, we are free to speak as children of God. Even when we do not know what to say, the Spirit Himself speaks for us.4
26 In the same way, the Spirit too comes to the aid of our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit itself intercedes with inexpressible groanings. 27 And the one who searches hearts knows what is the intention of the Spirit, because it intercedes for the holy ones according to God’s will.
Parrhesia is our right or freedom with and before God, much like freedom of speech is the second right in the first amendment for Americans (and has become a right in many other countries accordingly). But parrhesia is so much more that ‘say whatever you want to God.’ It is a response to God unveiling all of himself to us. God has given himself to us. Our reward, our return is that we get to give the gift of ourselves to him and to all his people. This is one major thing about Catholic theology that brought me to my knees in wonder and amazement. The communion of saints means that these people were made so holy by the infilling of the Holy Spirit in their beings that they have been raised up with Christ, ascended to heaven and reigning with him. Why are they there already? Just as a reward for being good or doing good works? Yes and no. They are there as their reward for making their whole lives open to God as a parrhesia. But, even as important is that in God’s divine economy the reward is that they too get to be a gift of whole self given to others in heaven. Their life, their prayers of intercession, their history and relics left on earth remind us and draw us into further relationship with the One Holy God.
Von Balthasar describes parrhesia further as the exemplified by God. He shows to us how to reveal ourselves to him precisely in how he reveals himself to us.
In holy scripture, however, God himself is the prime instance of nonconcealment. He steps forward out of his “native” invisibility and unapproachability; he “shines forth” (as Ps 79:2 says, using the word parrhesia). Not only does he make himself accessible; but Proverbs 1:20f uses the same expression with regard to the divine Wisdom which “cries aloud in the street; in the markets she raises her voice; on the top of the walls she cries out; at the entrance of the city gates she speaks.” Parrhesia is derived from pan (everything) and rhe (the root of “speak”), i.e., omniloquence [saying everything ]. As applied to God it is linked with the key words “parousia” [coming in glory] and “epiphany” (appearance, manifestation, emerging out of concealment) and “glory” and “glorification” (doxa), the making known of the wonders of the divine nature and activity, wonders which, until now, were concealed in the Father’s hiddenness and in the servant-form adopted by the Son. But we can only really grasp the parrhesia of God in the parrhesia which he gives us, the elect, the redeemed, who have been raised up to be full citizens of heaven. This parrhesia on our part is the open, unconstrained and childlike approach to the Father, neither ashamed nor fearing shame. We come to him with heads held high, as those who have an innate right to be there and to speak. We may look into the Father’s face without fear; we do not have to approach him as if he were an aloof monarch, with downcast eyes and obsequious gestures, within the confines of strict ceremonial and a prescribed form of address. The door stands open, and wherever the child of God may be, there too is that open door. Man is not the door; it is Christ, the Son and Word of the Father. But h has become man’s brother and neighbor, and when he invites his fellow men and introduces them to the Father, it is as playmates, without any formality, or even better, as his brothers and sisters in the flesh. “Father, I desires that they also, whom thou has given men, may be with me where I am, to behold my glory which thou hast given me in thy love for me before the foundation of the world” (Jn 17:24). “In that day you will ask in my name; and I do not say to you that I shall pray the Father for you; for the Father himself loves you” (Jn 16:26).
The fact that the truth, the love and the whole life of God is open to us is only the other side of man’s election, calling, justification and glorification by God. Seen in this way it is the immense, stupendous gift of grace given to men of a “good conscience”. It was our shame which brought Christ to the cross, the shame (for which we could never atone) of our lack of love for God and our fellow men, rendering us incapable of living in the ambience of eternal love. All attempts to overcome this inability through “works” were fruitless: God himself had to cleanse us in the blood of his Son and give us a good conscience, that “confidence to enter the sanctuary” (Heb 10:19). Peace with God in a good conscience is such an incomprehensible gift of grace—because it fundamentally overthrows all the laws of ethics—that the person involved literally does not know what is happening to him. By rights, in any case, he ought to have a bad conscience; his heart accuses him. But more effective than this accusation is the defense put forward by “our advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous” (1 Jn 2:1); thus our lack of peace at the psychological and ethical levels cannot prevail against the greater peace which is made ours through grace: “By this we… reassure our hearts before him whenever our hearts condemn us; for God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything” (1 Jn 3:19-20). Of course, this shattering discovery does not give us carte blanche for new sins; on the contrary it presents us with the most urgent challenge to start loving, at last. But like the gift of parrhesia, this love will never seem to man to be his own achievement: he simply lays hold of the life that is given to him, he simply remains where grace has placed him, picking up the treasures which lie at his feet.
In this way parrhesia is one with prayer. The openness of the objective path to the Father is the openness of the subjective heart (the “good conscience”); and the heart, advancing along this open path, is praying. It is based on the knowledge that one is speaking into the open, listening ear of God. “We have parrhesia before God; and we receive from him whatever we ask” (1 Jn 3:21-22). “And this is the parrhesia which we have towards him, that if we ask anything according to this will he hears us. And if we know that he hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have obtained the requests made of him” (1 Jn 5:14-15). Parrhesia is that intimacy in love which puts the other person’s goods at our disposal.
At this point hearing the word, i.e., Christian contemplation, reveals its basic presupposition, which is inseparably both objective and subjective: on the one hand the openness of divine truth to man, and on the other the openness of the human spirit and heart for this truth. The latter depends on the former; that is why parrhesia is something apportioned to man, something given and somehow objective: “We are [God’s] house if we hold fast our parrhesia and pride in our hope” (Heb 3:6). For Paul, God’s objective openness to us is the word of God; more personally, it is the face of Jesus Christ, the appearance, the image, the glory of the hidden father, now made manifest to the world. The most profound interpretation of parrhesia, in 2 Corinthians 3:12-4:6, gives us a glimpse of the vast depths of the Christian mystery. As he came down the mountain, having beheld the glory of God on Sinai, Moses covered his face which shone with the reflection of this glory; thus in the Old Covenant, a veil hangs over the objective revelation and hence over the hearts of the people to whom it is addressed. Parrhesia, the Spirit of God and freedom, is lacking. “[But] we all, with unveiled face, beholding (or ‘reflecting like mirrors’) the glory of the Lord, are being changed into his likeness from one degree of glory to another.” We receive from him the quality of openness, radiance, of unveiled glory; as Christians we show this to our fellow men and to the world. Christian proclamation is nothing other than the parrhesia of the word of God in Christians as it addresses the world , above all in the office and work of the apostle: “We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God’s word, but by the open statement of the truth we would commend ourselves to every man’s conscience in the sight of God and even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled only to those who are perishing. In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the likeness of God…. For it is the God who said , ‘Let light shine out of darkness, "‘ who has shone in our hearts to give the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.” Thus Paul’s contemplation is part of his action, just as the radiance on the face of Moses both testifies to and reflects his converse with God. Gazing in to the clear light of God—and this light is Christ, the Father’s Word and Image—the praying Christians becomes open and full of light to proclaim, not himself, “but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus’ sake”.
Here all Christianity is interpreted as parrhesia, and John shares this veiw when he shows Jesus indicating the descent of the Spirit, who will given an open and unveiled explanation of the earthly Lord’s veiled “figures” (Jn 16:25 f ; 16:13). Like Paul, he speaks of this manifestation as an effect of Christ’s glory; indeed, it actually is this glory.
It must be added that this “beholding the glory of the Lord with unveiled faces” does still remain veiled as a matter of faith, for “we walk by faith, not by sight” (2 Cor 5:7), “we hope for what we do not see” (Rom 8:25); that hope will be changed, at the last Coming of Christ, into a “face to face” seeing; then “I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully understood” (1 Cor 13:12). Yet, all the same, in the contemplation of faith, what is believed, hoped for and loved is already present: Paul speaks of us dying to sinful nature through faith and baptism, being buried with Christ in his death, being raised with him in his resurrection, ascending into heaven with him in his ascension and waiting there with him until he shall appear, and we with him (Rom 6:5 f; Eph 2:5 f; Col 3:1-4). These are no mere figures of speech; once again Paul is expressing the nature of the grace which has opened heaven to us, such that we have the freedom to live our lives (which remain earthly) in the strength of eternal life (which is both future and present) and in the power of its openly available truth. Gratitude for the grace given, moreover, compels us to live in this way.
Thus there is no mention of an individual and subjective certainty of salvation. Man can avert his gaze from God, he can neglect to give his life the “splendor” of Christ’s manifest glory; by doing so he will show that his contemplation of the glory was not serious enough to be enduring. On the other hand the word of God speaks of the Father’s world of eternity being open and accessible to the believer, and we must not water this down, as if this world were merely in the future, merely promised, merely spiritual, and not also present, realized and of the body. It must not be presented merely as something for which we strive (aspiring from nature to supernature, from the earth to heaven), for it is no less true that it is the basis of all our living and loving. Grace, the foundation of everything, is also the foundation of our living and the natural level, at the level of the world. The believer loves the earth because it is bathed in the radiance which comes down from a heaven which has already been laid open. He is able to do this because he must.5
Amazon description of the book from Google :)
Von Balthasar, Hans Urs, Prayer, 1986, Ignatius Press, trans. by Graham Harrison.
2 Cor. 3: 7-18, NABRE here and on.
Romans 8:14-17: 14 For those who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. 15 For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you received a spirit of adoption, through which we cry, “Abba,[c] Father!” 16 The Spirit itself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, 17 and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if only we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.
Balthasar, Prayer, 50-51.