Prayer

by Hans Urs von Balthasar

Love desires to have the beloved before its eyes. Thus the contemplative will employ the powers of his soul to summon up the image of the Beloved, the powers of his “inner senses” and his imagination to call forth the image of the incarnate Word. He will contemplate Jesus as he dwelt bodily on the earth, the things he said, the sound of his voice, the way he treated people, his appearance when at prayer, at the Last Supper, in his Passion. This picture is not meant to be a realistic photograph, but love’s picture, solely concerned with love, the divine love of the Father, which is here manifested in the Son and in the concreteness of his whole earthly life. This is the only reason why, in prayer, we seek out the Lord’s earthly form. We do not use it as a crutch for our weakness because we are not yet ready to soar into the realm of pure spirit: we do so in order to seek for the love of God, to see, hear and touch it in the humble form in which it offers itself to man. In prayer, our love seeks love, divine love, through the earthly image (with which it cannot dispense). So it is continually drawn on by the historical Jesus to the Christ who died, descended into hell, rose again and ascended into heaven, who has put his whole self eucharistically into the Church, and to whose return in glory we look forward. He alone is the whole, living Christ over whom death has no power; he is the “Christ of faith” who gives and reveals himself to the believer who loves and prays, enabli...