What the Father gives is the capacity to be a self, freedom, and thus autonomy, but an autonomy which can be understood only as a surrender of self to the other.
Hans Urs von BalthasarWithout a doubt, at the center of the New Testament there stands the Cross, which receives its interpretation from the Resurrection.
Hans Urs von BalthasarWe no longer dare to believe in beauty and we make of it a mere appearance in order the more easily to dispose of it. Our situation today shows that beauty demands for itself at least as much courage and decision as do truth and goodness, and she will not allow herself to be separated and banned from her two sisters without taking them along with herself in an act of mysterious vengeance. We can be sure that whoever sneers at her name as if she were the ornament of a bourgeois past -- whether he admits it or not -- can no longer pray and soon will no longer be able to love.
Hans Urs von BalthasarLovers are the ones who know most about God; the theologian must listen to them.
Hans Urs von Balthasar