Even if a unity of faith is not possible, a unity of love is.
Hans Urs Von BalthasarRead
The Church does not dispense the sacrament of baptism in order to acquire for herself an increase in membership but in order to consecrate a human being to God and to communicate to that person the divine gift of birth from God.
Interpretation
The sacrament of baptism is intended for spiritual purposes rather than increasing Church membership.
In this quote, Hans Urs Von Balthasar emphasizes the profound significance of baptism as a sacrament that serves to connect an individual with God, rather than a mere act of increasing institutional allegiance to the Church. He highlights the notion that baptism is a divine gift that signifies a rebirth and consecration to a higher spiritual calling, reflecting the depth and seriousness of the sacrament beyond organizational aims.
In practice
In a discussion about the significance of religious rituals, one might reference this quote to highlight the true intent of baptism.
Even if a unity of faith is not possible, a unity of love is.
It is to the Cross that the Christian is challenged to follow his Master: no path of redemption can make a detour around it.
A truth that is merely handed on, without being thought anew from its very foundations, has lost its vital power.
The Holy Spirit knows what a particular age's most pressing need is far better than men with their programs.
The first attempt at a response: there must have been a fall, a decline, and the road to salvation can only be the return of the sensible finite into the intelligible infinite.
But the saints are never the kind of killjoy spinster aunts who go in for faultfinding and lack all sense of humor. (Nor should the Karl Barth who so loved and understood Mozart be regarded as such.)For humor is a mysterious but unmistakable charism inseparable from Catholic faith, and neither the "progressives" nor the "integralists" seem to possess it - the latter even less than the former.
What is all Knowledge too but recorded Experience, and a product of History; of which, therefore, Reasoning and Belief, no less than Action and Passion, are essential materials?
Anarchism does not repudiate the right of ownership, but it has a conception thereof sufficiently different from [others'] to include the possibility of an end of that social organization which will arise, not out of the ruins of government, but out of the transformation of government into voluntary association for defence.
There is no sun without shadow, and it is essential to know the night.
Man's sin is in his failure to live what he is. Being the master of the earth, man forgets that he is the servant of God.
You experience that you are cut off by being in your mind, and there is a quality that is starving in an individual that is locked in their mind. So when you move to another plane of consciousness which is no longer controlled by your intellect, which is really the sub-system and you move into the meta-system, what you feel at that moment is... you are the universe, you feel merged with it, you feel thick with the moment, and that richness is so fulfilling.
Yet the stupid believe they are awake, busily and brightly assuming they understand things, calling this man ruler, that one herdsman – how dense! Confucius and you are both dreaming! And when I say you are dreaming, I am dreaming, too. Words like these will be labeled the Supreme Swindle.
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