Even if a unity of faith is not possible, a unity of love is.
We no longer dare to believe in beauty and we make of it a mere appearance in order the more easily to dispose of it.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote reflects on the diminishing value of beauty in our lives, suggesting that we treat it superficially rather than appreciating its true essence.
Hans Urs Von Balthasar's quote critiques contemporary attitudes towards beauty, arguing that society has relegated beauty to a superficial status, allowing us to dismiss its deeper significance. Instead of embracing beauty as a profound and enriching aspect of life, we reduce it to mere appearances, making it easier to disregard and manipulate in favor of more utilitarian pursuits. This reflects a broader cultural trend of undervaluing genuine experiences in favor of transient or shallow ones.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about the importance of art and aesthetics in our lives, one might quote Balthasar to illustrate how beauty should be cherished.
More from Hans Urs Von Balthasar
All quotes βIt 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.
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Economic disasters or foolish wars are hardly guaranteed to bring about large-scale individual self-examination or renew the appeal of truly participatory democracy.
Ideas are like wandering sons. They show up when you least expect them.
If we must accept fate we are not less compelled to affirm liberty, the significance of the individual, the grandeur of duty, the power of character.
Pride defeats its own end, by bringing the man who seeks esteem and reverence into contempt.
Hell is a half-filled auditorium.
Is not nationalism - that devotion to a flag, an anthem, a boundary so fierce it engenders mass murder - one of the great evils of our time, along with racism, along with religious hatred? These ways of thinking - cultivated, nurtured, indoctrinated from childhood on - have been useful to those in power, and deadly for those out of power.