"Heart of The World"

I'd been quite intimidated by Hans Urs Von Balthasar. Proclaimed to be one of the most creative Catholic minds, and undoubtedly so at least in the last century, I wasn't sure where to start. While I was in France my brother put a copy of "Heart of the World" on my desk. When I cracked the cover, what a wonder to my mind! His prose illumined my dark room in wintery southern France. What a delight, and as my soul soared on his nigh on poetic phrases, I was no longer intimidated, but befriended. He won my heart by telling me my heart in the first chapter. Then, after gaining my confidence, he challenged me point blank saying, "if you pray for sanctity, that means you do not yet have it". I wondered what this might mean in terms of a directive for spiritual journey, but I've learned it is an important lesson in humility, and also loving God. Jesus, the Heart of the World, has done everything for me. The beloved apostle remarks Christ's words "apart from me you can do nothing". All I do must be done through Him, in Him, with Him. What beautiful love von Balthasar describes as he sounds the depths of Jesus's Heart, the pulsing rhythms beaten out as salvation history runs its course. I hope you all will enter the adventure of von Balthasar with this convicting story of the Heart of the World.