The Threefold Garland

The renowned Swiss theologian offers in this little book very beautiful and practical reflections for praying and living the 15 mysteries of the Rosary. He makes the profound truths and events of our salvation take on a freshness and splendor by allowing the reader to enter his own contemplation of the mysteries. Von Balthasar's theology is a theology that does not read like theology, but one that derives from prayer and leads back to prayer. Contemplating each of the Joyful, Sorrowful and Glorious mysteries, with his focus on Jesus' giving himself for us - and Mary's part in it - Von Blathasar leads the reader to see that "Christian prayer can attain to God only along the path God himself has trod" - a God who not only addresses his Word to us, but makes it live among us. Von Balthasar says his meditations are designed to "free the prayer of the Rosary from a certain narrowness, alien to Mary's own spirit and easily leading to monotony, and to nourish it . . . with the fullness of God's saving thoughts and saving deeds for the world." "Von Balthasar's meditations can make the Rosary a living experience." - Spiritual Book News "For anyone looking for Rosary meditations, this book would be a first-rate choice." - Spirituality Today "No other book on the Rosary has such profound depth. It is a bouquet fragrant with the scent of a truly spiritual life. Its freshness will inspire you." - New Covenant

Hans Urs von Balthasar is emerging as a colossus of twentieth-century theology. More and more of his works are being translated. But as yet he is mainly known only through his great multi-volume trilogy 'Glory', 'Theo-Drama' and Theo-Logic'. Aidan Nichols has treated each part of the trilogy and the early works in his widely acclaimed 'Introduction to Hans Urs von Balthasar'. In this final volume he explores all von Balthasar's later works. Many of these works are extremely important, although several are as yet untranslated and several as yet almost unknown. Nichols ranges widely and comprehensively, from journal articles to his major works, such as 'Apokalypse der deutschen Seele', to his final short works. The result is a wholly new perspective on von Balthasar, a contextualising of his trilogy and an illumination of his whole life and work.

He descended into hell. Hans Urs von Balthasar, one of the most influential theologians of the twentieth century, placed this affirmation of the Nicene Creed at the heart of his reflection on the world-altering events of Holy Week, asserting that this identification of God with the human experience is at the "absolute center" of the Christian faith. Yet is such a descent to suffering really the essence of Catholic belief about the mystery of Holy Saturday? Alyssa Lyra Pitstick's Light in Darkness -- the first comprehensive treatment of Balthasar's theology of Holy Saturday -- draws on the multiple yet unified resources of authoritative Catholic teaching on Christ's descent to challenge Balthasar's conclusions. Pitstick conducts a thorough investigation of Balthasar's position that Christ suffered in his descent into hell and asks whether that is compatible with traditional teaching about Christ. Light in Darkness is a thorough argument for the existence and authority of a traditional Catholic doctrine of Christ's descent as manifested in creeds, statements of popes and councils, Scripture, and art from Eastern and Western traditions. Pitstick's carefully argued, contrarian work is sure to spur debate across the theological spectrum.

This study explores the way in which, by way of the Christian mysteries, divine action impacts human life. The triune God acts in Jesus Christ by means of historical events whose effects transcend time and which are mediated through their celebration in memorial and worship. Drawing on both Evangelical and Catholic writers, Nichols provides evidence that the general portrait of Jesus found in the Pauline letters and the four Gospels rests on reliable historical witness. On this basis, he offers a concise Christology which presents Jesus Christ as the fulfillment of the Messianic hope of the Old Testament; explores his unique being as laid out in the teaching of the great Ecumenical Councils of the first Christian millennium, and describes how the classic theologian of the Latin tradition, St Thomas Aquinas, sees the chief historical events of Christ’s life as affecting humanity throughout future time. Nichols then looks at the Christian concept of God – namely, Trinitarian monotheism. God so conceived can act efficaciously in the created order and does so by the deployment of his Word and Spirit in ways which express for a fallen, historical world, the dynamics of the interaction of the divine Persons in eternity – Persons who now draw human beings within their range. Those gains in understanding are then applied to the individual mysteries of the life of Christ, from his biological conception to his coming Parousia. For each mystery, Nichols describes a biblical preamble; an account of how the mystery is seen by the Liturgy and the Fathers of the Church; illumination from the three theological masters whom the author makes his own in this work – Aquinas, Balthasar and Bulgakov;- and a visual image drawn from the treasury of sacred art.

Why should we seek and tell the truth? Does anyone know what truth is? Many are skeptical about the relevance of truth. Truth Matters endeavours to show why truth is important in a world where the very idea of truth is contested. Putting philosophers in conversation with educators, literary scholars, physicists, political theorists, and theologians, Truth Matters ranges across both analytic and continental philosophy and draws on the ideas of thinkers such as Aquinas, Balthasar, Brandom, Davidson, Dooyeweerd, Gadamer, Habermas, Kierkegaard, Plantinga, Ricoeur, and Wolterstorff. Some essays attempt to provide a systematic account of truth, while others wrestle with the question of how truth is told and what it means to live truthfully. Contributors address debates between realists and anti-realists, explore issues surrounding relativism and constructivism in education and the social sciences, examine the politics of truth telling and the ethics of authenticity, and consider various religious perspectives on truth. Most scholars agree that truth is propositional, being expressed in statements that are subject to proof or disproof. This book goes a step farther: yes, propositional truth is important, but truth is more than propositional. To recognize how it is more than propositional is crucial for understanding why truth truly matters. Contributors include Doug Blomberg (ICS), Allyson Carr (ICS), Jeffrey Dudiak (King’s University College), Olaf Ellefson (York University), Gerrit Glas (VU University Amsterdam), Gill K. Goulding (Regis College), Jay Gupta (Mills College), Clarence Joldersma (Calvin College), Matthew J. Klaassen (ICS), John Jung Park (Duke University), Pamela J. Reeve (St. Augustine’s Seminary), Amy Richards (World Affairs Council of Western Michigan), Calvin Seerveld (ICS), Ronnie Shuker (ICS), Adam Smith (Brandeis University), John Van Rys (Redeemer University College), Darren Walhof (Grand Valley State University), Matthew Walhout (Calvin College), and Lambert Zuidervaart (ICS).

Freedom and Necessity in Modern Trinitarian Theology examines the tension between God and the world through a constructive reading of the Trinitarian theologies and Christologies of Sergii Bulgakov (1871-1944), Karl Barth (1886-1968), and Hans Urs von Balthasar (1905-1988). It focuses on what is called 'the problematic of divine freedom and necessity' and the response of the writers. 'Problematic' refers to God being simultaneously radically free and utterly bound to creation. God did not need to create and redeem the world in Christ. It is a contingent free gift. Yet, on the other side of a dialectic, he also has eternally determined himself to be God as Jesus Christ. He must create and redeem the world to be God as he has so determined. In this way the world is given a certain 'free necessity' by him because if there were no world then there would be no Christ. A spectrum of different concepts of freedom and necessity and a theological ideal of a balance between the same are outlined and then used to illumine the writers and to articulate a constructive response to the problematic. Brandon Gallaher shows that the classical Christian understanding of God having a non-necessary relationship to the world and divine freedom being a sheer assertion of God's will must be completely rethought. Gallaher proposes a Trinitarian, Christocentric, and cruciform vision of divine freedom. God is free as eternally self-giving, self-emptying and self-receiving love. The work concludes with a contemporary theology of divine freedom founded on divine election.

In 2002, Pope John Paul II added five new "luminous" mysteries to the rosary, but many Catholics do not realize this was only one of many changes the Pope recommended in the rosary. Here, an eminent liturgist presents the full scope of the pope's reforms.