Advent Quote of the Day 11

Do we know Jesus? Only if we recognize in him the presence and the logic of absolute divine love. This love can refine whatever in us does not oppose the flame of love, but whatever refuses to bring forth love's fruit will be let wither, dug up and burned.

Jesus interprets God in the language of a human life. For God, the humanity of Jesus is not an inert, mechanical alphabet simply used to put the absolute into words. The interpreter himself speaks with his whole existence of flesh and blood. The picture, the parable which the man Jesus is, does not face, since the eternal prototype radiates in him, is perfected in him. It can do this because, in God, the eternal Son always was the eternal Father's self-offering and self-interpretation. To understand Jesus' word, which coincides with his existence, is to have access (and there is no other!) to the eternal trinitarian mystery of love. This is only possible in the Holy Spirit.

-Hans Urs von Balthasar, Does Jesus Know Us? Do We Know Him?