Customer Reviews

Mysterium Paschale: The Mystery of Easter

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This is a brilliant piece of scholarship drawing from the deepest wells of Biblical interpretation, traditional theology, and rigorous philosophical thinking. Balthasar confirms for me that the most sophisticated and original thinking is done 'on route' of tradition rather than in wandering away from it. Thinkers and believers of all sorts, especially Protestant Christians (which I am) will find serious intellectual protein in this masterpiece.

The book is not very difficult to read but yet very profound. It presents Jesus as the one in whom humanity finds life.

Hans Urs Von Balthasar carefully distinguishes between the temporal and the eternal realms so that he is able to talk about events occurring in the temporal realm from an eternal perspective; God's perspectives. Eternity is in radical contrast to time. It is always in the present and knows no past or future. The fullness of time happened when eternity embraced time. What happened then was not separate from eternity because Jesus did then what he does in eternity - he gave out his life giving Spirit (Cor 15,45). 'I declare to you, brothers, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable.'(1 Cor 15, 50)

Jesus came into this world and his subsequent suffering was inevitable as we had already chose not to accept the gift of life from God in the garden of Eden. In confrontation with this, Jesus participated by taking it upon himself: actively on the cross and passively in the place of the dead on Holy Saturday. He took upon himself the consequences of sin so that sin became swallowed up by God. He showed the way to the Father by setting the model of the Kingdom of Heaven in which we become responsible for others by living a life for others.

Heaven was inaugurated on Easter, begins right here in the temporal sphere and is consummated in its end. It is acquired as soon as we accept Jesus and continues in our affirming him. Spending time reading this book was part of my affirmation that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life.

As the thought of von Balthasar starts to be absorbed now by the attentive public (like me), we will see that here is something nothing less than thrilling. We can see theology actually developing in the most radical and foundational way, in utter and profound faithfulness.

The book is in a better condition than I expected, and it arrived on time, even a day early. I have no complaints.

This is the hardest Balthasar book I've read -- which is saying something! I didn't do myself any favors by reading this over the course of many months. Still this is the densest of Balthasar's works I've read -- I haven't dipped into his famous Trilogy yet. I found his exegetical discussion of the Resurrection to be a bit disturbing. It seemed to give too much credence to the potential of embellishments and shading by the Gospel writers. The other complaint I have about this edition is that it uses endnotes rather than footnotes. Perhaps this is because Balthasar is prodigious with his notes, but I hated having to flip to the back of the sections to read the notes and by the final part, I simply read them after I'd finished the body of the section.