In The Fullness of Faith: On the Centrality of the Distinctively Catholic by Hans Urs von Balthasar

Author:Hans Urs von Balthasar [Hans Urs von Balthasar]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Spiritual & Religion
ISBN: 9780898701661
Publisher: Ignatius Press
Published: 2012-08-20T16:00:00+00:00

Communio in Its Catholic Meaning

What Catholic would not agree with this magnificent passage of Luther’s? Basing himself on words of Paul, he is describing something dear to the heart of the Catholica, namely, the mysterious osmosis between the members of the “Body of Christ”, which does not stop at the interchange of external goods but extends to a sharing in what is most personal. In French one can speak of a “réversibilité des mérites”, and the word “merit” comes quite naturally to Luther, just as he is not afraid to speak of an unheard-of “work” when Moses desires to be rejected instead of the sinful people and when Paul wishes to be accursed and banished from Christ instead of his Jewish brothers: “The work is inaccessible to reason, for it is too high” (Werke, 10, III, 219). It is a pity that, with the years, this view of things (which comes wholly from the Catholic tradition) faded more and more into the background in Luther. “It did not survive in Lutheranism and did not become part of its doctrinal development” (P. Althaus), The horizontal aspect is pushed “far out of sight behind the sole supernatural bond linking the members with the Head” (E. Kohlmeyer).

The reasons for this are due, no doubt, to the loss of certain Catholic elements. Such loss is not evident in the passage quoted, but it arises from other central Reformation tenets and endangers the catholicity of the Communio Sanctorum. The two most important of these tenets are the separation of faith from works, and the separation of the invisible Church of the saints from the visible, official Church (or what remained of it in the Reformed churches). First of all, however, we must discuss what makes such a Communio possible.

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