Sunday Morning Thoughts . . . on Church

A human subject, inasmuch as he becomes a theological person by a unique call and mission, is simultaneously deprivatized, socialized, and made the location and the bearer of community. -- Hans Urs von Balthasar

In his Theo-Drama (Vol. II), von Balthasar writes: "Human community and the immediate relation of each individual to God are inseparable from each other."

Which Cardinal Marc Ouellet succinctly sums up in a paper on von Balthasar's Christian ethics, where he writes that von Balthasar "advances beyond the Protestant individualism of justification by faith and the Catholic individualism of merit by recovering the essential implication of community in the occurrence of grace."

Which reminds me of a summary of my own: One cannot know God fully without knowing Christ. (Even though some who do not know Christ may well know God better than some who do, they cannot know God fully without knowing Christ, and -- more to the point -- him crucified.) And one cannot know Christ fully without the Church. (Though, again, some who stand outside the Church may well know Christ better than some of its members; nonetheless, one cannot know Christ fully without the Church.)

Just some Sunday morning thoughts, for what they're worth.