[ninenot]

A 'think piece' which will help you understand R's approach to the Liturgy, for openers.

[CasearianDaoist]

No wonder the left hates him: he turns their language and their works back opon them. He has such a deep understanding of the modern world.

Makes me want to get my German back.

[livius]

Our situation today shows that beauty demands for itself at least as much courage as do truth and goodness, and she will not allow herself to be separated and banned from her two sisters without taking them along with herself in an act of mysterious vengeance. Whoever sneers at her name as if she were an ornament of the beourgeois past...can no longer pray and soon will no longer be able to love.

- Hans Urs von Balthasar

The Glory of the Lord

I believe that B16 is also a fan of von Balthasar. I like the above quote because I have always felt that it explains a lot about the general ugliness of the post VatII Church (which is, in general, often lacking in truth and, as we have seen with the homosexual scandals, has sometimes even abandoned goodness). In some mysterious way, the true, the beautiful and the good are inseparably linked.

[Miss Marple]

Pope Benedict is not only briiliant; he has the soul of a poet.

[ELS]

A(nother) wonderful piece by Cardinal Ratzinger. Thank you for posting it.

This paragraph in particular touched me:

Being struck and overcome by the beauty of Christ is a more real, more profound knowledge than mere rational deduction. Of course we must not underrate the importance of theological reflection, of exact and precise theological thought; it remains absolutely necessary. But to move from here to disdain or to reject the impact produced by the response of the heart in the encounter with beauty as a true form of knowledge would impoverish us and dry up our faith and our theology. We must rediscover this form of knowledge; it is a pressing need of our time.