Augustine: God Wants Us Back

"But our very Life came down to earth and bore our death, and slew it with the very abundance of his own life. And, thundering, he called us to return to him into that secret place from which he came forth to us--coming first into the virginal womb, where the human creature, our mortal flesh, was joined to him that it might not be forever mortal--and came “as a bridegroom coming out his chamber, rejoicing as a strong man to run a race.” For he did not delay, but ran through the world, crying out by words, deeds, death, life, descent, ascension--crying aloud to us to return to him. And he departed from our sight that we might return to our hearts and find him there. For he left us, and behold, he is here. He could not be with us long, yet he did not leave us. He went back to the place that he had never left, for “the world was made by him.” In this world he was, and into this world he came, to save sinners. To him my soul confesses, and he heals it, because it had sinned against him. O sons of men, how long will you be so slow of heart? Even now after Life itself has come down to you, will you not ascend and live? But where will you climb if you are already on a pinnacle and have set your mouth against the heavens? First come down that you may climb up, climb up to God. For you have fallen by trying to climb against him. Tell this to the souls you love that they may weep in the valley of tears, and so bring them along with you to God, because it is by his spirit that you speak thus to them, if, as you speak, you burn with the fire of love."

Confessions, Book IV, ch. xii, sec. 19 (Albert C. Outler, trans. 1955).

Balthasar on Beauty

“Beauty is the word that shall be our first. Beauty is the last thing which the thinking intellect dares to approach, since only it dances as an uncontained splendor around the double constellation of the true and the good and their inseparable relation to one another. Beauty is the disinterested one, without which the ancient world refused to understand itself, a word which both imperceptibly and yet unmistakably has bid farewell to our new world, a world of interests, leaving it to its own avarice and sadness. No longer loved or fostered by religion, beauty is lifted from its face as a mask, and its absence exposes features on that face which threaten to become incomprehensible to man. We no longer dare to believe in beauty and we make of it a mere appearance in order the more easily to dispose of it. Our situation today shows that beauty demands for itself at least as much courage and decision 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. We can be sure that whoever sneers at her name as if she were the ornament of a bourgeois past — whether he admits it or not — can no longer pray and soon will no longer be able to love.”

— Hans Urs von Balthasar, THE GLORY OF THE LORD: A THEOLOGICAL AESTHETICS, VOL. 1 – SEEING THE FORM

What is a human being?

"The concept [of the human being as representative] deals with man as he actually is, the non-autonomous and non-independent creature, unable to rely on himself alone; man, who can find and possess his riches and his glory precisely only in his dependence on and his communion with God."

-G.C. Berkouwer, Man: The Image of God (Dirk W. Jellema, trans. 1962), p. 114 (emphasis added).

The Secular Experiment

"[T]here is something unique in our modern “secular,” Western culture, in that it is the site of the only large-scale attempt in human history at living an exclusive humanism. The self-congratulatory discourse about our exceptional status on this score is right in this respect: no one else ever tried it. And by virtue of living through this experiment, we will be in a better position to understand why."

Charles Taylor, A Catholic Modernity 105-06 (1999), quoted in Brennan, A Quandary in Law?: A Qualified Catholic Denial, 44 San Diego L. Rev. 97 (2007).

The Cruciform Life

"However learned, however cosmopolitan, however politically aware and culturally engaged he or she may become,  The Christian must always register a clear and final deferral on the world's favor in view of the cross and its benefits."

 Charles Marsh, Wayward Christian Soldiers, pp. 135–136.

On Unity - From Mao's Little Red Book

One requirement of Party discipline is that the minority should submit to the majority. If the view of the minority has been rejected, it must support the decision passed by the majority. If necessary, it can bring up the matter for reconsideration at the next meeting, but apart from that it must not act against the decision in any way. “On Correcting Mistaken Ideas in the Party” (December 1929), Selected Works, Vol. I, p. 110.

Mastered by the Lust for Mastery - Augustine's account of the earthly city

"Most glorious is the City of God: whether in this passing age . . . or in the security of that eternal home which she now patiently awaits . . . . In this work I have undertaken to defend her against those who favour their own gods against her Founder. . . .

I know . . . what efforts are needed to persuade the proud how great is that virtue of humility which, not by dint of any human loftiness, but by divine grace bestowed from on high, raises us above all the earthly pinnacles which sway in this inconstant age. . . .

Thus, when the nature of the work here undertaken requres us to say something of it . . . we must not pass over in silence the earthly city also: that city which, when it seeks mastery, is itself mastered by the lust for mastery even though all the nations serve it."

The City of God, Book I, Preface (Dyson, trans.)