Saturday, January 10, 2009

Journet's theology of the Church

A reader points out that Charles Cardinal Journet's The Theology of the Church has just been marked down by Ignatius Press (Amazon has marked down its price as well). "This great contemporary theologian has few readers," he writes. "The translation is seamless." His favorite quote thus far:
How will the faithful as a whole elevate themselves to the Christian usage of exterior goods, of marriage, of liberty, if, from their midst, there do not continually arise some Christians who, in order to affirm with a brilliant intensity the primacy of spiritual ends, choose to renounce completely these very goods? Only the love that moves one to renounce all can, in the Church, sustain that love which makes an instrument of all. And as for those who, being primarily engaged in the broader way of the legitimate use of earthly goods, marriage and liberty, find themselves suddenly stopped short in their momentum and rejected by misfortunes as outcasts from life, if they cast a glance on the marvelous examples of renunciation that the Church makes shine forth around them in every epoch, are they not able to comprehend that God, who seemed to want to break them in his power or abandon them to life's trials, in fact is only calling them in his love to a holier and more sublime vocation, of which they themselves would never even have dreamed? (p. 270)
He also points out that a 31-page Journet article on the Mystery of the Eucharist, Le mystère de l'eucharistie (Cardinal Charles Journet) (Paroisse du Christ-Roi, Fribourg), is a veritable summary of Journet's great work on the Mass.

[Hat tip to A.S.]

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