I just received my copy of Hans Urs von Balthasar's Mysterium Paschale (The Mystery of Easter). This will be my Lenten text. I am planning an Easter Vigil service on Saturday night of Easter weekend. I am hoping my readings here and the centrality of Balthasar's account of Christ's descent into hell will significantly shape what this service will look like.
From the preface to the second edition,
We shall never know how to express the abyss-like depths of the Father's self-giving, that Father who . . . makes himself 'destitute' of all that he is and can be so as to bring forth a consubstantial divinity, the Son. Everything that can be thought and imagined where God is concerned is, in advance, included and transcended in this self-destitution which constitutes the person of the Father, and at the same time, those of the Son and the Spirit. God as 'gulf' of absolute Love contains in advance, eternally, all the modalities of love, of compassion, and even of a 'separation' motivated by love.
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