Welcome back to the Word on Fire show.

I'm your host, Matthew Petrusig.

We are continuing our walk through Bishop Barron's lecture series

on one of the most important Catholic theologians

of the 20th century, Hans Ors von Balthasar. Enjoy.

Well, we're continuing our exploration of Hans-Oers-Van-Balthazar, and especially this theme of

seeing the form, taking the time, being patient, being contemplative in the presence of the form or the icon.

What occurs to me is this famous story told about Beethoven.

Beethoven was a small group, supposedly, and he played one of his shorter pieces,

and was all over, everyone applauded, and someone said, but what does it mean?

And Beethoven, they said, angrily turned back to the piano and just played the whole thing over again.

In other words, it doesn't mean anything apart from itself.

That's what it means.

And see, in some ways, that's Baltazar's approach to theology,

is when we try to impose a meaning on Christ from some external standpoint,

we try to import a philosophy or a sociology or psychology to understand him, we're not going to get him.

Rather, that's what he means.

Look at him.

Again, it's the Newtonian versus the Gertthian approach.

Is sit down, listen, watch. It's someone praying the office, someone going to mass,

someone kneeling in prayer. And that's how Christ impresses himself upon the disciple.

So that's his approach.

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