Juan Sara. Secular Institutes According to Hans Urs ... - Communio

322 Juan M. Sara
who hunger and thirst, the poor in love, have a special place in this
fulfillment. The very ecclesial form of the secular institutes both
enables and obliges them to return filial human love to the Father
from the heart of the world together with his Son, and to return
fraternal divine love to their brethren together with the same
firstborn Son—to the glory of the Father.
Balthasar thus founds the evangelical counsels theocentrically
at the foot of the cross (Jn 19:25–27) and in the reception of the Spirit
(Jn 19:30; 20:21). The counsels are situated in an oscillation—not in
a fixed location, but in the encounter of God’s need and the world’s
need for love. This “place” is the indescribable point of unity between
the analogia entis and the analogia caritatis, between creation and
redemption. It is there that the secular institutes’ form of life becomes
integrated with love of God and the world. 35 Taken up into this
oscillating, contemplative center, those who are called do not give a
love of their own, possessed independently of their brethren. They do
not offer a “donation” from the surplus of some worldly treasure.
Rather, they give the love of God himself thanks to God and to the
others. This love “belongs” to them only insofar as they participate in
the movement of gratuitous donation characteristic of God’s love. In
the unity of person and mission, they live an existential eucharist in
the rhythm of God’s super-fluous love. Their very ecclesial form,
which unites the consecrated center of the Church and the heart of
the world, enables and fosters the interchange between God and
man. Indeed, this ecclesial form itself occurs in the fire of God’s ever
greater love as a new and eternal covenant. “For our God is a
consuming fire” [ignis consumens] (Heb 12:29). “But because love is
ultimate, the seraphim cover their faces with their wings, for the
mystery of eternal love is one whose superluminous night may be
glorified only through adoration.” 36
4. Secular institutes and the Trilogy
At this point, it will be good to say a word concerning the
correlation that exists between the secular institutes, with their
35 Balthasar, Our Task, 128–132.
36 Hans Urs von Balthasar, Theo-Logik, vol. 1: Truth of the World (San Francisco:
Ignatius Press, 2000), 272.