I can't help posting this that I just read in De Lubac's "Motherhood of the Church":
Cardinal Suenens recently related a very significant remark that had come straight from the mouth of Father Karl Rahner: 'I asked Father Rahner how he explained the decrease of Marian piety in the Church. His reply is worthy of attention. Too many Christians, he said to me, whatever their religious obedience, have a tendency to make an ideology, an abstraction, out of Christianity. And abstractions have no need of a mother.'
I thought that was beautiful. Two of the best books I have read about Mary were written by the Rahner brothers. Hugo's "Mary and the Church" and Karl's "Mary, Mother of the Lord."
Markel, SJ
2 comments:
Rahner's book on Mary is beautiful ("Mary, the Mother of the Lord"). Somehow he waxes poetic when it comes to writing about her. Though I am a Balthasarian grosso modo when it comes to theology, I nevertheless have a deep and soft spot for deal Karl, who was a very kind Jesuit to my brothers at Innsbruck. He loved ice cream and going on long car rides, they told me. Am following the hermeneutical direction set by Karen Kilby and others re Rahner's theology, reading it less systematically and more spiritually. Balthasar himself said: the less systematic Rahner is, the more he likes him... oh, and there's a funny story told about him. it is said that, at masses in the Jesuit church at Innsbruck, when the presider was rather insensitive and going on and on with his homily, Karl would bring out his bunch of keys and start jingling them!!! Great!!!
I tend to be more Balthasarian as well, but thanks for the inside stories on Rahner. I would love to get to know his theology better when I get a chance. I find most theology I find, at lest at Jesuit universities, tends to be neo-Rahnerian without ever reading Rahner. I may take up that key strategy, I can think of some useful occasions.
Markel, SJ
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