“[P]rayer is a conversation between God and the soul, and . . . a particular language is spoken: God’s language. Prayer is dialogue, not man’s monologue before God. Ultimately, . . . there is no such thing as solitary speech; speech implies reciprocity, the exchange of thoughts and of souls, unity in a common spirit, in a common possession and sharing of the truth. Speech both demands and manifests an I and a Thou. In prayer, moreover, man speaks to a God who has long since revealed Himself to him in a Word which is so stupendous and all-embracing that it can never be ‘past tense’; this Word resounds through all times as a present reality. The better a man learns to pray, the more deeply he finds that all his stammering is only an answer to God’s speaking to him; this in turn implies that any understanding between God and man must be on the basis of God’s language. It was God who spoke first, and it is only because God has expressed, ‘exteriorized’, Himself in this way that man can ‘interiorize’ himself toward God. Just think of the Our Father which we address to him every day: is not this his own word? Were we not taught it by the Son of God, who is God and the Word of God? Could any man ever have produced such language on his own initiative? . . . Whatever could we say to God if he himself had not taken the first step in communicating and manifesting himself to us in his word, so that we have access to him and fellowship with him? For we have been permitted to glimpse his inner nature, to enter into it, into the inner core of eternal truth; bathed in this light which radiates upon us from God, we ourselves become light and transparent before him.
All of a sudden we just
know: prayer is a conversation in which God’s word has the initiative and we, for the moment, can be nothing more than listeners. The essential thing is for us to hear God’s word and discover from it how to respond to him. His word is the truth, opened up to us. For there is no ultimate, unquestionable truth in man; he knows this, as, full of questionings, he looks up to God and sets out toward him. God’s word is his invitation to us to be with him in the truth. We are in danger of drowning on the open sea, and God’s word is the rope ladder thrown down to us so that we can climb up into the rescuing vessel. It is the carpet, rolled out toward us so that we can walk along it to the Father’s throne. It is the lantern which shines in the darkness of the world (a world which keeps silence and refuses to reveal its own nature); it casts a softer light on the riddles which torment us and encourages us to keep going. Finally, God’s word is himself, his most vital, his innermost self: his only-begotten Son, of the same nature as himself, sent into the world to bring it home, back to him. And so God speaks to us from heaven and commends to us his Word, dwelling on earth for a while: ‘This is my beloved Son: listen to him’ (Mt 17:5).”
~Hans Urs von Balthasar
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