Theologian Van Balthasar is telling us that while the valid sacramental act done by the priest at Mass (transubstantiation) occurs independent of the faith or merit of the priest or individual members of the congregation, the effect of the sacrament depends on the receptivity and cooperation of each individual. In the same way, the Lord tells us, in the parable of the sower, that the Word of God can be received with no fruit coming from it because we do not take it to heart. On the other hand, we can receive it and it bears much fruit. Therefore, we need to be receptive to the Word of God as it is given to us in the Liturgy of the Word. We cannot assume that the Word of God in the readings at Mass have some sort of automatic effect on us without our cooperation.

Next, Von Balthasar tells us that our individual prayer must be Liturgy (worship). Here we have an important practical teaching with regard to contemplative prayer: it cannot, it must not be self-contemplation. On the contrary it must be a devotional attention to what is essentially the non-I, namely, God’s word. “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived” God has revealed to us by his Spirit. If contemplation is liturgy, its whole movement is away from the “I”: God will be its first and only goal; it will not have to perform a second act in order to direct its attention to him. We do not have to enter primarily into ourselves and then go on to God through self-transcendence. It may be, indeed it is bound to follow, that as man reflects on what God says to him, the human being, the “I”, the self becomes visible, attains reality. Not, however, through reflecting on himself, but by listening to God’s word. For it is in the mirror of God’s word that man sees who he is. Our “real” reality is not the inner, higher or deeper “I” into which we withdraw from the world’s bedlam, as if we could reinforce the word of God in us with the strength of “our better self”. The reverse is the case. All the strength of our “better self” comes from God’s power, which he proffers to us in his word. The man who concentrates on himself in the attempt to know himself better and thus, perhaps, to undertake some moral improvement, will certainly never encounter God; he will have to start again, from a totally different angle, if he wants to find God’s will. But if he earnestly seeks God’s will in his work, he will-------incidentally as it were-----realize himself and find himself (as far as he needs to).

Here, Von Balthasar is referring to methods of prayer which seek to find God within ourselves by excluding everything which comes from outside ourselves. This means excluding the Word of God which is self-defeating. We need to look outside ourselves to God’s Word to find God and also to find ourselves. Our goal in prayer should be the worship of God who certainly lives within us but can only be known from God’s gift of His Word.

Finally, Von Balthasar warns us against losing sight of the liturgical (worship) aspect of prayer and making something else the primary goal. Contemplation is liturgical, if we understand liturgy in its fullest sense. In practice, the liturgy brought about in the community’s service of worship can bring to our attention only a tiny part of God’s word in holy scripture. Even the Liturgy of the Hours, the breviary, encompassing as it does the annual calendar of feasts, cannot contain the whole of scripture. Thus the liturgy points beyond itself to our personal contemplation of the word. Somewhere there must be in the Church someone who is listening in adoration to that word of God which is not to be found in the Church’s official missal and breviary. For, obviously, the purpose of the word is not fulfilled by those countless people who study the Bible in intellectual curiosity and for the love of learning. Theology and exegesis can border on prayer, but they are not of themselves necessarily prayer. Not explicitly, at least. All acts of the Christian life, whether of the intellect or not, should be accompanied by an openness for worship, like a basso continuo accompanying the soul, and this applies to the act of theology and exegesis too. Indeed, like Anselm and many other saintly theologians, the reader and scholar of scripture can surround and permeate his reading and thinking with worship, and thus extend the liturgical attitude into his intellectual work in a very practical way. But he does well to remember that the worship of the word needs no other justification, and that, ultimately, prayer cannot be reduced to the level of a means of improved understanding.

We need to understand that the Word of God was given us so that we can more fruitfully worship God. Certainly, our worship is aided by the results of scholarly research, but the understanding which research can give us is not to be our ultimate goal in prayer. As we contemplate the Word of God, we always have to bear in mind where it comes from. It comes from God. It is not something we study or analyze like a chemist studying a chemical compound, or a biologist a living organism, or a geologist a rock. The Word is a gift from God so that we can know Him and be united with Him. -- Jim Nugent, CFP