I love the names of authors which are a challenge to spell and pronounce. Antoine de Saint Exupery, Baron Friedrich Von Hugel, Dag Hammarskjold, Hans Urs Von Balthasar, Wolfhart Pannenberg, and lately reading the magnum opus of Yves Congar, I Believe in the Holy Spirit. Congar was one of the great Catholic theologians of the second half of the 20th Century, one of the leading exponents of the Catholic renewal movement nouvelle theologie, and one of the theological architects of key documents from Vatican II.
In the introduction to his three volume work on the Holy Spirit he writes a personal apologia as a theologian which resonate with every heart given to the study of theology, prayer, and scripture and which works towards the coalescence of all three in the vocation of serving Christ in His Church.
Each one of us has his own gifts, his own means and his own vocation. Mine are as a Christian who prays and as a theologian who reads a great deal and takes many notes. May I therefore be allowed to sing my own song! The Spirit is breath. The wind sings in the trees. I would like, then, to be an Aeolian harp and let the breath of God make the strings vibrate and sing. Let me stretch and tune the strings – that will be the austere task of research. And then let the Spirit make them sing a clear and tuneful song of prayer and life.
Yves Congar, I Believe in the Holy Spirit. 3 vols in 1, 1979-80, (New York: Crossroad, 1983), x.
You know, I could happily make that my prayer for the remainder of my own life, vocation and love for God.
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