Henri de Lubac Quotes

Henri-Marie Joseph Sonier de Lubac , better known as Henri de Lubac, was a French Jesuit priest and cardinal who is considered one of the most influential theologians of the 20th century. His writings and doctrinal research played a key role in shaping the Second Vatican Council. Wikipedia

✵ 20. February 1896 – 4. September 1991

Henri de Lubac: 16 quotes 0 likes

Famous Henri de Lubac Quotes

“If heretics no longer horrify us today, as they once did our forefathers, is it certain that it is because there is more charity in our hearts? Or would it not too often be, perhaps, without our daring to say so, because the bone of contention, that is to say, the very substance of our faith, no longer interests us? Men of too familiar and too passive a faith, perhaps for us dogmas are no longer the Mystery on which we live, the Mystery which is to be accomplished in us. Consequently then, heresy no longer shocks us; at least, it no longer convulses us like something trying to tear the soul of our souls away from us…. And that is why we have no trouble in being kind to heretics, and no repugnance in rubbing shoulders with them.

In reality, bias against ‘heretics’ is felt today just as it used to be. Many give way to it as much as their forefathers used to do. Only, they have turned it against political adversaries. Those are the only ones with whom they refuse to mix. Sectarianism has only changed its object and taken other forms, because the vital interest has shifted. Should we dare to say that this shifting is progress?

It is not always charity, alas, which has grown greater, or which has become more enlightened: it is often faith, the taste for the things of eternity, which has grown less. Injustice and violence are still reigning; but they are now in the service of degraded passions.”

Henri de Lubac

Henri de Lubac, Paradoxes of Faith (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1987), pp. 226-227

“A […] form of present-day secularism is activism, which discounts contemplation and all interiority.”

Henri de Lubac

Part 2. "Teilhard and the Problems of Today", Ch. 5, pp. 254–255, n. 54
The Eternal Feminine (1968)

“[S]ince being is analogical, we are quite correct in using the same words, in particular the word 'being', for both God and his creatures.”

Henri de Lubac

Part 1. "The Eternal Feminine", Ch. 4, p. 73
The Eternal Feminine (1968)

“Habit and routine have an unbelievable power to waste and destroy.”

Henri de Lubac

Source: Paradoxes of Faith (1987), Ch. V. "Spirit", p. 58

“The contact of a believer with a nonbeliever must take the form of a dialogue. The all-powerful action of pure sanctity alone is dispensed from it, since it is not bound by any law. But the dialogue will never get underway if it is not first a dialogue with myself.”

Henri de Lubac

Source: Paradoxes of Faith (1987), Ch. III. "Witness", p. 36

“We must come to see that God is not so much the cause of moral obligation or the sanction of duty as the very substance of Good. Then what we call the moral proof brings us in one leap to the true God, revealing himself as God of Charity.”

Henri de Lubac

Source: Paradoxes of Faith (1987), Ch. II. "Christianity", p. 24

Henri de Lubac Quotes about God

“The Holy Spirit that Christ promised to send […] creates in man new depths which harmonize him with the "depths of God"”

Henri de Lubac

Job 11:7
Source: Catholicism (1938), Ch. XI. "Person and Society", p. 186

“The Holy Spirit that Christ promised to send to his own […] creates in man new depths which harmonize him with he "depths of God".”

Henri de Lubac

Job 11:7
Source: Catholicism (1938), Ch. XI. "Person and Society", p. 186

“It becomes increasingly clear that […] the Christian's watchword can no longer be "escape" but "collaboration." He must co-operate with God and men in God's work in the world and among humanity.”

Henri de Lubac

Source: Catholicism (1938), Ch. VII. "Salvation through the Church", p. 122

Henri de Lubac Quotes

“Credulity, sectarianism, and sloth are three natural tendencies of man. Too often he canonizes them under nobler names.”

Henri de Lubac

Source: Paradoxes of Faith (1987), Ch. II. "Christianity", p. 21

Nature

“The Gospel is full of paradoxes, by which the mind is at first troubled. The Savior teaches with great simplicity, yet he says also, "Blessed is he that shall not be scandalized in me."”

Henri de Lubac

And it is a question, at least, whether all substantial spiritual doctrine must not of necessity take a paradoxical form.
Source: Paradoxes of Faith (1987), Ch. I. "Paradox", p. 13

“Remember, after all, that the Gospel is full of paradoxes, that man is himself a living paradox, and that according to the Fathers of the Church, the Incarnation is the supreme paradox.”

Henri de Lubac

Author's Preface, p. 8
Paradoxes of Faith (1987)

“[D]oes not the mutual love of two beings complete them both, and call forth in each of them higher and more irreducible qualities? That is, in proportion as this love tends the more to true unity, because it is more spiritualized, so are these qualities more fully, more strictly personal.”

Henri de Lubac

Source: Catholicism (1938), Ch. XI. "Person and Society", p. 179

Personality , Love

“There is nothing more demanding than the taste for mediocrity. Beneath its ever moderate appearance there is nothing more intemperate; nothing surer in its instinct; nothing more pitiless in its refusals. It suffers no greatness, shows beauty no mercy.”

Henri de Lubac

Source: Paradoxes of Faith (1987), Ch. X. "Man", p. 137

Beauty , Suffering , Appearance

“Nothing is more ingenious, more obstinate, nastier—indeed, in a sense, more clear sighted, than mediocrity harrying every form of superiority that offends it.”

Henri de Lubac

Source: Paradoxes of Faith (1987), Ch. X. "Man", p. 136

Sense

“The most unbending thoughts are the most vulnerable to change.”

Henri de Lubac

Source: Paradoxes of Faith (1987), Ch. IX. "Truth", p. 105

Change

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