Fr. Hans Urs von Balthasar (+1988):
It is unbearable for God’s children to have to sigh at possessing their redemption only in hope. But this unbearable sighing itself, which is continually bursting us open, is the pledge and guarantee of the Spirit. It is the sacrament of confirmation that strengthens the Christian for the encounter with the world. Confirmation transforms the Christian’s hope into a weapon of the spirit. The highest form of hope is despair that has been overcome. A life should be constructed so that the power of death steels for anything and everything. The true misery of the miserable leads only to God.
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