Grace-Optimism

“Extra mundum nulla salus—There is no salvation outside the world.” That was the final message of Edward Schillebeeckx, O.P., to his theological colleagues at a symposium held in his honor in Leuven, Belgium, in December 2008. That conviction captures the love of the world and the “grace-optimism” that characterized the life’s work of this Flemish Dominican, who died at the age of 95 on Dec. 23, 2009.

From his groundbreaking first book, Christ the Sacrament of the Encounter With God, to the final volume of his Christological trilogy, Church, the Human Story of God, Father Schillebeeckx helped readers grasp the core sacramental insight disclosed by the Incarnation: The mystery of God is to be encountered in human life and creation. Throughout his teaching career and in his writing, Father Schillebeeckx emphasized that we experience God’s love, the creative and saving presence of God’s grace, wherever human persons minister to one another, especially to the neighbor in need. Human love is an embodiment, a sacrament, of God’s love. These human “fragments of salvation,” as he called them, are a share in the final triumph of God’s grace, which was promised in a definitive way in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus the Christ. Christians are called to participate in the living story of Jesus by “writing a fifth Gospel with their lives.”

This sacramental view of the world, and of the church’s role within the world, remained at the heart of Father Schillebeeckx’s writing, preaching and teaching for over seven decades. It was also central to the vision of the Second Vatican Council, which he helped to shape as an advisor to Cardinal Bernard Alfrink and the Dutch bishops.

In the decades following the council, Father Schillebeeckx was acutely aware of how difficult it had become for many to believe that God holds open a future full of hope amid a world of radical suffering, especially when the church’s own witness had been compromised. In the face of those real stumbling blocks, Father Schillebeeckx reminded his readers that “God is new each moment” and that in situations of injustice (whether in the world or in the church) the Spirit of God is actively at work, prompting resistance, hope, courage and change.

May this gifted theologian and preacher of the Gospel now enjoy the fullness of life that he once described as “God’s eternal surprise.”

http://americamagazine.org/content/article.cfm?o=1000&article_id=12089