Essay: Henri de Lubac (1896-1991) and Contemporary Mystical Theology, by Andrew Prevot

Appearing in A Companion to Jesuit Mysticism, Andrew Prevot‘s essay argues for the presence of a mystical theology throughout much of Henri de Lubac’s writings even though he never devoted a work exclusively to it. Here is Prevot’s concluding paragraph:

This chapter has shown that de Lubac deserves to be read alongside Rahner and von Balthasar as one of the great Jesuit, Catholic theological voices in the conversation surrounding Christian mysticism in the twentieth century. De Lubac’s essay “Mysticism and Mystery” gives us a glimpse at certain arguments that might have appeared in the fuller treatment of Christian mysticism he proposed to write but never completed. By taking this essay as a hermeneutical key for his other writings – on knowledge, the human being, Christ, the Eucharist, the church, interreligious encounter, atheistic humanism, and gender – one can discover just how central mystical participation in “the Mystery” is to his thought as a whole. His theology is mystical through and through. Although there may be good reasons to question it on this or that point (particularly with feminist theological consciousness), the synthetic nature of his theological interpretation of Christian mysticism is an unquestionable achievement.

Here’s the bibliographic data for the essay:

Prevot, Andrew. “Henri de Lubac (1896-1991) and Contemporary Mystical Theology.” In A Companion to Jesuit Mysticism, edited by Robert A. Maryks, 279-309. Leiden; Boston: Brill, 2017.