The Lord by Romano Guardini
"The Lord" by Romano Guardini is a profound exploration of the life and teachings of Jesus Christ, presented through a series of meditations that reflect on the Gospels. Written during the tumultuous years of the 1930s in Germany, the book juxtaposes the spiritual void felt by many with the figure of Christ as a true savior, distinct from the political leaders of the time. Guardini draws on his own conversion experience and scholarly study to articulate a vision of Jesus as both fully divine and fully human, inviting readers into a personal relationship with Him.
The text is structured into seven parts, beginning with Jesus' origins and culminating in His ascension and the themes of the final judgment. Central to Guardini's reflections are the Beatitudes, which embody the virtues of humility, love, and justice, offering a counter-narrative to the prevailing ideologies of his era. He emphasizes the reality of sin and the necessity of divine forgiveness, portraying Jesus as the ultimate answer to humanity's longing for redemption. Through this work, Guardini encourages a deep, transformative engagement with the life of Christ, highlighting His role as a guide to true human existence and the essence of love in action.
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The Lord by Romano Guardini
First published:Der Herr: Betrachtungen über die Person und das Leben Jesu Christi, 1937 (English translation, 1954)
Edition(s) used:The Lord, translated by Elinor Castendyk Briefs. Gateway edition. Washington, D.C.: Regnery, 2000
Genre(s): Nonfiction
Subgenre(s): Biblical studies; critical analysis; exegesis; meditation and contemplation; theology
Core issue(s): Gospels; Jesus Christ; love; salvation; scriptures; sin and sinners
Overview
After several years of economic turmoil and hardship in Germany, many people were thirsting for a leader, a father figure who could save them from their economic and political ills. Adolf Hitler appealed to this popular thirst for a Führer (father). At the same time, with the explosion of comparative religion and the Nazi revival of neo-pagan ideology, many German Christians began to wonder what was so special about Christianity and Christ.
Romano Guardini’s personal conversion, which took place in 1905, and his subsequent study of other great religious figures in comparison with Jesus, deepened his faith in Christ, convincing him that the person of Jesus was unique in that the Christ was fully human and thus approachable by people at all times and places but also fully divine. Unlike any other man in history, Jesus was “wholly Other” and therefore ultimately beyond complete human comprehension. Nonetheless as the most complete expression of God’s love of human creation, the person of Jesus invites everyone into a deeply personal and individual encounter with him that teaches what it is to be fully human, fully alive, and fully loved.
Guardini hoped to introduce his students and parishioners to this living God-man as the only person worthy of complete trust. There could be only one Savior for all creation and times, and in the Germany of the 1930’s, this savior was not Hitler, but Christ. The Lord, then, began as a series of meditations on the life of Christ as described in the Gospels. Drawing on his own and others’ study of Jesus, including earlier historical critical literature, Guardini, a Roman Catholic priest, wrote his meditations as sermons and preached them to his students at Saint Benedict’s Chapel in Berlin and to commoners who attended Mass at Burg Rothenfels from 1932 through 1936. He then collected the meditations and rewrote them, producing a single coherent narrative that became The Lord.
The book consists of eighty-six meditations on the Scriptures and is divided into seven parts, which examine the life of Christ in approximate chronological order, beginning with the entry of God’s Son into human history, continuing with a reflection on his life and ministry on earth, and ending with his return to the Father, where he reigns in eternal glory. Part 1, “The Beginnings,” examines the origins and ancestry of Jesus in the Hebrew Scripture, the role of his mother Mary, the mystery of the Incarnation, and the role of John the Baptist. Next, he addresses Christ’s rejection at Nazareth, where those who knew him were scandalized by his claim to be the Messiah, followed by his healing miracles, his calling out of the apostles, and his preaching of the Beatitudes that reveal the interior mystery and nature of true love. On one level of organization, the rest of The Lord represents an extended meditation on the virtues preached in the Beatitudes, including humility, well-ordered love, justice, mercy, peace, and love of enemies.
In part 2, “Message and Promise,” Guardini explores in depth the beatitudes of justice and mercy, the kindness of God, and the will of the Father to demonstrate through Jesus the Son the depth of his sacrificial love, which will overcome the spirit of evil and sin and restore eternal life in conquering death through a rebirth of the Holy Spirit. In part 3, “The Decision,” Guardini explores Jesus’ realization that his mission must embrace suffering and death because of human blindness to the fullness of God’s love and human rejection of his own gospel message of divine forgiveness. Only by his free offering of his life for the forgiveness of sin can creation be renewed by God’s spirit of love. Part 4, “On the Road to Jerusalem,” explores the beatitudes of poverty of spirit and humility, as the God-man prepares to humble himself even to the point of suffering and death, as he establishes a church to succeed him in his work, and as he shows what a life of discipleship looks like. Part 5, “The Last Days,” is a further meditation on God’s humility and love for the world; it traces Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem, his last encounters with the spiritual blindness of the Pharisees, his final night with his disciples in which he gives them the Eucharist as a gift by which he will remain with them until the end of time. At the Last Supper, he commissions the disciples to “do this” in his memory, and he demonstrates the nature of discipleship through service, by humbling himself to wash their feet. Then follows the road to the cross, the agony in the garden, the arrest, trial, crucifixion, and death, in which the betrayal of his disciples figures prominently.
Part 6 explores the post-Resurrection appearances of Jesus, his final teachings, the Ascension of Jesus into glory, the true nature of history, the role of God’s spirit and of God’s church in history, and the role of Christ the eternal high priest who returns as judge. Part 7 reflects on the passages of the book of Revelation, exploring the imagery and meaning of the Lamb, the final judgment, the woman clothed in the sun and the dragon, the final war between good and evil, the throne of judgment, and the bride of the Lamb in time and eternity.
Christian Themes
Guardini explores many Christian themes in these evocative meditations, including the reality of sin and evil in the world, which come not from God but from the darkened intellects, weak wills, and disordered hearts of human beings, made ultimately to know, love, and serve God. However, sin separates humans from God, and this wound festers under the temptation of Satan, who hates humans and tempts them to evil. Only God can repair humankind’s estrangement from God, and this is the mission of Jesus, who enters human history to restore spiritual life to human souls and to reveal the fullness of God’s love for humankind. Jesus reveals God as the true desire of every human heart.
For Guardini, this makes Jesus unique among religious figures. He is not just another human guide to truth and goodness like Buddha or Socrates, but rather he is truth and goodness personified. He is not a seeker of truth, but the truth, the way, and the life of every person. Nonetheless, he is mysteriously and fully human, more fully human than any other figure in history. All humanity, and each person individually, is called to conversion in Christ, and this conversion demands a decision to embrace the beatitudes he preached and the values of humility, well-ordered love, and justice fulfilled in mercy—which alone lead to purity and peace of heart—and the ability to love and bless enemies as wayward children of the Father desperately in need of redemption.
These are not, manifestly, the values of the world, nor of the Nazi system whose dark ideology was already threatening the world in which Guardini lived. Instead, Guardini says, they are the values that even in the midst of persecution and trial will sustain and nurture the heart in the midst of suffering, leading to a personal encounter with the God who willingly took on human flesh to suffer, to forgive in the midst of suffering, to die, and in so doing, to open the doors to eternal life and true bliss.
Sources for Further Study
Guardini, Romano. Learning the Virtues That Lead You to God. Manchester, N.H.: Sophia Institute Press, 1998. A book of meditations by Guardini on the virtues that lead to a mature moral life.
Guardini, Romano. Power and Responsibility. Translated by Elinor C. Brief. 1951. Reprint. Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1961. Guardini reflects on how humans must use the increasing knowledge of science not in the destructive ways of modern ideologies, but in recognition of the obligation to serve as stewards of God’s creation.
Guardini, Romano. The Spirit of the Liturgy. Translated by Ada Lane. New York: Crossroad, 1998. One of Guardini’s most influential books, apart from The Lord. Underscores Guardini’s conviction that the encounter with Christ is made possible in time and history through the sacramental and liturgical life of the Church.
Krieg, Robert A. Romano Guardini. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1997. This comprehensive biography of Guardini, one of the few available in English, offers assessments of his life and work, including an insightful summary of The Lord as a pivotal event in Guardini’s life.