Avant-propos - Studia Moralia

220 JOSEPH CHAPEL
the intimate bond between word and love, which Ebner describes
as two great miracles in which the spirit is at work, and
which encompass all of reality:
The Word embraces and carries language – not only language,
but the whole man, and not only man, but the being of the whole
world – and therefore it is more than language, more than our spoken
words. It embraces everything which we cannot express, for
which our language does not have the right word. It embraces God,
because God embraces the Word. And it embraces Love. 38
In His will to save man communally, God sent His word and
His love. Ebner argues that authentic community is based on
trust in the word, which makes it possible to relate with others
as persons – a personal dialogue that always leads to God. In
true community, the word is accompanied by love, which is the
Spirit allowing men to live in communion with God and in true
reciprocal relation with one another.
For Ebner this combination of word and love is the linchpin
of man’s I-Thou relation: man knows the reality of God not by
logical proof, but rather in recognizing his absolute dependence
on God, in the fact that the I in man is dependent upon a relation
to the Thou, outside of which it does not exist at all. God becomes
more palpable for man when his I-Thou relation with
God comes to living expression in word and love: We are “hearers
of the word” because God gave us the word; we are “doers of
the word,” insofar as the word we have heard endures as love,
which the word demands we fulfill in our lives. In this way, word
and love are the two key realities of the spiritual life; they form
the link between the I and the thou and bring man to salvation
for they save him from being closed within himself.
Bringing to Speech: Thought Becomes Word
This spiritual significance of language begins with the fact
38 EBNER, Aphorismen, in Schriften, 1:1009, cited and translated in
HAROLD STAHMER, Speak That I May See Thee!: The Religious Significance of
Language (New York: Macmillan, 1968), 236.