The aphorisms Das Weizenkorn (The Grain of Wheat) already had the intention of experiencing the world and life in this way; still more clearly is this true of the thirteen hymns to Christ of Das Herz der Welt (Heart of the World) [first published in 1944], in which I wished to give back to the idea of the Heart of Jesus (which has so often degenerated into sentimentality) its cosmic dimension and, even more than this, the incalculable and ultimately trinitarian inner sphere of the hypostatic union.

Hans Urs von Balthasar in My Work in Retrospect, 1965