would have granted him that rank. He is buried in the cemetery of the Church of St. Leodegar im Hof (Hofkirche) in Lucerne. Theology Along with Karl Rahner and Bernard Lonergan, von Balthasar sought to offer a response to Western modernity, which posed a challenge to traditional Catholic thought. While Rahner offered a progressive, accommodating position on modernity and Lonergan worked out a philosophy of history that sought to critically appropriate modernity, Balthasar resisted the reductionism and human focus of modernity, wanting Christianity to be more challenging toward modern sensibilities.; Von Balthasar is very eclectic in his approach, sources, and interests and remains difficult to categorize. An example of his eclecticism was his long study and conversation with the influential Reformed Swiss theologian Karl Barth, on whose work he wrote the first Catholic analysis and response. Although von Balthasar's major points of analysis on Barth's work have been disputed, his book The Theology of Karl Barth: Exposition and Interpretation (1951) remains a classic work for its sensitivity and insight; Barth himself agreed with its analysis of his own theological enterprise, calling it the best book on his own theology. A distinctive thought in von Balthasar's work is that our first experience after birth is the face of love of our mothers, where the "I" encounters for the first time the "Thou", and the "Thou" smiles in a relationship of love and sustenance. Writings and thought Trilogy Von Balthasar was better known for his sixteen-volume systematic theological "trilogy", published between 1961 and 1987, with a concluding "epilog" ("epilogue"). It is called a trilogy because it is divided into three parts: Herrlichkeit (The Glory of the Lord), Theodramatik (Theo-Drama), and Theologik (Theo-Logic). They follow the threefold self-description of Jesus in the Gospel of John ("I am the way, the truth, and the life") and therefore the transcendentals bonum, verum, and pulchrum (the good, the true, and the beautiful), although the trilogy begins with Herrlichkeit, a study of the pulchrum, the beautiful. Herrlichkeit (The Glory of the Lord) Herrlichkeit is a seven-volume work on theological aesthetics. One of the most often quoted passages from the trilogy comes from the first volume, Schau der Gestalt (Seeing the Form): "Before the beautiful—no, not really before but within the beautiful—the whole person quivers. He not only 'finds' the beautiful moving; rather, he experiences himself as being moved and possessed by it." Schau der Gestalt (Seeing the