I remember being deeply moved when I first read Karl Rahner’s On Prayer, based on a series of meditations he had given in Munich after World War II. Moved and surprised: I had not associated Rahner’s writings with such power to affect the heart. Rational, persuasive, brilliant, insightful, yes, but not spiritually moving. I shouldn’t have been surprised, however. It does not take much in the way of attentive reading to find in Rahner’s writings signs of an affective dialogue with the One he sought to understand: “Prayer is the language in which the heart asks God to hear it.” Similarly, the efforts of theologians and ethicists to fashion sound theological constructions are, in their best moments, informed by a heart transformed by the divine encounter. They are performances of what Balthasar called a kneeling theology, expressions of our lived attunement to the existential fundamentals of the Christian faith.