Adrienne von Speyr

Prayer was a way of life for Adrienne von Speyr, one of this last century's great Catholic mystics. In this major work on prayer, edited by Hans Urs von Balthasar, Adrienne discusses the many aspects and kinds of prayer, the vocation of every Christian. The fundamental theme of this work is that prayer, like everything else that comes to man through God's self-revelation in Christ (such as grace; faith, hope and love; or the realtionship between Christ and the Church), is ultimately rooted in God himself and in his triune exchange of life. Beyond all purely creaturely motives and needs, Christian prayer is a participation in the inner life of the Trinity, which is revealed, prepared and accomplished in the world by Jesus Christ our Lord. By him it is made available for us to take part in. This book is much more than a manual on how to pray. It gives an in-depth description of prayer: first the prayer of the Trinity, then the prayer of Christ, then of the Blessed Virgin, and finally that of all Christians. In particular, the section on the prayer of Mary is a masterful description of the various stages of growing in prayer. Mary is the perfect model because of her intimate association with her Son.

The World of Prayer

Book of All Saints

John, Vol 4

John, Vol 3

John, Vol 2

A profound contemplation of the Seven Last Words of Our Lord on the Cross with specific application to the Seven Sacraments instituted by Christ.Ê

The Cross, Word and Sacrament

This meditation on the Mass by the mystic Von Speyr contains many penetrating insights, particularly about the nature of the Mass as sacrifice--of Christ, of his priest, and of every believer united in and with the entire Church--expressed with a poetic layering of concepts and images that is at once complex and lucid, dense and transparent. The meditation rewards the present-day reader's effort with a fresh and palpable sense that the real truth of the Church's constant re-presentation, re-enactment of Christ's "sacrifice once offered" transcends not only the nearly half-a-century since Von Speyer's meditation, but all time --time which is itself sanctified precisely through the endless repetition of the Sacrament of unity that is the Holy Mass.

The Holy Mass

The contemporary mystic and spiritual writer Von Speyr gives a verse by verse commentary on St. Paul's letter to the Ephesians that is the fruit of her own contemplative meditation and prayerful reflection. As with her other volumes of New Testament meditations, this one bears two distinctive features. First, her method of expressing the theological meaning of an enunciation is not merely to state the universal Christian truth, but also to characterize the particular angle of vision from which the sacred writer (St. Paul) sees it. Thus Paul's way of conceiving the content and life of faith, and the self-conscious role of the apostle in the economy of salvation accordingly stands out in bold relief. Secondly, Von Speyr always retraces the content of the words back to the source of revelation, which is the Trinity-she has an unremitting regress to the Triune God who occupies the central position in the whole of scriptural revelation, and is its one viewpoint and theme that must be heard for its own sake.

The Letter to the Ephesians

The first of von Speyr's scriptural commentaries, focusing on her reflections on the first five chapters of John and the beginning of the public life of Our Lord. She shares moving meditations on such profound and dramatic scenes as the witness of John the Baptist, the call of the disciples, the wedding at Cana, the cleansing of the money-changers in the temple, the Samaritan woman, etc. The combination of the Scripture verses and her meditations provide rich nourishment for prayer and spiritual reading. This series is particularly important because the spirituality of St. John, the Apostle of Divine Love, was the central source of von Speyr's own inspiration and spiritual life.

Meditations on John 1-5

The Word Becomes Flesh

ÊThe mystic von Speyr continues her reflections on the Gospel of John, concentrating here on the discourses of Jesus in chapters 6-12. The various other events included by Saint John in these chapters are seen primarily by him as the occasion for new confrontations between Jesus and his disputants. These reflections present the moment in which the limited, self-satisfied standpoint of Christ's hearers must let itself be burst open into the unlimited, loving standpoint of the Lord. Some of the controversial discourses in this section of John's Gospel which von Speyr comments on include: The Multiplication of the Loaves; The Bread of Life; The Adulteress; The Man Born Blind; The Raising of Lazarus; The Good Shepherd, and The Entry into Jerusalem. The combination of the Scripture verses and von Speyr's moving meditations provide rich nourishment for prayer and spiritual reading. This series is particularly important because the spirituality of Saint John, the Apostle of Divine Love, was the central source of von Speyr's own spiritual life.

The Discourses of Controversy

John, Volume 2

ÊVon Speyr continues her wonderful reflections on the Gospel of John, concentrating here on The Farewell Discourses of Jesus, which reveal both the heart of John's Gospel and the Heart of Our Lord.

Meditations on John 13-17

The Farewell Discourses

A beautiful little book of brief meditations on the love of God by the Swiss spiritual writer, mystic and medical doctor von Speyr. These short lumina (or insights) are fruits of Adrienne's contemplative prayer that reflect her constant quest for an ever deeper union with God, a union of divine and human love that is shown in her life by her great compassion for others as seen in her tireless devotion to her many medical patients. She knew that in order to best serve others she must first serve and love God with all her heart, and thus her life and writings reveal the combination of a deep spiritual and practical approach to the meaning of love as seen in these wonderful, uplifting reflections that echo the inmost mystery of Christianity

Lumina and New Lumina

Contemporary mystic, physician, wife, cofounder of a secular institute, Adrienne von Speyr also provided us with a series of extraordinary Scripture commentaries. Here she brings her fresh, prayerful insights to bear upon immensely important themes of the Letter to the Colossians: the primacy of Christ in the cosmos as well as his centrality and abiding presence in the Church and in the life of each individual Christian; the meaning of reconciliation; the service of the apostle and his relationship to the community of believers; genuine and false knowledge; love as the binding force of social ethics and Christian morality-themes that only continue to increase in relevance in today's Church and world. With a sure touch and a distinctively feminine sensitivity, von Speyr explores, examines, and reflects-and in the process leaves us with food for thought and prayer, guidelines for discernment and action, and encouragement for our daily lives as disciples of Jesus Christ.

The Letter to the Colossians

The mystic Adrienne von Speyr, drawing on her very special God-given charism of being able to experience the interior states of persons, shares her profound insights on the suffering, loneliness and loss Christ endured for love of us during His Passion. These unique experiences and insights of von Speyr on Christ's redemptive sufferings, and the people and events surrounding Him, offer rich and moving material for meditation and adoration. She also presents rare and beautiful mediations on Christ's mysterious presence in the Eucharist, as well as a kind of "theology of the body," echoing John Paul II's emphasis on the dignity and importance of the human body in our relationship to God.

The Passion from Within

Hans Urs von Balthasar calls this "one of her most central works". She discusses the moral and practical aspects of the sacrament in great depth. Some of the many areas covered include conversion, scruples, contrition, spiritual direction, laxity, frequency of confession, the confessions of religious and lay people, even the confessions of saints. One of the most complete spiritual treatises ever written on confession.

Confession

Handmaid of the Lord

Adrienne von Speyr, a renowned mystic and spiritual writer from Switzerland, was received into the Catholic Church at the age of 38 on the Feast of All Saints, 1940, by one of the theological giants of the 20th century, Fr. Hans Urs von Balthasar. He became her spiritual director and confessor until her death in 1967 during which time Adrienne was favored with many gifts of authentic mystical prayer. Balthasar considered one of the central characteristics of Adrienne's prayer to be her transparency to the inspirations she received from God, along with a deep personal communion with the saints. Over a period of many years, Adrienne would see the saints (and other devout people) at prayer, and she would dictate what she saw to Fr.von Balthasar - while she was in a state of mystical prayer. Through a unique charism, she was able to put herself in the place of various individuals to see and describe their prayer, their whole attitude before God. Not all of her subjects are saints in the strict sense of the word, but all struggled, with varying degrees of success, to place their lives at the disposal of their Creator. This book presents these unique mystical insights into the prayer lives of many saints taken from Adrienne's direct visions of them in prayer. Among the long list of saints in this book are St. John the Apostle, St. Augustine, St. Francis, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Ignatius of Loyola, St. Teresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross, St. John Bosco, St. Bernadette, St. Dominic, St. Edith Stein and many, many more. In this powerful spiritual work, the reader is able to participate in the devotional and spiritual life of the Church throughout the centuries by learning how numerous saints and devout people prayed, thus reflecting on the timelessness and beauty of the prayer of the Church.

The nature of God is that he cannot be "bound" to one place or time -- yet he took finite form, when he became Man and redeemed the world. In this treatment on the nature of the Lord, Adrienne von Speyr's erudition allows the reader to glimpse the mystery of God. The fruitfulness of these meditations is evident on every page, bringing the Christian view of divinity to a new and beautiful level of understanding. Book jacket.

Adrienne von Speyr

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