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First Glance at Adrienne Von Speyr
A personal introduction to Adrienne von Speyr, a contemporary Swiss convert, mystic, wife, medical doctor, author, and co-foundress of a secular institute. Von Balthasar was the spiritual director of von Speyr for almost thirty years as she progressed in the life of grace. She helped him to found the Community of Saint John, an international secular institute, and she wrote more than sixty books on various topics, including prayer, Scripture, sacraments, and saints, which continue to bear fruit for those seeking to deepen their understanding of Catholic spirituality and theology.
This book contains three main sections. The first includes a short account of Adrienne's life, which describes her childhood, conversion, and mission; an analysis of her most important theological concerns; and an overview of her published and unpublished works. The second is a collection of enlightening statements that Adrienne made about herself, which illuminate both her exterior and interior life. The third section contains prayers that she herself wrote, which best reveal her spirit.
This book contains three main sections. The first includes a short account of Adrienne's life, which describes her childhood, conversion, and mission; an analysis of her most important theological concerns; and an overview of her published and unpublished works. The second is a collection of enlightening statements that Adrienne made about herself, which illuminate both her exterior and interior life. The third section contains prayers that she herself wrote, which best reveal her spirit.
249 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1968
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66 people want to read
About the author
Hans Urs von Balthasar
436 books314 followersHans Urs von Balthasar was a Swiss theologian and priest who was nominated to be a cardinal of the Catholic Church. He is considered one of the most important theologians of the 20th century.
Born in Lucerne, Switzerland on 12 August 1905, he attended Stella Matutina (Jesuit school) in Feldkirch, Austria. He studied in Vienna, Berlin and Zurich, gaining a doctorate in German literature. He joined the Jesuits in 1929, and was ordained in 1936. He worked in Basel as a student chaplain. In 1950 he left the Jesuit order, feeling that God had called him to found a Secular Institute, a lay form of consecrated life that sought to work for the sanctification of the world especially from within. He joined the diocese of Chur. From the low point of being banned from teaching, his reputation eventually rose to the extent that John Paul II asked him to be a cardinal in 1988. However he died in his home in Basel on 26 June 1988, two days before the ceremony. Balthasar was interred in the Hofkirche cemetery in Lucern.
Along with Karl Rahner and Bernard Lonergan, Balthasar sought to offer an intellectual, faithful response to Western modernism. 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 challenge modern sensibilities.
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, of whose work he wrote the first Catholic analysis and response. Although Balthasar's major points of analysis on Karl Barth's work have been disputed, his The Theology of Karl Barth: Exposition and Interpretation (1951) remains a classic work for its sensitivity and insight; Karl Barth himself agreed with its analysis of his own theological enterprise, calling it the best book on his own theology.
Balthasar's Theological Dramatic Theory has influenced the work of Raymund Schwager.
Born in Lucerne, Switzerland on 12 August 1905, he attended Stella Matutina (Jesuit school) in Feldkirch, Austria. He studied in Vienna, Berlin and Zurich, gaining a doctorate in German literature. He joined the Jesuits in 1929, and was ordained in 1936. He worked in Basel as a student chaplain. In 1950 he left the Jesuit order, feeling that God had called him to found a Secular Institute, a lay form of consecrated life that sought to work for the sanctification of the world especially from within. He joined the diocese of Chur. From the low point of being banned from teaching, his reputation eventually rose to the extent that John Paul II asked him to be a cardinal in 1988. However he died in his home in Basel on 26 June 1988, two days before the ceremony. Balthasar was interred in the Hofkirche cemetery in Lucern.
Along with Karl Rahner and Bernard Lonergan, Balthasar sought to offer an intellectual, faithful response to Western modernism. 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 challenge modern sensibilities.
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, of whose work he wrote the first Catholic analysis and response. Although Balthasar's major points of analysis on Karl Barth's work have been disputed, his The Theology of Karl Barth: Exposition and Interpretation (1951) remains a classic work for its sensitivity and insight; Karl Barth himself agreed with its analysis of his own theological enterprise, calling it the best book on his own theology.
Balthasar's Theological Dramatic Theory has influenced the work of Raymund Schwager.
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March 5, 2023
AN ‘EYEWITNESS ACCOUNT’ (AND A ‘PERSONAL’ ONE)
Author and theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar wrote in the Foreword to this 1968 book, “This book is an eyewitness account. It describes that I experienced in twenty-seven years of close collaboration with Adrienne von Speyr. More than fifteen years of those years we lived under the same roof. It is a very summary portrayal---truly just a ‘first glance’---based on a large collection of unpublished records. It is … intended … as a source of objective information… Although at the time of Adrienne’s death thirty-seven of her books were in print… up to now no one has taken serious notice of her writings…. A word about our relationship. When, in 1940, I have her instruction in the faith, I found that … she immediately and directly recognized them as valid and true for her. For thirty-eight years she had … groped her way toward them in darkness… so that the outline of Catholic truth was, as it were, hollowed out in her like the interior of a mold.” (Pg. 11-12)
Turning to her life, he states, “From the day on which she had the vision of the Moter of God, Adrienne had a small wound under the left breast, over the heart. She did not reflect on it, she merely knew; it was a sign that physically she belonged to God, a wonderful, indisputable secret.” (Pg. 28-29)
She met Emil Dürr, a history professor, and “she accepted his proposal [of marriage] out of sympathy for the thoroughly good man and his children. At the time the physical aspects of marriage were distressing and somewhat strange to her, but with the years she came to love her husband very much so that his sudden death in 1934 … affected her terribly.” (Pg. 29)
He recalls that “About the fall of 1940 (I began serving as student chaplain … at the beginning of that year), when Adrienne had returned from the hospital after a severe heart attack… She gathered up enough courage to tell me that she … would like to become a Catholic… Adrienne seemed to be freed from chains of restraint and was carried away on a flood of prayer as though a dam had burst.” (Pg. 31)
He continues, “Immediately after her conversion, a veritable cataract of mystical graces poured over Adrienne in a seemingly chaotic storm that whirled her in all directions at once. Graces n prayer above all: she was transported beyond all vocal prayer or self-directed meditation upon God in order to be set down somewhere after an indefinite time with new understanding, new love and new resolutions.” (Pg. 33)
He explains, “For her prayer was always universal, catholic: prayer for all the concerns of the Kingdom of God, and an offering of self for the needs of this Kingdom. She loved the word and the reality of ‘anonymity’: to let one’s being be absorbed namelessly in the universal; she loved the word and the reality of ‘being available,’ a expression which appears repeatedly in her books.” (Pg. 39)
He reports, “From the mid-fifties on, her weakness was so great that it was always necessary to consider the possibility of death; no physician cold understand how she could still be alive at all.” (Pg. 44) “The last months in bed were a continuous, merciless torture, which she bore with equanimity, always concerned about the others and constantly apologetic about causing me so much trouble.” (Pg. 46)
He states, “A foremost characteristic… was her basic JOYOUSNESS, her cheerful nature… The second and perhaps most important characteristic was her COURAGE. She did not have to struggle to acquire it, it was given to her from the first, ready to use… The third characteristic is that all her life she was and remained a CHILD… She was full of childhood remembrances… She possessed a specifically childlike clear-sightedness for the essential character of other adults.” (Pg. 47-49)
He says, “Adrienne’s mission for the Church of today is essentially one of revitalizing (personal as well as community) prayer. A particularly beautiful part of her mission consisted in making the ‘World of Prayer’ come alive for us not only in abstract phrases but in concrete images. Insight into the prayer life of numerous saints was granted to Adrienne.” (Pg. 71-72)
He says of the wound on her breast, “She perceived this as a mysterious seal, a reminder and a promise…. Other stigmata were at times manifested along with it. Even if much of these bodily manifestations of Adrienne was at the time and will forever remain mysterious, it is certain that she was chosen not only to understand spiritually the truths of Christian revelation, or to live them in a spiritual-mystical way, but also to experience them in her total existence, even bodily.”
(Pg. 94)
He then reproduces numerous statements she made about herself, as well as many of her prayers.
In the final chapter, he explains, “It is here that an explanation will be found for one aspect in the life and thought of Adrienne von Speyr which much have become painfully conspicuous to many a reader of this book: her animosity toward and decided rejection of the Protestant forms of Christianity from early youth on. While as a child, knowing nothing of Catholicism, she could only say that something was not right… For Adrienne, the full import of the Incarnation implied the theological relevance of the relationship of mother and child… and likewise the theological, Christological relevance of incarnational Christian obedience, which is possible only through the Catholic understanding of the office of authority…. Has the true concern of Luther and the Reformation not been taken into the womb of the Church in this charism and in fact in such a way that the so-called Catholic excesses… prove to be legitimate, indeed quite essential, evangelical concerns rising directly from listening to the Word of God? It is not without reason that Adrienne von Speyr had a very friendly association with Grandchamp (the feminine counterpart of Taizé).” (Pg. 247-248)
This book will be of great interest to anyone studying Adrienne von Speyr.
Author and theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar wrote in the Foreword to this 1968 book, “This book is an eyewitness account. It describes that I experienced in twenty-seven years of close collaboration with Adrienne von Speyr. More than fifteen years of those years we lived under the same roof. It is a very summary portrayal---truly just a ‘first glance’---based on a large collection of unpublished records. It is … intended … as a source of objective information… Although at the time of Adrienne’s death thirty-seven of her books were in print… up to now no one has taken serious notice of her writings…. A word about our relationship. When, in 1940, I have her instruction in the faith, I found that … she immediately and directly recognized them as valid and true for her. For thirty-eight years she had … groped her way toward them in darkness… so that the outline of Catholic truth was, as it were, hollowed out in her like the interior of a mold.” (Pg. 11-12)
Turning to her life, he states, “From the day on which she had the vision of the Moter of God, Adrienne had a small wound under the left breast, over the heart. She did not reflect on it, she merely knew; it was a sign that physically she belonged to God, a wonderful, indisputable secret.” (Pg. 28-29)
She met Emil Dürr, a history professor, and “she accepted his proposal [of marriage] out of sympathy for the thoroughly good man and his children. At the time the physical aspects of marriage were distressing and somewhat strange to her, but with the years she came to love her husband very much so that his sudden death in 1934 … affected her terribly.” (Pg. 29)
He recalls that “About the fall of 1940 (I began serving as student chaplain … at the beginning of that year), when Adrienne had returned from the hospital after a severe heart attack… She gathered up enough courage to tell me that she … would like to become a Catholic… Adrienne seemed to be freed from chains of restraint and was carried away on a flood of prayer as though a dam had burst.” (Pg. 31)
He continues, “Immediately after her conversion, a veritable cataract of mystical graces poured over Adrienne in a seemingly chaotic storm that whirled her in all directions at once. Graces n prayer above all: she was transported beyond all vocal prayer or self-directed meditation upon God in order to be set down somewhere after an indefinite time with new understanding, new love and new resolutions.” (Pg. 33)
He explains, “For her prayer was always universal, catholic: prayer for all the concerns of the Kingdom of God, and an offering of self for the needs of this Kingdom. She loved the word and the reality of ‘anonymity’: to let one’s being be absorbed namelessly in the universal; she loved the word and the reality of ‘being available,’ a expression which appears repeatedly in her books.” (Pg. 39)
He reports, “From the mid-fifties on, her weakness was so great that it was always necessary to consider the possibility of death; no physician cold understand how she could still be alive at all.” (Pg. 44) “The last months in bed were a continuous, merciless torture, which she bore with equanimity, always concerned about the others and constantly apologetic about causing me so much trouble.” (Pg. 46)
He states, “A foremost characteristic… was her basic JOYOUSNESS, her cheerful nature… The second and perhaps most important characteristic was her COURAGE. She did not have to struggle to acquire it, it was given to her from the first, ready to use… The third characteristic is that all her life she was and remained a CHILD… She was full of childhood remembrances… She possessed a specifically childlike clear-sightedness for the essential character of other adults.” (Pg. 47-49)
He says, “Adrienne’s mission for the Church of today is essentially one of revitalizing (personal as well as community) prayer. A particularly beautiful part of her mission consisted in making the ‘World of Prayer’ come alive for us not only in abstract phrases but in concrete images. Insight into the prayer life of numerous saints was granted to Adrienne.” (Pg. 71-72)
He says of the wound on her breast, “She perceived this as a mysterious seal, a reminder and a promise…. Other stigmata were at times manifested along with it. Even if much of these bodily manifestations of Adrienne was at the time and will forever remain mysterious, it is certain that she was chosen not only to understand spiritually the truths of Christian revelation, or to live them in a spiritual-mystical way, but also to experience them in her total existence, even bodily.”
(Pg. 94)
He then reproduces numerous statements she made about herself, as well as many of her prayers.
In the final chapter, he explains, “It is here that an explanation will be found for one aspect in the life and thought of Adrienne von Speyr which much have become painfully conspicuous to many a reader of this book: her animosity toward and decided rejection of the Protestant forms of Christianity from early youth on. While as a child, knowing nothing of Catholicism, she could only say that something was not right… For Adrienne, the full import of the Incarnation implied the theological relevance of the relationship of mother and child… and likewise the theological, Christological relevance of incarnational Christian obedience, which is possible only through the Catholic understanding of the office of authority…. Has the true concern of Luther and the Reformation not been taken into the womb of the Church in this charism and in fact in such a way that the so-called Catholic excesses… prove to be legitimate, indeed quite essential, evangelical concerns rising directly from listening to the Word of God? It is not without reason that Adrienne von Speyr had a very friendly association with Grandchamp (the feminine counterpart of Taizé).” (Pg. 247-248)
This book will be of great interest to anyone studying Adrienne von Speyr.
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