Introduction to Adrienne von Speyr’s Work
With few exceptions, Adrienne von Speyr’s works originated either as dictations (the first of which date to ) or as points of meditation for a group of young women under her direction.1 All in all, her corpus runs to over 15, pages; most of them have been published in the Johannes Verlag, or Saint John Press, the publishing house founded mainly for Adrienne’s work. Her writings include a four-volume commentary on the Gospel of John, two volumes on the Book of Revelation, and one each on the Sermon on the Mount, Ephesians, and Philippians. There are also books on Our Lady, on the theology of prayer, and a whole range of other subjects: Romans 8, personalities of the Old Testament, God the Father, the divine infinity, the mystery of death, and the gates of eternal life (the openings to eternity created from the heart of time by grace and Revelation). We also have a short treatise on asceticism for consecrated people, a reflection on the ecclesial states of life, and commentaries on I Corinthians, on the Letter to the Colossians, on the Passion according to Matthew, on the Catholic Epistles, on large portions of Isaiah, and on a few of t
Work
Here’s an interactive map you can use to visualize the work of Hans Urs von Balthasar and Adrienne von Speyr, to discover the contents of individual writings, and to see what print and electronic editions of them are available in various languages.
Hans Urs von Balthasar
Adrienne von Speyr
On November 1st, , Adrienne entered the Catholic Church. Almost immediately, she began to receive a cascade of extraordinary graces. Most notable among them was a charism for interpreting the Word of God that found expression in numerous Scriptural commentaries dictated to, and published by, von Balthasar. These are works of classical simplicity and depth that are born of prayer and lead the reader back into its Trinitarian depths.
Vivian Dudro is Senior Editor at Ignatius Press and author of many articles, reviews, and columns for various Catholic publications, including the National Catholic Register, Catholic World Report, and Catholic San Francisco. She recently corresponded with Carl E. Olson, editor of Catholic World Report, about the life and work of Adrienne von Speyr (), who was a Swiss convert, mystic, wife, medical doctor, and author of over sixty books on spirituality and theology.
CWR: First, for those who might know little or nothing about Adrienne von Speyr, who died 50 years ago this year, what are some of the basic facts about her life and work?
Vivian Dudro: Adrienne von Speyr was one of the first female medical doctors in Switzerland. She had a thriving practice, where she saw between sixty and eighty patients a day and cared for the poor free of charge.
Although raised in a Protestant family, Adrienne was attracted to elements of the Catholic faith, even experienced aspects of the faith, I would say, from an early age. After the tragic death of her first husband, she suffered a crisis of faith and stopped praying the words “Thy will be done” in the Our Father. When she
Adrienne von Speyr
Even before her conversion, Adrienne had experienced serious heart problems, which were soon aggravated by severe diabetes. Her nights were almost entirely given over to suffering and prayer. Soon after her conversion, she was obliged to keep to her bed until around noon every day; she typically was unable to sleep until the early hours of the morning. (Nevertheless, the dictation of her writings and her work as co-foundress continued apace until at least ) Thanks to her habitual self-control, she generally managed to conceal her problems, heart and otherwise, from those around her. Nevertheless, she was eventually forced to see fewer patients and, as time went on, to give up her practice altogether. Thus began the long years of retirement in which she would spend her afternoons in silent prayer knitting intricate quilts. Once she began to lose her eyesight, she eventually had to stop knitting as well. Now almost totally blind, she sought to wrest a few letters from her long afternoons.
Adrienne displayed intensely persistent energy in her struggle with illness and suffering. She forced herself to descend the steep staircase to her work-room, even though s
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