Adrienne von Speyr

“There were many mystical phenomena in Adrienne's life—stigmata, transferences, the radiating of light, levitation, speaking with tongues, and other things of that kind, but they all occurred in a totally unemphatic way. They were mere accompaniments to show forth the heart of the matter: what was to be passed on to the Church, invisibly through prayer and strenuous penance, visibly through the dictated works. The criterion of her mysticism's authenticity lies primarily, if not exclusively, in the quality of what she did and what she had and has to say.”

“Adrienne von Speyr has brought mysticism back from the clandestine existence into which, increasingly misunderstood, indeed scorned, it had been exiled and silenced by official theology and proclamation and has returned it to the center of salvation history.”

“The Lord gives his whole innocent spirit to the Father and keeps only our own sinful spirit back for himself. In this way he can carry sin as if he himself had committed it.”

“There is an intensification of negative force at work in the apostate. He resembles a man who works swiftly and surely to erect a wall in order to make the Lord's image, which he knows exactly, disappear and become unrecognizable behind it.”

“If there had been no Judas, Peter would be the great betrayer. It is only because he stands in the framework of a still greater betrayal that we find a thousand excuses for him and for the faults of the Church continuing and occurring over and over again.”

“Suffering without faith would be like love without hope.”

“The ability to suffer and the ability to love are one.”

“When we sin, we think we are geniuses; when we confess, we know we are idiots.”

“If there were just one possibility—either to do the good or to combat evil—man would have to opt for the first.”

“The sins of others can never become the measure of your own.”

“There is already so much grace in a Christian body. Can you imagine how much grace there is in a soul?”

“Once a scientific question is settled, it remains interesting and alive only if it draws attention to new questions; every conclusion is meant as a transition to a new beginning.”

“Whoever wants to love is better knowing nothing than too much.”

“Christian hope is a vessel in which faith lives; love carries it.”

“Only faith can keep what hope promises.”

“The first step in learning to love others is the attempt to understand them.”

“Ultimate audacity: to want to love a person—to say nothing of one's neighbor!—as God loves him.”

“When we make our own calculations, we need so many numbers and factors that any mistake is possible. The Lord's calculation boils down to love.”

“It became increasingly evident to me that God ordains times of illness so that they can be a time of inner recollection for those who are afflicted by them, an opportunity to recognize better what is going wrong in their lives, to take stock of their daily lives from the distant perspective of a hospital stay, to gain a clearer view of their problems and thereby become better able to master them. To this end discussion is important, which means that the physician ought to be a person of prayer who always has at hand a full supply of possibilities to help.”

“To me, it was not at all disagreeable to be treated as a precious, unique being, because I belonged to God.”