Adrienne von Speyr: Quotes about God

Adrienne von Speyr was Swiss doctor and mystic. Explore interesting quotes on god.
Adrienne von Speyr: 48 quotes3 likes

“[About Edith Stein] I see her groping, wonder-filled prayer, which in the beginning resembles a conversation she is conducting with herself and is very managed. It is half like a question she puts to herself without knowing exactly what she means; it may be that the step she takes does not need to be completed by her; the question does not need to be perfectly articulated; perhaps God would be able to intervene in the middle of her step, in order to make his presence known and answer her question in a much more profound way than she herself would have expected or even would have been capable of expecting. And God truly answers. She prays more and more and finally receives a victorious certainty and rejoices. From this moment of victorious certainty on, everything is perfectly simple and unambiguous. She will follow the path God shows to her; she belongs to him; she has rediscovered her childlike cheerfulness, which has increased and become clearly manifest through love and faith.”

Adrienne von Speyr

Book of All Saints (1966)

“[About Mozart] In relation to God he is like a child who brings everything to his father: the stones from the street and peculiar sticks and little plants and even once a ladybug; and with him all of these things are melodies, melodies that he brings to God, melodies that he suddenly knows when he is inside of prayer. And when he has finished praying, and he is no longer on his knees and no longer has his hands folded, then he sits there at the piano, or he sings with an incredible childlikeness, and in doing so he no longer has any idea whether he is playing something for God or whether it is God who is using him to play something at once for himself and for Mozart. There is a great conversation between Mozart and God that is the purest prayer, and this entire conversation is nothing but music.”

Adrienne von Speyr

Book of All Saints (1966)

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

Adrienne von Speyr

Source: Lumina and New Lumina (1969), p. 15

“[About Francis of Assisi] I saw St. Francis at first in his old age, at prayer and sickly, of an indescribable cheerfulness and purity and humility. Everything in him, everything that constituted his life, all his difficulties, are now transfigured and have become translucent. And this happened through prayer. The things that occupy him no longer contain anything at all that is purely personal, not a trace of annoyance or injury or resentment for the unjust things inflicted on him. God alone is left, as well as perfect service in the indescribable happiness of one who serves and in uninterrupted contemplation.”

Adrienne von Speyr

Book of All Saints (1966)

“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.”

Adrienne von Speyr

The Neergard Affair, p. 357
My Early Years (1968)

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

Adrienne von Speyr

Interlude on the Plains, p. 200
My Early Years (1968)