Essay: "All That I am, I Owe to Her."

Published about 1 month ago • 4 min read

ALL THAT I AM, I OWE TO HER -

Hans Urs von Balthasar and Adrienne von Speyr

by Kristen West McGuire

Near the start of World War II, Jesuit Hans Urs von Balthasar was offered a choice: teach in Rome or serve as a student chaplain in Basel (Switzerland). The Swiss native chose to return to his homeland, which was surrounded by German troops.

During the summer of 1940, he was introduced to Dr. Adrienne von Speyr, the wife of Werner Kaegi, a history professor. She was recuperating after a serious heart attack. The potential convert had been unable to pray the “Our Father” since her first husband’s untimely death in 1934. Guided by Balthasar, she entered the Church months later on the Feast of All Saints. Balthasar became her spiritual director; she became the inspiration for the rest of his life’s work.

Her faith and prayer crashed into his life as if it were a tsunami. He later wrote of those early years, “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.” She received graces in prayer and visions, all documented at length by Balthasar in daily dictation sessions.

It was as if she had been waiting her whole life for a confessor who could direct such an intense whirlwind. An angel visited her before Lent 1941, informing her, “Now it will begin.” Every year afterward, she participated in the passion and death of Jesus Christ, including his interior sufferings, and even the stigmata.

The experiences were life altering for her and her confessor. Balthasar helped her to form the Community of St. John in 1945, composed of laywomen dedicated to the obedience and submission of St. John and the Blessed Mother standing at the foot of the cross. The group is still active today. Balthasar provided sacramental support to the group, but Adrienne von Speyr provided the spiritual direction.

In 1947, Balthasar set up a publishing house, Johannes Verlag, to publish Adrienne’s works. Even so, he had trouble receiving an imprimatur for the final volumes of her commentary on the book of John. Gossip flew about Basel regarding the earnest, scholarly Jesuit who visited Frau Kaegi daily for “dictation” and meditation. Further rumors flowed from her medical practice, where certain miraculous cures were attributed to her.

About the same time, Balthasar was supposed to make his solemn religious profession in the Jesuit order. He claimed that his work with Speyr was a divine mission, and insisted that the Jesuits recognize this mission by taking on responsibility for the Community of St. John. They refused. He pushed the case all the way to the Superior General in Rome, requesting a formal investigation into the veracity of Speyr’s visions, to no avail. Hans Urs von Balthasar reluctantly left the Jesuit order on February 11, 1950.

He moved to Zurich and threw himself into the tasks of writing and publishing for Johannes Verlag. To finance the books, he hit the lecture circuit. Although he was offered several professorships, he stubbornly refused. Adrienne von Speyr and her mission completely reconfigured his own assessment of his academic work. All the work of his younger years now was recast in the light of her insights.

He initially received priestly faculties from the diocesan bishop of Chur, Switzerland (Liechtenstein) and was incardinated in that diocese. In 1956, he moved in with the Kaegis, helping to care for Adrienne as her health worsened. In addition to her weak heart, she was diagnosed with both diabetes and arthritis. She was no longer able to see patients and spent her days praying, knitting and reading.

For Balthasar, the work churned on, despite his own struggles with phlebitis and later leukemia, which nearly killed him. Nevertheless, the first volume of his acclaimed Theological Aesthetics was published in 1961. The majority of his colleagues were working on the Second Vatican Council. As a “lapsed” Jesuit, he would receive no such invitation. He doggedly kept at his work on the Aesthetics, working next door to Adrienne’s sickroom.

She died in 1967 from cancer of the bowel. Balthasar had refrained from sharing many of the details of her passion with others. Now free from the constraint of her effacement, he published most of the books she had dictated, corroborating the depth of her contribution to his own theological work.

The members of the Community of St. John were in awe. They had had no idea of the spiritual depth of their foundress. For them, she had simply been a friend and mentor, a humble and quiet woman who suffered much from her illnesses. Her quiet, mystical influence will be felt in theological circles for generations, thanks to her friend, Hans.