Ebook: The Letter to the Ephesians

The contemporary mystic and spiritual writer Von Speyr gives a verse by verse commentary on St. Paul's letter to the Ephesians that is the fruit of her own contemplative meditation and prayerful reflection. As with her other volumes of New Testament meditations, this one bears two distinctive features. First, her method of expressing the theological meaning of an enunciation is not merely to state the universal Christian truth, but also to characterize the particular angle of vision from which the sacred writer (St. Paul) sees it. Thus Paul's way of conceiving the content and life of faith, and the self-conscious role of the apostle in the economy of salvation accordingly stands out in bold relief. Secondly, Von Speyr always retraces the content of the words back to the source of revelation, which is the Trinity-she has an unremitting regress to the Triune God who occupies the central position in the whole of scriptural revelation, and is its one viewpoint and theme that must be heard for its own sake. Adrienne von Speyr was a contemporary Swiss convert, mystic, wife, medical doctor and author of some 70 books on spirituality and theology. She entered the Church under the direction of one the greatest theologians and spiritual writers of the 20th century, Fr. Hans Urs von Balthasar, who became her spiritual director and confessor for the last 30 years of her life. Her writings, recognized as a major contribution to the great mystical writings of the Church, are being translated and published by Ignatius Press. Among her most important works are Book of All Saints, Confession, The World of Prayer, Handmaid of the Lord, and The Passion from Within.