The Passion from Within / Adrienne von Speyr

The mystic Adrienne von Speyr, drawing on her very special God-given charism of being able to experience the interior states of persons, shares her profound insights on the suffering, loneliness and loss Christ endured for love of us during His Passion. These unique experiences and insights of von Speyr on Christ's redemptive sufferings, and the people and events surrounding Him, offer rich and moving material for meditation and adoration. She also presents rare and beautiful mediations on Christ's mysterious presence in the Eucharist, as well as a kind of "theology of the body", echoing John Paul II's emphasis on the dignity and importance of the human body in our relationship to God.

"Here is a profoundly riveting account of the Lord's Passion, written not from the reportorial perspective of one standing outside the Event, but seen and felt from within that terrifying abyss of loneliness and loss Christ entered for the world's salvation. Adrienne von Speyr possesses so lively an awareness of the 'always more' aspect of Christ's merciful love that one is frequently reminded of St. Therese of Lisieux. The chapters on Christ's Eucharistic surrender are absolutely stunning, a tapestry of inspired mystic color, deeply consoling in its effects."
— Regis Martin, S.T.D., Author, The Last Things

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.