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10 The Trinitarian Origin of Prayer Prayer is a central part of von Speyr’s Trinitarian mysticism, because for her prayer is rooted in the Trinity itself. The central insight of her writings on prayer is that its basis is found wholly in the Trinitarian relations.1 Perhaps it is unexpected here to have a theological discussion of prayer as it has it origin in the Trinity. But prayer is a necessary theological locus. If theology is about the world of God and the world of God includes the world of prayer, then theology should include the world of prayer in its discussion of the world of God. When people begin to enter the world of God, they begin to discover that they are “entering the existent world of prayer.”2 The Father and Son send the Holy Spirit on a mission to “groan inwardly” in a person (Rom. 8:23) in order to insert the person into the center of the triune life of prayer. The Holy Spirit’s mission takes people into the eternal dialogue of triune prayer. The Trinity is the primordial archetype of prayer. For von Speyr, prayer “is a mysterious life with God, a participation in the center of his being and in his divine, triune love.”3 Prayer participates in the Trinitarian life of love. The prayer she speaks of is the highest form, contemplative prayer, which, as discussed in chapter 2, is complete union with God that is initiated by God.4 In contemplative prayer, there are no other words but the Word. The objective Word grows in the soul “until it takes charge entirely, until the meaning of God has become the meaning of life, until the soul has been refashioned totally into the handmaid of the Lord.”5 The objective Word of God takes over a person’s subjective word. Here, in contemplative prayer, “We are in the presence of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and in and through them we strive to 1. Von Balthasar, “Geleitwort,” in von Speyr, W, 5–6. 2. Von Speyr, W, 9. 3. Ibid., 7. 4. Ibid. 5. Ibid., 13. 225 become what the Father created us to be—his children.”6 Prayer’s center resides in the Trinity because in the Trinity is the foundational dialogue of prayer.7 Each Person of the Trinity relates to the others in an attitude of prayer. The Son looks to the Father in that attitude of expectation and fulfillment that characterizes prayer. The Son beholds the Father in contemplative love, trust, and expectation. The Father responds with beholding, loving, and fulfilling. The Holy Spirit wraps this eternal dialogue of exchange with the fire of its love while also being the eternally spirated fruit of this prayerful contemplation and action. With the incarnation and descent of the Spirit, creation is brought through the Son and the Spirit’s economic missions into the triune intimacy of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Son is constantly in prayerful interchange with the Father in the Holy Spirit. But the Son leaves the sphere of Trinitarian prayer: “The Son, as if detaching himself from the triune interchange in heaven, appears on earth to redeem it.”8 The Father sends the Son as “the entire substance of the divine interchange” in order to make known the divine, triune interchange.9 As the Word, the Son is their triune prayer and has come to teach humanity to pray: “Since he is the Word, he is also prayer, and as prayer he dwells in each of us and leads us through himself, the Word, to the Father.”10 The Son as the Word represents the Trinitarian prayer exchange, and the Father sends his Word to bring humanity into the triune interchange of prayer. Through the Son’s mission, all prayer becomes included in the prayer of the Word to the Father. Human prayer shares now in the triune God’s conversation dialogue of prayer. This contemplative state of prayer participating in the triune prayer includes being at the complete disposal of the triune God, “like a ball tossed from one Person to another in God.”11 The Son brings humanity into the Trinitarian prayer because as the Son he is completely disposed to the Father in the attitude of prayer. 6. Ibid., 15. 7. This insight into the Trinitarian origin of prayer is found mostly in her book Die Welt des Gebetes (The World of Prayer). In this, her longest book...

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