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11 “Lift Up Your Heads, O Gates” In Adrienne von Speyr’s Trinitarian mysticism, we have a theology of the Trinity where the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are truly alive in dynamic relations of love with each other and the world. Von Speyr’s vision of the Trinity presents God not as a static monad but as a full perichoretic, triune interchange of divine being and love. Her vision is so charged with the life of the Trinity that it will be abundantly fruitful for theology and the church. I am convinced that the twenty-first century should not ignore this twentiethcentury doctor and mystic. There are many challenging and overwhelming things in von Speyr’s Trinitarian mysticism, and this is the way it should be. In this book, I have attempted not to explain them away, but to present them in their full force. The disquieting nature of her mysticism should not make us fearful of encountering her ideas. She challenges, much as Hamlet challenged Horatio: There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.1 When I read von Speyr’s works, I too am overwhelmed, but as a Trinitarian theologian, I must account for her vision of the Trinity, especially since she has captivated important figures of the twentieth century. In this book, I have attempted to present her disquieting Trinitarian mysticism for the twenty-first century. If this third millennium needs anything, it will be the Trinity.2 This conclusion will give an overview of the book and assessment of what has been accomplished. Finally, I will offer a few thoughts about what you can take away from this study of von Speyr’s thought. 1. William Shakespeare, Hamlet, ed. G. R. Hibbard (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), act I, scene V, 174–75. 2. John Paul II, Tertio Millenio Adveniente (Boston: Pauline Books, 1994), § 55. 235 I. Overview of the Theological Study of Adrienne von Speyr This book has attempted to gather what von Speyr says about the Trinity, integrate it into its central themes, and interpret its significance for Catholic Trinitarian theology. Von Speyr’s vision is vast, and it calls for one to have a strong grasp at the center in order to understand the whole. We saw that this center was the Trinity and have attempted to grasp it. The central thesis articulates von Speyr’s vision of the Trinity. According to the Trinitarian mysticism (Mystik) of von Speyr, the gate of heaven opens to the Trinity and reveals the original image (Urbild) of the eternal, immanent relations of triune love. The gate of heaven is opened by the Father in the mission (Sendung) of the Son to be the incarnate Word of obedience (Gehorsam). Together they have sent the Holy Spirit to be like a religious rule (Ordensregel) accompanying the obedience of the Son and the disciple. The open heaven reveals that the Trinity is the original source (Ursprung) of the sacraments and prayer, inserting the human through the gate of heaven into the inner love of the Trinity. The first chapter provided a firm foundation for the rest of the book by giving a short biography and survey of her works and style as well as a history of research. The second and third chapters offered von Speyr’s theory of mysticism (Mystik). Mysticism was defined as an opening of heaven to the mystic of the Son’s vision of the Father in the Holy Spirit. For von Speyr, mysticism is part of the Christian journey that begins in faith and ends in vision and contemplation. Christians will receive the vision of the Trinity either in the eternal life as the beatific vision or in this life as a mystical vision. Contemplation was understood as a beholding and being beheld in which one’s spiritual sense is freed from darkness and is brought into the light. With von Speyr’s distinction between objective and subjective mysticism, we saw that the mystic’s subjective word must be broadened out to the Father’s objective Word. All of this mysticism is a gift of God’s grace that requires an asceticism of clearing away one’s subjectivity in order to assent to the objectivity of God. In relationship to Christian revelation, mysticism is essential to both Scripture and tradition in which the drama of God is played out as God draws Israel and the church out of their subjective word and into God’s...

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