possess this “genius” and a mission to promote the God-given potential in each person. The “Tabor vision”
concept allows us to understand the charism of “spiritual motherhood” in both married and celibate life.
A rich example of the universal call women possess to conceive and inspire is the collaboration of
Balthasar and Adrienne von Speyr. They shared a common theological mission. Speyr was a married
woman, physician, and mystic. He was her spiritual director, while she was the inspiration for his
theological perspective. He said, “on the whole I received far more from her, theologically, than she from
me.”23 Together their theological contribution is profound.
Like Balthasar, Speyr affirms the fruitfulness of
“dialog” in all states of life. Balthasar uses the
phrase “indifferent readiness” to describe the
receptivity required to reveal the truth respecting the
mystery of the other. Speyr prefers the term surrender.
She likens the relationship between man and woman
to the relationship found in the Trinity, three distinct
persons and yet always unity. Speyr confirms this
Adrienne von Speyr
likeness when she writes in her work Theologic der
Geschlechter, as quoted by Balthasar scholar
Michele M. Schumacher, “the 'opposition' of man and woman within both the married and consecrated
states of life 'leads into the circulation of Trinitarian love' so as to draw upon the infinite fecundity of
23
Hans Urs von Balthasar, First Glance at Adrienne Von Speyr, trans. Sister Mary Theresilde Skerry (San Francisco:
Ignatius Press, 1981), 13.
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