Compassionate Presence

<p><span style=color: rgba(34 34 34 1)>In the ancient Christian Apostles' Creed we speak the fourth line that Jesus Christ suffered under Pontius Pilate was crucified died and was buried; he went down to the dead (</span><em style=color: rgba(34 34 34 1)>ad inferno</em><span style=color: rgba(34 34 34 1)>-to hell). This mysterious line of Christ's descent to hell generated a deep mystical spirituality in Adrienne von Speyr (d. 1967) a Swiss laywoman physician wife mother and spiritual writer. Her extensive speculative mysticism influenced the critical work of the Catholic theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar who had a profound influence on Catholic theology in the late twentieth-century and even today. In this book Matthew Lewis Sutton offers a profound encounter with Adrienne's mystical encounter with the inner life and intense love of the Trinity. This mystical spirituality of Holy Saturday-the day between Good Friday and Easter Sunday-guides us away from our age of loneliness isolation and alienation toward a new restoration of compassion love and reconciliation. The ancient Christian doctrine of Christ descended to hell can be a rediscovery of the extreme compassion of God to rescue us back to his compassionate presence.</span></p>