order my new book: compassionate presence

order my new book compassionate presence

Now available: my new book Compassionate Presence: The Trinitarian Spirituality of Adrienne von Speyr.

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 (ad inferno - 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.

Please order Compassionate Presence

new book soon

New Book coming out soon

My good friends, my new book is coming out soon. We’ve completed the final edits and now we are in the typesetting phase. Just a few more perfections need to be made to make this book a reality for you.

My thanks to Angelico Press and their team for bringing this book to reality. It has been a 5 year project and I’m so happy to see it so close to being in your hands.

new book manuscript - god alone

Good news. I just submitted my next book maunscript - God Alone: Meditations on Holy Saturday, Mercy, and Compassion. I'm so excited for you all to read it. 93,000 words of goodness.

Here's a few lines from the Preface:

This book is about compassion — true, authentic compassion. The book comes most immediately out of my involvement with a religious movement called Heart’s Home who have used the spirituality of Adrienne von Speyr (1902–1967) and Catherine Doherty (1896–1985) to serve the poorest of the poor through offering their compassionate presence. ... I believe that God alone has loved us to the utmost extent and God alone can save us. This book in eleven chapters seeks to make a complete sketch of a compassionate theology of Holy Saturday in which one theological moment will be used to interpret the most important aspects of Christianity with the hope that this theology makes Christianity relevant to you. Or, put differently, you will come to know the compassionate presence of Jesus Christ in your life.

The book will be available through Fortress Press, who published my previous book. We will have some work to do to bring it to you as soon as possible, but please keep praying and following here for news about when it is available. I can't wait for you to read it!

would you please share my book

Heaven Opens: The Trinitarian Mysticism of Adrienne von Speyr, my book is available.

“Sutton’s deep penetration into Adrienne’s mystical gifts offers an excellent introduction to her unique vision and also helps hit the ‘reveal codes’ button for von Balthasar’s theology.” - Rev. Raymond Gawronski, S.J.

I don’t write here to sell books, but do share what I create in my writing and teaching. My newest book captures the foundation of my theological and spiritual work as I develop the profound mysticism of Adrienne von Speyr. You can find out more about it here.

If you’ve read my book, would you please considering sharing it with others by reviewing it in journals or online?

“In this significant monograph, Sutton brings expositional clarity and conceptual rigor to the extensive textual legacy of Adrienne von Speyr. It is a real accomplishment.” Dr. Paul Nimmo

All your help sharing my book gives me support to work on the next book, which will be available soon. I can’t wait to share this new one with you.

“This book has the potential to do for Adrienne von Speyr’s theology what Father Edward Oakes’ Pattern of Redemption did for Hans Urs von Balthasar’s in the mid-1990s, in this case by accessibly introducing Adrienne to a generation of students and scholars.” Dr. Matthew Levering

Please read and share my book. You can find it in print and as an ebook. Thank you for caring to share these ideas.

lohfink on jesus

I loved using Gerhard Lohfink’s book, Jesus of Nazareth: What He Wanted, Who He Was, for teaching a thoroughly biblical Christology in my introductory Christianity course. In order to the teach this wonderful book, I developed several reading assignment sheets. Here they are:

Reading Comprehension Sheets:

1. Lohfink - Jesus - Chapter 1: Assignment 1
2. Lohfink - Jesus - Chapter 2: Assignment 2
3. Lohfink - Jesus - Chapter 3: Assignment 3
4. Lohfink - Jesus - Chapter 4: Assignment 4
5. Lohfink - Jesus - Chapter 5 - 6: Assignment 5
6. Lohfink - Jesus - Chapter 7: Assignment 6
7. Lohfink - Jesus - Chapter 8 - 9: Assignment 7
8. Lohfink - Jesus - Chapter 11 - 12: Assignment 8
9. Lohfink - Jesus - Chapter 13: Assignment 9
10. Lohfink - Jesus - Chapter 15: Assignment 10
11. Lohfink - Jesus - Chapter 16 - 17: Assignment 11
12. Lohfink - Jesus - Chapter 18: Assignment 12
13. Lohfink - Jesus - Chapter 19: Assignment 13
14. Lohfink - Jesus - Chapter 20: Assignment 14
15. Lohfink - Jesus - Chapter 21: Assignment 15

Gerard Lohfink, Jesus of Nazareth: What He Wanted, Who He Was, trans. Linda M. Maloney (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2012). ISBN: 978-0814683088. Paperback, Kindle.

lohfink on the church

I loved using Gerhard Lohfink’s book, Does God Need the Church?: Toward a Theology of the People of God, for teaching a thoroughly biblical Catholic theology of the Church. In order to the teach this wonderful book, I developed several reading assignment sheets. Here they are:

Reading Comprehension Sheets:

1. Lohfink - Need - pgs. vii - 26: Assignment 1
2. Lohfink - Need - pgs. 26 - 49: Assignment 2
3. Lohfink - Need - pgs. 50 - 74: Assignment 3
4. Lohfink - Need - pgs. 74 - 106: Assignment 4
5. Lohfink - Need - pgs. 106 - 120: Assignment 5
6. Lohfink - Need - pgs. 121 - 134: Assignment 6
7. Lohfink - Need - pgs. 134 - 150: Assignment 7
8. Lohfink - Need - pgs. 150 - 184: Assignment 8
9. Lohfink - Need - pgs. 184 - 201: Assignment 9
10. Lohfink - Need - pgs. 203 - 236: Assignment 10
11. Lohfink - Need - pgs. 236 - 264: Assignment 11
12. Lohfink - Need - pgs. 264 - 309: Assignment 12

Gerard Lohfink, Does God Need the Church?: Toward a Theology of the People of God, trans. Linda M. Maloney (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1999). ISBN: 0814659284. Paperback, Kindle.

review of heaven opens

The kind, Cyrus Olsen of the University of Scranton, reviews my book, Heaven Opens:

"The central thesis of the book is that the fulfilled mission of the Son opens heaven “to the Trinity and reveals the original image of the eternal, immanent relations of triune love”. Given that the bulk of von Speyr’s work is untranslated, Sutton’s study of the German and French renders a great service to the church and the academy in English-speaking contexts. ... Von Speyr needs an apologist capable of accounting for her analogical imagination if her trinitarian theology is to be taken more seriously today. ... Sutton may be poised to deliver an account."

Review PDF here. Citation: Cyrus P. Olsen, III (2014). Horizons, 41, pp 401-402 doi:10.1017/hor.2014.66

Buy my book on amazon or learn more here.

romance of the hobbit

The desire for romanticism draws us to The Hobbit.

I believe the attraction to it is because of its simplistic yet enthralling plot. Its hero, Bilbo shows tremendous courage even though he is humbly three feet tall.

The Hobbit, as far as the plot is concerned, is simplistic, which is common in romantic literature. Other romantic literature of this nature would be Beowulf and of course King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table. Here we see a simplistic meta-narrative of good versus evil. The simplicity captivates toward a clearly defined journey through goblin-filled paths, evil-possessed forests, and finally dragon-filled mountains where we will meet the breather of hellfire, the great Smaug.

The plot orients toward the quest -- to be in the good to overcome the evil. In this tale, our Bilbo is presented with the decision to be for the Good before asking to be an adventurer against the Evil. He must be a problem-solver before he has even decided if he wants to solve problems. He must become the ring-bearer before he even wants a ring.

Romantic literature is attractive because it's aspirational. Bilbo as a hero strikes us because he is a non-hero archetype. Unlike more common heroes like Beowulf (strength-conqueror) or Arthur (king-conqueror), we aspire to be Bilbo because of his heart. It is rightly large even though his stature is not. In Beowulf, we cling to the strongest man of the British Isles and in Arthur, we cling to the greatest leader to walk the hill fields of England.

But Bilbo attracts through is non-heroic heroism. The dwarves are the brave, strong ones. Gandalf is the wise, all-knowing one. Yet, the entire journey's success is dependent upon the heroism of being clever, short, and lucky.

Short always wins.

But perhaps The Hobbit is not so different of a romance. Let's look at Beowulf. This book obviously has good battling evil. Our great and strong hero battles the evil terrorizing monster, Grendel. And Beowulf defeats Grendel, yet the surprise is that the defeat of Grendel's mother happens through a dual sacrifice of his paternal love for his countrymen and her motherly love for her monstrous son.

Sacrificial smallness always wins.

In the Arthurian legends, the King rallies his knights in the exterior and interior battle against the temptations delivered by the quasi-evil Morgana. As in the other romances, our hero, King Arthur, defeats through sacrifice of his humble (almost un-royal) suffering by a deference toward other better knights.

Nevertheless, let us go back to the unfortunate moment. Smaug, the great lizard of Middle Earth, is defeated by the right-hearted Bilbo. What cannot happen, happens. Bilbo cannot win, but Bilbo wins. He sacrifices everything and therefore wins everything.

As we read these fairy tales, we feel a warming in our hearts as if we are falling in love again with the idea that sacrifice matters more than self. The greatness of romance literature is that it is the humanistic manifestation of our human attempt to transcend humanity. And so we should come to a judgment: The Hobbit guides us over a mystic land of Elves, Dwarves, Goblins, Shape-Changers, and Wizards to bring us a little more closer to romancing the heart toward the hobbit, the small one.

And what's wrong with a little more romancing the hobbit?

This is a slightly adapted essay from my high school days. Not bad.

turning points

Mark Noll on Christianity

I loved using Mark Knoll’s book, Turning Points, for teaching the significant dates of the history of Christianity. I don’t use it any more for various reasons including curriculum changes with our intro to Christianity course. Still, I loved it and here are my reading assignment sheets for it:

Introduction: Assignment 1

Chapter 1 and 2 (Dates: 70 and 352): Assignment 2

Chapter 3 and 4 (Dates: 451 and 530): Assignment 3

Chapter 5 and 6 (Dates: 800 and 1054): Assignment 4

Chapter 7 and 8 (Dates: 1520 and 1534): Assignment 5

Chapter 9 (Dates: 1540): Assignment 6

Chapter 10 and 11 (Dates: 1738 and 1789): Assignment 7

Chapter 12 - 13 and Afterward (Dates: 1910 and 1962-65): Assignment 8

why are we reading this

Your professor (that’s me) has assigned you several required books because he thinks they will guide you to your goal to be a young intellectual and wisdom professional.

Some speak about this current age as the Information Age because so much information is accessible to so many people. Something new has happened in the history of humanity. Time was, one would need to undergo heroic tasks to acquire the information that is now so readily available to you on your phone, wrist, or glasses. There is something great here for the future of humanity, but most use this Information Age to access stupid information. You know what I’m talking about. Now you know, but did you really need to know?

Your educational path with me means that I hope to train you in becoming a wisdom professional — accessing the galactic nebulae of information, guiding them into sun-forming knowledge (something that you know and that’s not just accessible to you) and then transforming it a proper solar system of wisdom (knowledge that now guides you toward being a better you and guides our culture to being a better culture).

That’s me — forming your mind into a solar system — and that’s why we are reading this.