In the present volume (subtitled Vocation and Asceticism), Adrienne von Speyr resituates Christian ascesis in the context of Christ’s call to discipleship. As Hans Urs von Balthasar writes in his foreword, “especially in its first part, the book understands ‘ascetical life’ to be a life called to undivided service, a life, therefore, shaped by the three evangelical counsels. At first, the book accompanies the young person very seriously and even maternally through the difficult time that leads from the call’s awakening in the soul to the great Decision and its realization. Each phase has its particular form of ascesis, always understanding the term here in the Christian sense of a reality that makes a claim on the total existence of a believing person and that derives wholly from God’s calling Word, never as the sum of particular ‘works’ or ‘achievements,’ although the call to ascetical life is always also a call to action.”