A German mystic and Dominican friar, he was influenced by Meister Eckhart, “whose writings he defended against charges of heresy…He emphasized detachment rather than mortification for his Christian practice and wrote in the literary romantic cult of the minnesingers. He was known as Sweet Suso as a result from his writings which include Das Büchlein Der Ewigen Weisheit [The Little Book Of Eternal Wisdom], an autobiography and a guide to beginners in the spiritual life; and Das Minnebüchlein (The Little Book Of Love).

“And whatsoever he shall ask in my name, that I will do” (14.13).

Suso writes of a soul that inquires what God gives to those who struggle spiritually towards the highest goal. The answer is “that at the highest stage of all, God gives them the three gifts of wish-power, peace, and union with God.” This wish-power “is to be understood in the sense that the human being has struggled through to a grasp of the cosmic laws that flow creatively through the world out of the being of God, so that all the wishes he has rising out of such a union cannot but be in harmony with these laws. It is an active knowing, it is creative, and that is able to bring an event about because it is in line with the forces of the true cosmic order. That is our wish. In the sense of St. John’s Gospel, it means asking for something in the name of Christ.”