With a few exceptions the following texts have been taken from works already edited and published in German by Fr. Josef Alt, SVD and Sr. Ortrud Stegmaier, SSpS (see footnotes and bibliography).

Notes and explanations are frequently based on their books, especially on Fr. Alt’s studies published in the Analecta SVD. Excerpts from letters of Arnold Janssen to the United States have been taken from the translations in Analecta SVD-74.

The purpose of the following text is to bring the reader closer to the persons who founded the Society of the Divine Word and co-founded the Missionary Sisters, Servants of the Holy Spirit by presenting excerpts from their letters.