 At the age of nine she gave a talk to her classmates about the Jesuits, believing that an angel had told her "that the Jesuits were people who loved Jesus totally, and that the truth of God was greater than that of men, and as a result one could not always tell people everything exactly as one understands it in God".She later told Father von Balthasar that when she was six years old she had a mysterious encounter with St. Ignatius while walking up a steep street on Christmas Eve.In her secondary school years, von Speyr reproached her religious teacher for failing to discuss other religious beliefs, especially Catholic teachings.