God's Love and the Mystic Mindset
We are all called to be mystics, to reach for God and allow Him to find us.
20th century theologian Karl Rahner believed that mysticism is natural to all people, and I agree. The mystical mindset is the true state of our beinghood, often unrealized and undeveloped, yet still within our inherent capacity as human beings. Because we are made in the image of God and have been created by a Supernatural Source, the ability to transcend the bonds of what we usually perceive as “normality” and enter the realm of the mystic is available to us all.
“It is in everybody, and if we could see it we would see these billions of points of light coming together in the face and blaze of a sun that would make all darkness and cruelty of life vanish completely ... I have no program for this seeing. It is only given. But the gate of heaven is everywhere.”
(Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander)
Through the breathtaking array of the gifts of the Holy Spirit — manifesting in ways as diverse and unique as our very selves — we come to realize that indeed, we can open our spiritual selves to ever-more increasing graces. We become subdued and imbued, released and bound, infiltrated and freed. Not all of us are given the fantastical gifts which we often read about in the lives of the medieval mystics, yet we can all develop a mystical ear and a spiritual eye to help us become better attuned to the everyday presence of the Holy Spirit. Living in a mystical way means viewing the world through this spiritual lens, which helps us to see and know the Truth of God.
Despite some popular beliefs, mysticism isn’t defined by otherworldly experiences. We certainly find such things as miracles, prophecy and intuitive insights among many, if not most, written accounts of the saints and mystics. In the Middle Ages, an entire literary genre called hagiography was created to prove the sanctity of a person, often with the goal of canonization.
An excellent example of an author who excelled in this form of writing is Raimondo of Capua, a 14th century Italian Dominican priest who wrote about the lives of two prominent mystics of his day – Agnesa of Montepulciano and Caterina of Siena. In both works we read about miracles, visions and ecstasies, so it’s easy to see where the idea of mysticism has been misinterpreted.
These occurrences are so astounding that it’s easy to focus on them rather than on the interior world of the mystic herself, yet that is where true mysticism lies – not in miracles or extraordinary phenomena, but within the interior graces which an individual receives through prayer, surrender to God and contemplation. These graces change the entire outlook of a mystic; the interior becomes exterior, spilling outward toward others in a peaceful, contented flow.
True mysticism isn’t about seeking ecstasies or supernatural consolations, “because authentic visions and revelations are not dependent on us, do not happen when we want them, and could be illusions ...” as Giacinto D’Urso points out in his book, Catherine of Siena: Notes on Her Life and Teaching.
13th century Italian mystic Angela of Foligno wrote in her Instructions:
Do not pay attention to exterior signs, because they are not always true. There is a love which can be demonstrated by signs, and a love which cannot be demonstrated by signs ... become infused with the love that is totally inexpressible, the love that has no exterior signs.
St. Caterina of Siena wrote something similar in her Dialogue. Communing with God, she heard Him reveal:
If their desire and searching is fixed only on consolations and visions, then they will fall into spiritual bitterness and weariness when they find themselves deprived of these. They think they have lost grace when sometimes I withdraw from their mind. Now I do often grant my servants consolations and visions. But I have told you how I go away from the soul and then return. I go away in feeling only, not in grace, and this to bring the soul to perfection. But this plunges these souls into bitterness, and it seems to them that they are in hell, when they feel themselves cut off from pleasure and they feel the pains and torments of temptation.
The heart of mysticism is the heart of love, not of consolations. A mystic is so deeply in love with God that this engulfing experience is all she can feel; deep within it flares outward in ever greater waves, touching and reaching, embracing the Godhead. This love is so rich, so pervasive and peacefully powerful that it can’t help but extend outward, reaching toward others, longing to draw them in so they, too, can feel such a profound, integrative and ecstatic contentment. St. Caterina of Siena said it best in her Dialogue:
The soul is drawn by love ... The soul cannot live without love. She always wants to love because love is the stuff she is made of, and through love God created her.
Mysticism is an intimate knowledge of the Transcendent Godhead formed through the engulfing passageway of love. Without that passageway, which covers above as below, there is no Christ-centered experience. Without love, there is nothing but the desire for the “bling-bling” of external phenomena. That path – the path of seeking supernatural experiences merely for the excitement they tend to generate – is always false and full of delusion. St. Paul wrote to a gathering of believers in Corinth, Greece:
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.
(1 Corinthians 13:1-3)
We are all capable of transcending our surface-self to reach our interior depths where, in the ground of our soul, lies the spark which is waiting to be ignited. “If you are who you were meant to be, you will set the world on fire!” Caterina of Siena said. We’re meant to be one with Love, because “love is the stuff we’re made of.” We were created to become engulfed in this mystical flame. We’re all capable of reaching upward to God, knowing that He reaches downward to us. The Holy Spirit, which is the love that binds us all, creates the bridge between our ascension and God’s descent, an opening where true Spirit-filled experiences are delivered.
The mystic life is “human life in the highest expression that Christianity gives it.”
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World Between Worlds is my novel on the early life of St. Catherine of Siena. Set in the tumultuous fourteenth century, World Between Worlds takes readers on a journey across the landscape of medieval Tuscany, through the eyes of a mystic who is entangled in political chaos, social upheaval, and spiritual awakening.
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