The sufferings of this life become steep and stiff.
The yearning for Jesus continues, and so it goes. Lent gets long.
I listened a bit more to Bernard in another lecture. He has a slightly broadened view in some aspects, yet regarding the mystical element, he considers it in more a narrow view that surprised me. I realize that to study something is to kind of be looking from the outside in rather than being what one studies.
A simplistic metaphor I wrote to him is the institution and intellectual and mystical elements and a stove with oven, installation and instruction manuals and cookbooks, but without the source of gas or heat, there is no amazing outcome, no mysterious outcome that is helpful or nourishing. We take the source, the mystical element for granted. I suppose in some ways, God is the source, the Holy Spirit the fire, Jesus also the Love.
Love to suffer, and suffer to Love. My sufferings are inextricably linked to the sufferings of Holy Mother Church. That is my connection and I suppose place or purpose in the Church. Suffering is mystical, also. Suffering is part of the mystical element, but the Trinity is the Source of the Mystical and is in my more broadened view is the Mystical Element. God's Love Is.
Dr. McGinn is an amazing and profound intellect which is a major contribution and is his place, and he's done much in studying western Christian mysticism and in writing the volumes following and describing mysticism. I think it will be very difficult for the Church as institution and intellect, those parts, to give more berth (and even birth) to more of the Mystical Element and the mystical element, both. But God will handle it. And in our own little ways, such as our love of Christ and the suffering that links us, we can let go more the institutional and the intellectual. Balance the three elements of religion or also allow more of the mystical element to be given more berth in our minds, hearts, and souls.
The prayers even if lots of words put together, talk about loving God. The hymns are similar expressions. It's desire for God and desire for His love, and desire to try to love God with our inabilities to seem to love that much. It is painful.
I know that when he answered someone's question regarding mental illness vs. mysticism or mystics, the answer gave away that it was someone looking from outside in, who had not the mystical element, at least not pronounced--within, but more the intellectual. However, that is that person's purpose and mission, and what a major and excellent and helpful purpose and mission! I am enthralled by his mind and discipline both! And, he has great compassion and understanding.
Even those with pronounced mysticism from birth onward at times wonder about their states of mind. After all, we are dealing with the numinous and as if in more touch with the other than this world. We do not belong to this world; that is a major suffering in itself, for there is little understanding.
I was so excited about the mystical element of religion and how it seemed to be a puzzle piece for which I'd been seeking a long time--and explains to me so well why the institutional and intellectual element does not understand nor accept me. God gave me Fr. F., my spiritual da for 24 years--our paths crossing and of all places in my hometown where I'd returned after 17 years away and he'd come there just the year after I did! Four years later we met, and he understood and somehow never doubted me, although he said what I do not like to hear: that I am very different, that he'd never met anyone like me.
But when Bernard mentioned in his answer segment of a lecture, that Teresa of Avila had her "problems" as the question was of mystics with mental illness, and that they were troubling but eventually they got worked out--well, I was upset by that. I suppose I was upset because I realized then that he was not one of us on the interior, that is, despite great knowledge and a life of studying mystics and mysticism.
For a mystic who gets to know Teresa of Avila through her letters and writings and autobiography and those who knew her personally and left information--we mystics would not think at all that she was troubled with mental problems even for awhile, other than the sufferings that mark mystics and are our lot in life--sufferings of which the worst are the yearning for the Lord and also of not being accepted and understood, of recognizing that there are not many of us around, and it is going to be a lonely and misunderstood journey.
Bernard suggested in effect that the actual ones always leave something for the Church. So we are back to the intellectual and the institutional aspect, and that meant left writings or active works that benefitted, such as Teresa reformed the Carmelites plus had wondrous writings, and so on with others who stand out and are canonized or would be except for such as Meister Eckhart--was misunderstood in a way that was going to mark him as perhaps too controversial. But he left great writings and so forth and was a Dominican and indeed had a place in the institutional and the intellectual elements of the Church, plus he was known as a mystic.
But others of us--and I'm recognizing this as part of what I'm to suffer and do suffer and will--have in effect no place in the institution and thus not also in the intellectual elements for we are unknowns, and our writings such as mind are personal and am not a religious order nor clergy nor able to be active in parishes, either. Nor am I acceptable to parishes, and I grasp why now--the predominance of my purpose and mission is the mystical element.
And with the mystical element considering Christ as Mystical Element--is the suffering that binds us to the Church even if the institution and the intellectual elements do not want us nor understand us. And for us it is even worse, those who try to discount our existences further with judgments of being "off" or having some type of mental illness. Well, the stresses of what a mystic bears within and the suffering some of us bear physically as well--it can seem to take us to the brink of sanity.
And how we perceive the world in which we are plopped, and especially the frustration with the Church's institutional and intellectual weightedness, and even such as the mystical ecstasies the Lord gave for any and every mass--instead of a a sign, the people could not cope nor understand, and priests could not either--and the institutional and intellectual elements took over and shoved out the mystical. The protocol is to not talk about such things, to not give credence, to not share or educate others, to not accept.
I myself have been harsh with a handful of people who have contacted me over the years, or gravitated to me, wanting to connect as they felt they were mystics. And at times it seemed to me, once I got into some interchange with them or if in person observed, there are some signals that help discern if the person is grounded. But I realize it is treacherous ground, that, and I am sorry for cutting short some interchanges, but really, I needed to be more in person to ascertain, and above and beyond that, what difference what I think or thought? But someone in each, there was not a groundedness, not the effect of a balance of intellectual and also the institutional.
I would be at that parish for mass and be a member if I could, and in a heartbeat. But I do not belong there nor am understood nor accepted, and likely I've been deemed as Bernard mentioned of his assessments of even Teresa of Avila, to have mental difficulties that she was able to overcome! Yes, there he lost me in that I knew it was an outside in intellectual assessment, and the situation of mystics always leaving something for the Church, for the institution and intellectual elements--well, the problem with that is that there are many mystics of which we will never know. For as the Lord was reminding me this morning, some are building up the mystical element and the gift to the church is being one with Holy Mother Church by their suffering. And that their work is to learn to love to suffer and to suffer to love.
And a great portion of that suffering is inflicted by the very Church and its institutional and intellectual persons and such, who even can intellectualize about mysticism and mystics, and see that they should be not mistreated, and think that somehow people can become mystics--but not if the mystical element remains as it is, squelched for most part except after the fact of some more visible mystic who does great actions that benefit the Church in visible ways. And people must let go of so much weight of the institutional and intellectual elements and open to the mystical element which means the Mystical Element.
However, Dr. Bernard McGinn and other scholars with great hearts and souls are making headway in discussing these matters and sharing more about the mystics, mysticism, and I pray even more about the mystical element as the Mystical Element.
Yes, it was painful last night when my exuberance was met by the elder friend with that I was wearing out my brilliant mind by thinking! I had been emailing the wondrous insights that had broken through as this missing puzzle piece that explains why I am not likely ever to fit in, and that my purpose is more hidden in suffering, my sufferings declared by God early on to be made one with the sufferings of Holy Mother Church--and that means even more suffering of the mystical element type and within, and the suffering of much rejection and misjudgment.
And it is rather painful to know and to have been told from on high, that one does not belong to that world--that world of temporal existence with all its good along with the bad. Yet, the Lord brings people into my life who enjoy me--such as Craig who is my go-to mentor and inspiration and instructor on matters construction. I called, and he happened to answer out of all the ones working there at the building supply company, and his voice is so upbeat and happy to hear from me, and he instructed right away on the depth of the header beam I will need to have for the 12' stretch of windows that will be in the kitchen.
I am setting forth the little remodeling here (nothing compared to before yet harder and slower due to my pain and body being worse) as doing it for the Holy Family. This place is to be done as well as humanly possible for it is being fixed up for the Holy Family (and whomever they choose to live in it after I am gone from this place). Craig has found nothing but delight and fun in me, even when I've been down with suffering; he has a spirit within that is close with the Mystical Element. Same with several other encounters here, such as Randy and such a fun time with Heather in doors and windows, but the physical therapist is lovely but grew very frustrated with me, and I don't blame her for I grasp from her standpoint.
But mercy, if Bernard considered that Teresa of Avila struggled with some mental illness or problems like that--he did not grasp the inner workings in actuality of the mystical element as well as how the Mystical Element operates within such persons who have more pronounced mission and purpose, who are born with that spark, if you will, in more percent than perhaps others. Or, at least the Lord allows circumstances to get souls back to the mystical element and the Godhead as Mystical Element. I do think we all are called to be seeking and noticing and building up the mystical element of religion and detaching from so much of the institutional and intellectual elements--and the latter does not mean to go stupid and deny our minds from learning. But it is a different type of learning--that which will help us survive the temporal but yet enhances our building up of the mystical element, and of seeking and finding and reverencing the Mystical Element in all of this earthly existence. We are to enliven the sparks that are sputtering, and to cause ours to inflame, and that by more Jesus, more Holy Spirit, more God the Father--more Mystical Element. And not by outer efforts or seeming goofy or wanting or thinking about some little phenomenon or feeling.
The mystical element of religion is not much at all about mystical phenomenon. Those are the quickly-gone little tidbits from when a spark sparks.
Well, I think the other person I emailed kind of gets it. I know if my spiritual da were here on earth, he'd be so excited along with me! He always loved and welcomed when I'd rush to see him or write a long letter with some big puzzle piece found, and he'd consider it and smile and then a grin, and say, "This is so! This is truth!"
I will say that it seems that is why I'm running into new age Catholics--those who get caught up in new age even in parishes, and even such as the late Thomas Keating and Basil Pennington and the like, who developed techniques (based on some Buddhist techniques) to try to enhance feeling and spiritual experience through repetitions meant to empty the mind. They wanted the mystical element; it is just that they turned to more new age techniques to try to achieve feelings and phenomenon or mystical experience. Somehow, it just does not work that way, even if that seems a door opening for it.
I'll pray on what might help more, but it seems that love is the main key. Love of the Mystical Element--or also known as His Real Presence, and that really is the Three in One, the Holy Trinity. And to recognize that His Real Presence is in His Living Word, and He is in the consecrated Host, but also in the spiritual communions many of us receive now due to COVID restrictions for gathering. And Covid might be God's way of trying to bring about a better balancing of the three elements of religion. Or people will continue to drop away or within the Church bring in new age techniques and ideologies, for they are seeking without realizing it--the lacking of mystical element, and the over weightedness of institution and intellect.
I do want to apologize for the couple of people who had asked to email and wanted my take on their mysticism or wanted to be mystic friends, and I was harsh, and some aspects seemed unsettling, or something. And then there was the young man who wanted to email as he was thinking of the hermit vocation. And I discovered he is quite young and fairly new to Catholicism, and I am sure I was blunt and harsh. Plus I got on a tangent about CL603 and the emphasis on that by some who are only building up more institutional element by doing so, and also intellectual tossed in. My basic message, though, was to wait until he's 50 years old, another 25 years perhaps.
God bless the Mystical Element, His Real Presence, in us, accessible by clearing away that which hinders, but found in love and suffering. The mystical phenomenon--that is not the Mystical Element nor the mystical element but just the quickly gone and often not seen tidbits flying off from the sparks. That's not mysticism nor do such things mean one is a mystic. It is the Love and the suffering, the Love....
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