May 2005 Christian Spirituality      Continued from previous issue By George A Lane SJ

The Nature of Mysticism Anyone more than a little interested in the dynamics of spirituality must know something about the nature of mysticism and the theology of it. We will try to present here an outline of the traditional teaching of the theologians on mysticism. Mysticism is not a private phenomenon; it happens in the Church and adds to the richness of the Church's life. Two crucial elements must be presupposed in any genuine mystical life. One is a certain amount of genuine moral striving towards perfection on the part of the individual. People at enmity with God do not become mystics. Many mystics, of course, were not saints; but there is still a moral orientation towards perfection in the life of anybody involved in genuine mysticism. Secondly, mysticism is a wholly gratuitious gift of God which He gives to whom He pleases. Mysticism can be defined as the direct and experiential awareness of God's presence in the depths of one's person. This direct awareness of God is unmediated knowledge. In all ordinary human knowledge words, images, concepts and symbols have a necessary and essential function. Not so in mystical experience. Mystical knowledge bypasses these; it is unmediated. Mystical knowledge also differs from the ordinary knowledge of faith. By faith one knows that God is present within him, but he is not aware of this experientially. The mystic is somehow actually grasped by God, and he experiences what some mystics struggle to express as tastes and touches of God. Mystics try to indicate something which cannot be described in words and concepts, and so they resort to sense expressions of taste and touch to describe the experience of God. Finally, mysticism touches the very depths of a person's being. All defenses and facades are totally bypassed. God touches a person where he is most truly himself; and it is at this level that a person knows God as a mystic. Despite the common denominators we have just pointed out, there is a great diversity in mystics and mysticism, the diversity of many different temperaments reacting to the one great reality that is God. There is theocentric versus Christocentric mysticism, Johannine versus Pauline, Dionysian versus Ignatian; there are historical and environmental factors which influence the various reactions to the experience of God. The experience of mysticism itself must be carefully distinguished from its possible concomitants: ecstacy, visions, stigmata, levitations and so on.

- To Be Continued -