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THE MYSTIC - From Charismatic to Mystical Prayer

A MYSTICAL MARRIAGE.

"Before my mother's funeral took place," said Peter, "my father brought me a cup of tea each morning, as he had done for my mother for over forty years. As he sat by my bed he told me a story.

"It was a love story, the story of his love for my mother and of hers for him. The story was so moving that I can still remember almost every word of it. It was only later, as I reflected on it that it gave me a unique insight into the meaning of prayer that I had never seen before. Of course I’d known that human love had been repeatedly used in the scriptures to show how the love between God and man grows and develops with the years, but I'd never really studied the analogy properly.

"Reflecting on my father's moving story changed all that. He told me how they had first met in Junior School, and how even then there had been the sparks that would burst into flame later on. Circumstances similar to those that separated them from one another after junior school drew them together later. Then the adolescent love that fired their passions and drew them ever closer together lasted well into their marriage and helped to bond them ever more closely to each other. When the first fires began to die down and the human differences that had been smouldering beneath the surface began to assert themselves they were fortunate to have a friend, a Benedictine monk Fr Williams, to support them.

"He explained how the first experiences of human love were similar to the first fervour of young monks at the outset of their monastic lives. He explained how, when first fervour fades away the young monk is called to go onward into a deeper, more adult contemplative love. He told them that they were called to do the same. Monk and married lover alike learn to grow up and become selfless adult lovers when, or rather if, they are prepared to go on giving when it seems they receive nothing in return.

"Although their human differences became even more apparent as they brought up their three sons they were nevertheless encouraged to go on giving as best they could in their "dark night of the soul", when the feelings that had sustained them before seemed to have deserted them. Gradually in years rather than months a new and deeper form of loving began to bond them to each other as never before. My father could only describe his new dawn by the word "height" and "depth". By height he meant that there were times when their hearts, their minds and their bodies became one in moments of loving that came closer to ecstasy than ever before. By depth he meant that this new and deeper experience of love extended beyond the times when they were together to encompass their whole lives.

"When their children had grown up and left home, they had to pass through their middle age crisis together, when the "night" returned and seemed darker than it had before. As they looked back they seemed to have achieved so little in the past, and when they looked forward it seemed that there was nothing further to achieve in the future. They were only able to go on and through the most testing time in their married love by giving themselves again and again to each other with the selfless love that they had learnt in the years before. My father told me that the last years together were the happiest years of his life - he'd never been closer to my mother, nor she to him. They passed through their "dark night" and come to a deeper profounder quality of loving that they had never known before, one that that they knew could only be completed in heaven.

"Now," said Peter, "the point I want to make is that my parents went through the same sort of experience as you in their married loving, just as other couples do. Their adolescent love, full of feeling and fervour that initially drew them closer and closer to each other came to an abrupt end. The same thing has just happened to you. You may well have started out in different lifestyles searching for perfect love, but you've both ended up in the same situation.

"In my parent's case they put their faith in Fr Williams, put aside their doubts and continued to go on giving, go on loving, even when they felt it was pointless. Later they came to realise that, that was the time when the quality of their loving was proved again and again, for anyone can love when they seem to receive in return, but only a perfect lover can go on giving when they receive nothing in return. Or rather, a person becomes a perfect lover by giving again and again when they receive nothing in return. It was only because of the quality of their mutual loving that a new dawn did eventually rise in their married love. Then they came to experience a quality of loving that they had never experienced before. There were times when it reached shattering degrees of intensity. Times too when it seemed to spill over into their daily lives, whether they were together or not. Remember my father characterized these moments by the words 'height and 'depth'.

"Now, the same will happen to you if you go forward as they did. I will detail precisely what you must do later, but in order to complete the overall picture let me continue. Let's assume that you do go on giving yourself to God in prayer, as faithfully and as consistently as you did when you experienced powerful feelings and emotions supporting you in first fervour. To begin with, your prayer will be characterized by endless distractions that had been mainly swept aside at the height of that first fervour. They will ravage your heart, drawing it away from the Presence that it yearns for, that seems to be enveloped in a 'Cloud of Unknowing'. Then, when you least expect it, the experience of Presence returns. It arises from within, and it seems to come and go quite irrespective of anything you do, apart that is, from patiently waiting in an otherwise drab and dreary prayer life. At a moment when you least expect it, the experience becomes more and more intense and you are raised to a far higher degree of awareness than ever before. Not even the most awe-inspiring stretch of countryside or the most exciting and exhilarating musical experience had this effect in the past. The deep absorption of the  mind and heart in this new consciousness is often preceded by a lifting sensation in the inner being, and a gentle sliding back into the recollectedness that preceded it when the experience has peaked and run it's course.

"On other occasions, even this experience pales into insignificance as another 'touch of God 'raises the heart and mind with such sudden power and force that you don't know what has hit you. Once again the lifting sensation that you experienced before raises your consciousness higher and higher. You not only feel yourself being raised up with tremendous force, but you feel yourself spiralling, spinning upwards to rest at such a high degree of mystical awareness that you know that you can go no further whilst retaining consciousness. Then, when the speed and power with which you spiral upwards quadruples, complete oblivion follows for a greater or lesser period of time that is in no way determined by you.

"Now", said Peter, "Various names have been given to these experiences. Some writers, like St John of the Cross, refer to them in general as 'touches of God', which is what they are, without distinguishing them from each other, because he is more interested in emphasizing something else that we will talk about later. However the most commonly known terminology comes from St Teresa of Avila from her masterwork, 'Interior Castle', written when she herself had scaled the highs of mystical prayer.

"The phrase 'Prayer of Recollection' is used by her to describe the first subtle awareness of the presence of God, that is hardly distinguishable from the natural mystical experiences that were the preoccupation of the romantic poets. After all isn't it to be expected that the experience of the presence of God within should be the same as the experience of the presence of God in his creation? The subsequent stages of mystical awareness are not categorized because they are essentially different experiences from the first, but because they are of greater intensity and therefore capable of absorbing the heart and mind more and more fully. However when the touch of God raises the consciousness higher, the absorption is deeper than before. The lifting sensation that usually precedes it draws the person into what she calls the 'Prayer of Quiet'. For the first time, the intensity of the experience is so great that the heart or the will is all but totally absorbed in the divine touch. It is no longer unduly bothered by the distractions that always pestered it before in the 'Prayer of Recollection'. They are still there, but they are no longer a problem. With 'Full Union ', the subtle experiences of the natural mystics are left far behind, as the power of God's touch is so strong and so absorbing that there can be no distractions at all. As the expression 'Full Union' implies, the inner self is totally united with the all-engrossing Presence within. St Teresa uses the word 'Ecstasy' to describe what happens next, when the power of the Presence becomes too much for a weak human nature to sustain so that temporary oblivion follows.

"The final stage of the mystic way on earth involves a totally different experience to those which I have just been describing, because it involves, not just the heart and the mind, but the whole person. It is called the 'Transforming Union' or the Mystical Marriage'. The mystical experiences that preceded the 'Transforming Union' are all part and parcel of the purifying process, the 'Dark Night of the Soul', in which the Holy Spirit works in light and in darkness preparing an imperfect human being for a perfect union, a sort of 'Mystical Marriage' with Christ. The experience is quite different to those mystical experiences that I have just been describing. It is far more human because it involves not just the mind, not just the soul, but the whole person, the body and the soul, the sensual and the spiritual, the complete human being.  When this union finally takes place it is not just a union of spirits then, but of one human being with another, facilitated by the love of God called in the Christian tradition the Holy Spirit, who bonds the Father to the Son. The Christian Mystics who have reached the heights are always characterized by the realization that in Christ they have been caught up, body and soul, into the rapturous vortex of life that endlessly revolves between the Father and the Son to eternity. In short the ultimate Christian mystical experience is Trinitarian.

"Although the Transforming Union involves what is ultimately an incommunicable experience known only to the person who experiences it, it is nevertheless possible to get some idea of what it feels like for a person who has passed through first fervour. You see, despite its shortcomings first fervour does involve the whole person, body and soul, spiritual and sensual in a single act of loving. The feelings of loving and being loved are not just experienced in the mind and in the heart but in the body too, where they reverberate through a whole range of human emotions. No matter how imperfect the loving might be, it nevertheless contains feelings and experiences that are only fully and permanently realised in the Transforming Union. The misplaced desire to go back to first fervour that recurs in the night is in fact a misinterpreted desire to go forward, to experience fully what was only experienced in part in the past. The same sort of thing happens in marriage. The spiritual completion that everyone yearns for, is not to be found in the disembodied mysticism of the night then, but in the full-bodied union that takes place in the Mystical Marriage, when the life of the Three in One seems to open to admit a fourth. Now the final stage of the mystic way is preceded by what is called the Spiritual Betrothal, when a person is able to glimpse for a short time what they will experience all the time in the Transforming Union or the Mystical Marriage.

"The experience is similar to those 'natural mystical experiences' that a person can feel touching, not just their minds, but their bodies too. Sometimes when you see or hear something that is of outstanding beauty, like one of the great violin concertos for instance, it can literally make the hairs on your neck stand up and send shivers down your spine. It can give you a tingle all over making goose pimples break out all over your body.

"These experiences begin to take place regularly as the Spiritual Betrothal announces the arrival of the Mystical Marriage. They are usually triggered off by a word or phrase from the scriptures, or from the liturgy or from some other source that speaks of God. Suddenly the recipient is touched, not only in the heart and mind, but also in the feelings and the emotions too, as they experience a tingle reverberating through their bodies that seemed dead to every sensual touch in the darkest moments of the night. Now tears can flow readily, as the whole person begins to react to being loved as never before. It's like the first movements of a great spiritual thaw when the heart the mind and the body, that had been frozen over in the 'night' begin to melt at the first touch of sunlight, as the long awaited day begins to dawn. Sometimes words that meant nothing for years suddenly touch the emotions with such an impact that the body shivers with delight and the sensation triggers off an ecstasy.

"These ecstasies or raptures can become commonplace in the Spiritual Betrothal, and can carry on for a time even into the Mystical Marriage, where they eventually die out. They are in fact, caused by the power of new life that is trying to enter into the whole person, and are signs of the human weakness that cannot cope with it to begin with. However, when the mystical marriage is complete, the whole person enjoys the new life that bonds them to Christ, in or out of prayer. Then these rather dramatic and unwelcome experiences tend to fade away."

"I see more clearly than ever that I'd got it all wrong!" I said. "I had the idea that the highest reaches of the mystic way consisted in what you called 'Quiet' and 'Full Union', and rare experiences of ecstasy or rapture when one was totally lost in God."

"I'm afraid you did have it all wrong" said Peter," but so have many others. I blame 'Denis the Menace'."

"Who?" I said.

" 'Denis the Menace' I call him." said Peter. "He was a mystical writer who lived at the beginning of the fifth century by all accounts. He is thought to have been a Syrian monk deeply influenced by Neoplatonism. His works wouldn't have had much impact had he not hit on the idea of calling himself Dionysius, and pretending to be the Areopagite, an Athenian senator, who was the convert and friend of St Paul. Although later on the 'holy deceit' was discovered and he came to be known as the pseudo-Dionysius, it was too late to prevent reverence for the person he pretended to be from giving his mystical works an importance quite beyond their worth.

"He had an incredible influence on medieval mystics, on the Rhinelanders and on many others up to the present day. So much so that he has unwittingly influenced you through the books you have been reading. Both the Platonists and the neo-Platonists believed that salvation involved freeing the human spirit from its prison, the body, and seeking its perfection in the divine Spirit. This is why they were so attached to the mystical experiences that precede the Transforming Union, experiences that involve only a spiritual union in which the wicked body has no part. Rare moments of ecstasy, that their mentor Plotinus claimed to have experienced, represented for them the high point of the Mystic way.

"True salvation for Christians involves not freeing the spirit from the wicked body, but allowing both the spirit and the body to be penetrated through and through by the Holy Spirit, who bonds them together as one - spirit to spirit, body to body, flesh to flesh. In the Transforming Union or the Mystical Marriage we see the first flowering of this union on earth. Notice it is a marriage, and marriage is not an end, but a new beginning of love, that will deepen and deepen to eternity, because there is no end to the love of the One who loves without measure.

"Good gracious!" said Peter, looking at his watch. "I'll have to be making a move. My poor dad will be wondering what has happened to me. I do feel so sorry for him. He simply doesn't know what to do with himself now my mother has gone. I think I told you before that he said that the last two years of his life with my mother were the happiest days of his life. I think those years were the closest they came to their Transforming Union here on earth. So much of the selfishness that had separated them throughout their lives had been purified away. They were so close that it was almost as if their physical bodies, that had first bonded them together, were the only things that kept them apart.

"I do hope the analogy of my parents love for each other has helped you to throw light on what it has enlightened for me. However I don't want to give the impression that they were perfect or candidates for canonization, but they were very good people. Their journey into an ever-deepening love, not only gave me the best possible start that I could have hoped for in life, but it has been a continual inspiration to continue on the same journey that they took albeit by a different route."

"Now in order to develop the analogy as clearly as possible I may have given the impression that the mystic way that develops in personal prayer is only for celibates like us not for married people. Nothing could be further from the truth. My father made it quite clear that, without sustained personal prayer, he would never have had the strength to go on giving, when he seemed to be in an emotional limbo-land and the same was true of my mother. Their personal prayer developed in exactly the same way as I have been trying to describe to you, but I will have to return to this later, because I'm afraid my time is up."

It was half-past five when Peter left, promising to come again the next day at two o'clock. I couldn't believe how time had flown. I had been so enthralled by all that Peter had been saying that time seemed to have stood still. If he'd given me a unique insight into the mystic life in this life he'd also given me a unique experience of eternity in the next!

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