“Unless the Christian religion is lived from the heart,
from the experience of God in some way, it will be empty.
If it is a purely institutional form of life, or even if it is an interesting intellectual exercise,
it does not have the vitality that comes from the interior experience of the presence of God.
That is the mystical element in religion.”
– Bernard McGinn
(Catholic theologian, religious historian, and scholar of spirituality)
The first Christian mystics were Biblical figures like John the Evangelist and Paul of Tarsus. Great mystics appear in every century of Christian history. Nearly all of the great mystics between the fifth and the fifteenth centuries lived as monks or nuns. By the twentieth century, important mystical figures began to assert that mysticism was not just a special quality for “elite” Christians, but rather everyone is meant to be an everyday mystic. “The Christian of the future will be a mystic or will not exist at all.” (Karl Rahner 1904–1984)
In order for Christianity to survive, all Christians need to discover the mystical heartbeat that is already alive in the center of our tradition and our souls. Mysticism is not something we achieve; it is something we receive. The ultimate guide to mystical union with God can only be God.
Not all mystics are writers, but the ones who recorded their life stories, their insights, their wisdom, their poetry, and teachings, are the ones who left behind “lessons” in the school for the love of God.
Our goal, therefore, is to learn the curriculum of a truly spiritual life, grounded in love, mercy, tenderness, compassion, forgiveness, hope, trust, simplicity, silence, peace, and joy. To embody union with God is to discover these beautiful characteristics emerging from within and slowly transfiguring us.
Ephesians 3:19 “May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God.”
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