The Mystic Path

There have been many Great Mystics in The Catholic Church, Teresa of Avila, John of the Cross, Catherine of Sienna, Francis of Assisi to name but a few.

But what exactly is Mysticism?

A mystic is someone who feels a longing for God, a great thirst within their souls which cannot be quenched. It is not a case of looking for God, but of God touching the soul with the spark of The Divine, which then ignites a holocaust within the soul of the recipient. This does not mean that one's soul is annihilated but that the Ego is annihilated, for God does not kill the soul but consumes the soul in the purifying furnace of His Love.

It is a dark journey that God invites the soul, where a blanket of immense blackness envelops the soul. As all light disappears the soul feels itself abandoned by its one true love, God. It is a searing of the intellect in that all worldly consolations are removed. As God readies the soul for Himself to make a home within the person. It is the wooing of the Divine to His beloved. Therefore the person is no longer interested in the superficial, nor can it be appeased by the artificial, for once the soul has been ignited by the Divine, all else pales and there is no substitute.

This is a painful and at times an excruciating experience for those who are called to a higher degree of perfection, than most. Often times, the person mistakes this call as a punishment or a chastisement, and in confusion the person returns to the consolations of the world. This does not make God love the soul less, but it does reveal that it is the person in question who is lacking in spiritual maturity and also in trust.

It is a Divine call which few can endure, for it seeks to purify the soul without destroying it. To embrace the uniqueness of the individual without crushing it. To extinguish the element of self love and replace it with the Divine. Even though a person cannot enter nor become divinized, a spark of the Divine Love which penetrates to the depths of the soul will purify it from all worldly love. This is done in order for the soul to be in the Presence of the Triune Spirit, which seeks to inhabit the soul of the loved by The Beloved.

In effect it is an intimate touch of The Creator to the created. The Divine Spark which when felt in all its Purity and intensity will change the person forever, and from which there is no cure nor is a cure sought. As the deer panteth after the water so the soul thirsts for God with a longing that only God Himself can appease.

St. Edith Stein

Edith Stein lived the true meaning of her chosen name Sister Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, for just as Jesus embraced The Cross so did Sister Teresa Benedicta.

Edith was born into a very Traditional Jewish family she was the youngest of eleven children. Unfortunately for her family Edith's Father died when she was not yet two years old, which left her Mother as the sole provider for the entire family. As Edith grew and matured she had a deep admiration and love for her Mother who struggled to support her large family. Even though Edith herself had turned her back on God, Mrs Stein remained a staunch and Devout Jew, teaching her children the Traditions of the Jewish Faith.

One of the great blessings that Edith was born with was a curious mind and a thirst for knowledge, which led her to study Philosophy, and to become one of the first women to study this subject at University. Edith was accepted at University of Breslau before transferring to the University of Gottingen in order to study with Edmund Husserl, the founder of phenomenology. It was while studying this course and observing the Faith of those around her that Edith began an inner journey to find the Source of All Truth. A course that would change her life forever and from which would also come The Way of The Cross, for herself.

It was whilst she was vacationing with friends that Edith happened by chance to see the book written by St. Teresa of Avila. Her curiosity was aroused and so Edith began to read St Teresa's autobiography and was unable to put it down until she had read the last sentence, it was Edith's Epiphany moment. There was no turning back for Edith, for she believed without doubt what she had read within that most profound book as the Truth she had been seeking. It also brought untold pain and anguish knowing in her heart that she must embrace Catholicism and leave behind her rich Jewish heritage. With this knowledge burning in her soul Edith also knew how her beloved mother would recieve the news of her daughters conversion.

A double blow would then strike Ediths mother when she found that her daughter not only would become a Catholic but also a Religious in The Order of Carmel. This was a troubling and most painful of times for both Mother and daughter, but Edith could not resist the Call of God. On October 15, just after her forty-second birthday, Edith Stein entered the Carmel of Cologne, taking the name Teresa Benedicta of the Cross.

Upon the death of her Mother, Edith would be joined by her sister Rosa who also converted and was Baptized into the Catholic Church. When the Nazi tyranny turned to untold violence in the infamous 'Kristillnacht', Edith's Superiors decided to transer Sister Teresa Benedicta to the Carmel in Echt, the Netherlands. Her sister Rosa later joined her there as a Third Order Carmelite, in which Rosa helped serve the Community.

But unfortunately this was not enough to safeguard either Edith or her sister Rosa and both were arrested on August 2, 1942. When her sister reached a state of confusion Edith with much compassion and courage took her sister Rosa and led her with these words, "Come, Rosa. We go for our people." The sisters were deported to Auschwitz and executed just a week later. Edith Stein was fifty years old.

Spirit of Prayer In Daily Life-Carmel Retreat Conclusion

Carmelite spirituality does not call for ecstatic visions or the mystical heights, which has been Gifted to few. Instead it means incorporating God into everything we do from washing the dishes, doing the laundry or sweeping the floor and sundry other duties.

The Spirit of Carmel is grounded on practicalities which embraces all facets of life. It does not call for us to spend copious hours in solitary prayer or that we undergo severe physical mortifications which does more harm than good. What busy mother or father has the time to spend hours in quiet prayer? Instead Carmel teaches us to do all things in a spirit of prayer, it is essentially combining Martha and Mary in one person. It means living in awareness of the Divine in all we do and undertake, keeping God in the forefront of our minds, heart and soul.

There is no set 'formula' to follow, it is indeed an intrinsic individual way of living the Spirit, which has been incorporated within your soul to such an extent that one is doing the Will of God in all you do.

The most essential aspect is the need for a spirit of 'solitude', which does not mean quietism, it instead means allowing God to dwell in the sanctuary of your heart even amdist the daily trauma's and difficulties of one's life. It is a lifestyle even though steeped in Tradition yet over the centuries maintains its realism, for it calls us to do the ordinary with greatness.

Teresa of Avila was a passionate woman with a great deal of common sense. When both Saints Teresa and John of the Cross began the Reforms it was done with sensitivity and a knowledge of human nature. They combined prayer and work and to undertake both with an equal measure of fervor and devoutness. The ultimate purpose which both Saints understood was to attain Union with the Divine and conformity to God's Will.

In order to be able to conform our will to The Divine one must understand God's Will and that can only be done by the study of His Word. There is no greater example in the Bible than Mary the Mother of Jesus, who lived her life in utter conformity and also a surrendering of herself to the Beloved. This is why the Carmelites Revere our Blessed Mother and follow in her Holy footsteps. Mary herself said, 'Do whatever he tells you'. That is the essence of Carmel to do the Will of the Father just as Jesus and Mary did.

As St. John of the Cross said, "first have a habitual desire to imitate Christ in all your deeds by bringing your life into conformity with his. You must then study his life in order to know how to imitate him and behave in all events as he would."

The Victory when one chooses to live a more spiritual life is in the struggle. It is not in the Victory itself but the daily struggle to overcome one's faults and failings and to live a life of prayer. When we give up the struggle in hopelessness then we have lost all. It is the struggle that is the victory.

For us time is of the essence. God is Eternal. How we spend our time will define where we spend our eternity.

How Do We Pray?-Carmel Retreat

In order to gain a richer experience of deep and inward prayer, we need to recognise 'worldliness' and how much it has entered our hearts and souls. This means turning a ruthless eye within our soul and understand the intent that drives us either towards God or in the opposite direction from The Divine.

We have to unlearn what the world has taught us. Words such as self esteem, self empowerment and a sense of self fulfillment lead us into becoming selfish beings intent on getting our own way at any cost. We must learn to replace these words with selflessness, self abnegation and surrender.

There must be an understanding of new age 'spirituality' and mature spirituality. The New Age ideology of sprituality is based on feeding one's Ego and is entirely centred on the Self which makes it self centred. Whereas we learn with the Spirit of Carmel one learns to forget oneself and instead raises the inner soul towards God and learn to love God for who He is, totally loveable and to be aware of God's true Majesty.

In prayer we open ourselves to God, who then gradually with our cooperation transforms us into a reflection of Himself. It is through this transforming love we are then willing to serve, are capable of compassion and solidarity to those who are suffering.

God is a dangerous Lover of our souls, as once we have allowed God entry, we change and not God. It calls us to go beyond our limited self and embrace the 'unknowing'. It involves times of crisis, of helplessness, of powerlessness as we allow God to Purify our souls at the deepest level. Just as boiling oil if spilt on the skin will burn, so our souls under the Fire of God's Love will burn within each of us. During this process we will become less self-centred and more open to the Gift of God, who conforms us in His Image. We will then learn to see life with God's eye and to recognise the woundedness of those around us and our own incompleteness as we stand spiritually naked before our Majestic God.

This is the most dangerous time as all the feelings that gave us such comfort will now leave us and we then become vulnerable and powerless. It is here that rather than continuing in the Holocaust of God's consuming Love we draw back and embrace the 'feelings' that give us a transitory feeling of 'safeness'. When we draw back we then attempt to have one foot in the 'spiritual' life and the other in the 'worldly' life, as if both could co-exist within our souls.

We are called to decide, whether we wish to walk with our Lord or walk away from Him. God with infinite tenderness allows us this choice as we like children will run towards Him and just as quickly we run from Him. We must recognise that God does not remove Himself from us, we have moved away from His Gracious Love and like a loving father our God awaits our return with open arms.

It is God who initiates and ignites a fire in our hearts for Him. It is the Divine Invitation to Union with our Beloved, even though we are fickle lovers our God is not. This does not mean we sit back and allow God to do all the work within our own souls as if we were puppets with no free will. It calls for us to be committed and to live the Word of God in our daily lives. Not as an abstract ideology, but as the Living Word, the Spirit of God. The Word must take root in our hearts and be on our lips, as we allow the Indwelling Spirit to lead us on this journey. Through the fiery furnace of God's Encompassing Love we like Mary learn to ponder all things in our heart.

Prayer does not mean we must think much, but to love much. That is the essence of prayer. It is the call to enter into the desert...

Saint Quote-St. John of the Cross

"He who interrupts the course of his spiritual exercises and prayer is like a man who allows a bird to escape from his hand; he can hardly catch it again."

~St. John of the Cross

Seeking The Unkown God-Carmel Journey

Don't we all experience times where we attend Mass in a spirit of distraction? The Readings go over our heads and the Priest's homilies are ignored as our mind wanders in all directions. We are essentially going through the motions without it affecting our hearts in any way.

Such was the case with that great Doctor of the Church Teresa of Avila. We tend to think that things came easily to this mystic of the Carmelite Order, yet Teresa spent over 20 years in this state of 'going through the motions'.

Before the Reform of Carmel the convents were so relaxed that visitors could arrive at any time. There was also a pecking order where those who were from wealthier families were served by their fellow Sisters whose birth were of more humble origins. Things were so bad that though Teresa and her fellow Sisters prayed their minds and hearts were elsewhere. God had become a cold statue, a thing of admiration without actually becoming too close. Are we also at this stage? Where we put God at a distance lest He ask too much of us?

Isnt it a case at times that God appears to be so far away, too far away and though we long for Him, still we cannot reach Him? Yet the hunger and longing for God is there within our souls, but far too often we look for God in the wrong places. Just as Teresa did before us, we wander through the spiritual landscape like orphans searching for a sense of belonging.

I think I can say with some degree of accuracy that many of us long for a deeper relationship, even a yearning to love and grasp that which is beyond our 'knowing' and that is God. We fight and struggle so much in order to feel close to God that in the end more often than not we are left in deep frustration and a sense of failure.

Perhaps things would be clearer if we could understand that which we seek, to love God with all our heart, mind and soul. In order to do that we must recognise the false idols that come between our love of God and our love of self. This comes through self knowledge.

Without even realising it we settle for the comfortable, the ordinary and to be as one with everyone. By doing this we fail to realise by becoming as everyone we lose ourselves and sustitute a 'god' for God. This will only lead us away from God and into dysfunction and disordered love as we place our security on the opinion of others. No longer are we living to please God, we are instead living to please people. By placing this 'god' above God, we easily become disappointed, discontented and enslaved by our neediness to feel loved for ourselves alone.

Just like St. Teresa we need to recognise our own disordered love and then open our souls to the Eye of God which will then purify our souls from its overt attatchment to people and objects.

What Teresa of Avila teaches us is to not settle for the mediocrity of life. To allow ourselves to be disturbed. To be passionate in our love for God and to remain faithful as our souls undergo purification which is painful.

Do we seek a 'god' or do we seek God? The God who transforms, heals, liberates and enlivens us. The God who invites us into relationship with Himself or do we wish to remain comfortable? What St. Teresa teaches us is that one cannot live both. You cannot halfway love God, it is either all or nothing.

St. Teresa of Avila after suffering 20 years of aridity chose God with a passion. Who do you choose?

Saint Quote-St. Teresa of Avila-Carmelite

We can only learn to know ourselves and do what we can - namely, surrender our will and fulfill God's will in us.

~St. Teresa of Avila

Saint Quote-Bl. Titus Brandsma-Carmelite

They who want to win the world for Christ must have the courage to come into conflict with it.

~Blessed Titus Brandsma

Saint Quote-St Edith Stein-Carmelite

As for what concerns our relations with our fellow men, the anguish in our neighbor's soul must break all precept. All that we do is a means to an end, but love is an end in itself, because God is love.

~ St. Edith Stein

Carmel Retreat-The Beginning

The beginning of what would become known as The Carmelites began in Israel on Mount Carmel. It started with a common rule but no real guidelines. Unlike other Religious Orders The Carmelites had no real founder such as the Dominicans and Franciscans etc. The men who began to live this austere way of life were former Crusaders who became disillusioned and so turned their back on the world and embraced God in the unknown.

These first Carmelites followed the spirit of Elijah the Prophet as they sequestered themselves away in their mountain retreat, Mt. Carmel. The men also had a particular devotion to Our Lady as the Mother of God and as their own Mother.

It wasn't until about 1210, that the hermits approached Albert who was Patriarch of Jerusalem. The hermits wished to attain some type of Rule so that their community could live within these guidelines approved by the Church. Albert then formulated a Rule of life which won the approval of Pope Honorius in 1226. The Carmelites chose as their motto "I am filled with zeal for the Lord, the God of Hosts."

Once the Carmelites began in Europe the structure embraced by the first hermits on Mt. Carmel were relaxed. The Rule almost became extinct as many Carmelites allowed worldliness to intrude into their Convents. It was not until St. Teresa of Avila and St. John of the Cross began their reforms that the Carmelites returned to their beginnings the original Spirit in which it had begun.

Though Saint Teresa and John of the Cross took the Order back to their origins not all the Carmelites wished to return to an austere Rule of life. Therefore the Reforms began by Teresa and John became known as the Discacled Carmelites(shoeless one's).

The Reforms were designed as such.

1: A return to God and to love Him for His own sake and not for what one can gain. To recognise one's nothingness before the Creator of all.

2: To conform themselves through prayer and contemplation into living receptacle's of God Himself. To live in Holy Obedience and thereby denying their own will for God's Will in their lives.

3: To dedicate themselves to prayer in order for the Salvation of all and finally to attain Union with God through Holy Obedience and self denial.

St. Teresa of Avila described prayer as, ' nothing but friendly and frequent solitary converse with Him, who, we know, loves us'. St. Teresa teaches us that prayer should not be used as an escape from the trials which face us all, but rather as a relationship where we conform ourselves to the Will of God just as Jesus Christ Teaches us through His Word.

Prayer is truly the heart and core of the Carmelite Rule, and it is this that has helped the Rule maintain its direction and discipline throughout the generations.

Saint Quote-Saint Raphael Kalinowski

God refuses only the person who does not admit his own weakness; He sends away only the unhappy proud person. You must "hold him" well and strongly, with a poor spirit, with a poor heart, with a life entirely poor...The life of a soul who seeks true happiness clearly and indisputably depends on this: that those who seek their joy in God are the ones who give joy to God.

~Saint Raphael Kalinowski

How Do We Handle Depression & Anxiety

Rachel on her blog 'Just Another Day' has been posting on depression. I thought I would take this opportunity to discuss my own philosophy on how I deal with depression daily.

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Dr Frankl well reknowned psychiatrist, who was imprisoned in Auschwitz came to this conclusion, he discovered a link between prisoners loss of faith in the future & a dangerous giving up. He came out believing that "Everything can be taken away from man but one thing: the last of all human freedoms-to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances". Now I am not into `catch phrases' at times they are too glib to what is essentially complex human suffering. To feel abandoned by God is excruciating, it is so painful it is beyond words, we can look to our Lord, " My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?"(Matt 27:46).

When I first became ill(with CFS & depression), I was bed ridden for 2 years. I had lost all sense of balance, I also lost the ability to concentrate( I mean I could NOT understand a comic book). The catch phrase I was given, `oh Marie, think positive and you will get better', by the 100th time I heard that I was ready to smack heads!

As Dr Frankl said above and I follow this principle, we can all choose our attitudes to what life throws at us, and at times, we do feel crushed, abandoned and also paralysed by fear, and yes anger! And its ok at times too feel anger, even rage, but what to do with these at times `destructive feelings'? Harness them. Focus these feelings of anger not on yourself but on the illness itself.

Sometimes the greatest obstacles we face is NOT from another but is in fact from oneself, and that is a fact few can face, or recognise. We must NOT allow ourselves to become perpetual victims but instead to understand ourselves in a realistic manner. It is ok to feel vulnerable, it is ok to fail, it is ok NOT to be perfect...It is OK to realise we are broken vessels in need of God. We must accept our frailities and failures and then grow from them.

But in order to cope with depression and anxiety what tools do we use? I can only say what helped me and it was not anti-depressants. These particular medications only made me feel even more tired. One of the first things I did was to stop the FEAR of depression, the next step was to stop being run by my 'feelings'. I had to recognise that by allowing my 'feelings' to run riot I had created a tyrant. In order to overrule this tyrant I learnt mental discipline, and also to negate that negative 'inner voice' that kept taunting me with my own perceived failures. It is seeing things in perspective. So what if I failed at something? Or if a situation turned out badly, would the moon fade away and the sun not rise because of it? No!

Prayer is also essential even if you 'feel' your prayers are going up into thin air, still you persevere, you may NOT enjoy the experience but you persevere. Some days that is all one can do persevere through the joyless day, but not to dwell on the reasons WHY you feel joyless, because there is NO answer. One only has to read the writings of the Carmelite Saints to understand this 'joy' without the 'feeling'.

As I said to a friend, "Depression has now become an wanted friend who outstays their welcome, the type who visit and stay for hours and despite some heavy hints they dont know when to leave? That is what depression is for me now, the friend that doesnt know when to leave...so depression stays but that does NOT mean I stay depressed...NO! Depression is there when I watch a funny show on TV or when I laugh through funny movies..till oneday I notice that depression took the hint and moved away...if it be only a step away."

The only thing I do know is to take those steps one day at a time.....