Fr Mark Schultz

Dear Friend,

You may already know that one of the most formative voices in my development as a young Christian person was John of the Cross as interpreted through Thomas Merton’s Ascent to Truth. I remember reading Ascent in high school, grateful for Merton’s approachable reading of John, wonder-struck by the revelation that Christianity really did have a mystical tradition vibrant and alive, and discovering myself invited more deeply into my faith, into the love of God, than I had previously thought possible, in ways I couldn’t have imagined.

At one point in the Ascent, Merton relays John’s cautions regarding spiritual and mystical gifts—visions, dreams, voices, things that might look like special spiritual abilities. John is very clear: the practice of a mystic (which is to say, the Christian person’s practice of their faith in prayer, worship, meditation, action, life) is never aimed at such gifts, but at growing in love with God. The moment a mystic aims at achieving a vision is the moment they open themselves up to deception, being deceived by themselves or by spiritual forces of wickedness into thinking that growth in love is a matter of visions, or that, having received a vision, they’ve reached the summit of their spiritual journey and may now revel in the light of their superior spiritual accomplishment. For both Merton and John, this sort of attitude is the height of foolishness, pride, delusion, and it constitutes a great spiritual danger. We were not meant for visions: we were meant for God. We were not meant to achieve spiritual powers, but to let God work the wonders of love in and through us. We were not meant to ascend spiritual heights on our own strength but to be in community with others and humble ourselves so God can lift us to where God desires us to be. So, John and Merton warn, a vision, a dream, a voice are all snares if we cling to them. They’re never the point. If we experience them, we can acknowledge them and move on in love. If we receive a spiritual consolation in our practice, we can give thanks, acknowledge it and move on in love. If we experience desolation, we can give thanks, acknowledge it and move on in love. Our aim is God. Nothing else will do, and we get lost when we imagine otherwise.

Merton sums up all of these concerns in this way (and I paraphrase): so often, people who have mystical experiences begin to believe they’re becoming angels—what’s really happening is that they’re becoming human, but their unwillingness to actually be the human beings God calls them to be means they’ll keep deferring living into the fullness of their humanity in Jesus Christ…consequently (and ironically), the fullness of God’s divinity in Christ is a gift of love they’ll not allow themselves to receive. Unwilling for God’s power to be perfected in our weakness, unwilling to humble ourselves before the One who desires to raise us up, we can forget who we are, we can forget our brokenness, we can forget our purpose, we can forget our humanity, we forget that the only real power is love.

In our Office Reading from II Timothy today, Paul warns against the preaching of a couple folks who are claiming that the resurrection has already happened. Usually these claims (which pop up from time to time throughout history) carry with them the idea that there are some who have now become spiritually perfect, who are no longer bound by the laws and concerns that bind other people, who are beyond good and evil and who are free to do whatever they please however they please…and even if it looks like crime or horror or death, that’s just because the thoughts and actions of the perfected ones cannot properly be understood by mere mortals (whose judgement of them is immaterial at best anyway). It’s a deadly delusion, in part because it’s likely to lead folks to ignore pain, suffering, injustice as inconsequential, or signs of ignorant or willful imperfection. It’s also deadly because it tends to bless, ratify, or justify our sinful passions and patterns, not transform them: we don’t need to change, we’re fine as we are. We cannot repent or grow in love as human beings if we suffer under the delusion that we’ve made it and all our growing is done.

Because, Beloved, the resurrection isn’t a reward for the super-human among us. Resurrection is a fruit of repentance, a radical possibility of the human by the grace of the God who became human for love of us. And the light and life of the Resurrected One can shine and live in us not as rewards, not as things to attain or mystical heights to ascend or achieve, but as a sanctifying Love alive in a human life that is being fulfilled by grace.

The mystic’s way is not one of great power or super-human perfection, but a becoming fully human in the fullness of the Love of God in every aspect of our day-to-day human lives, knowing that in Jesus Christ our humanity opens out onto the fullness of God’s divinity, not for the human to be subsumed or swallowed up by it…but for the human to be fulfilled in love, opened out to a newness of deathless resurrection life.

Under the Mercy,
Fr Mark+