Table of contents hide 1 Introduction 2 Invited by God 3 Inner search 4 Embrace the soul 5 The betrothal 6 7 A soul in sorrow 8 Spiritual transformation 9 Mystical marriage 10 Closing words

Introduction

Many Christians have already traveled the mystical path, following the steps indicated by Jesus and recounting the experiences lived. Such is the case of Saint John the Apostle and Evangelist (1st century), of Hildegarda Von Bingen (1098-1179), of Saint Francis of Assisi (1181-1226), of Saint Teresa of Avila (1515-1582), of Saint John de la Cruz (1542-1591), by Pio de Pietrelcina (1887-1968) and many others.

In this short article I highlight those aspects of the mystical path that I consider most relevant and outstanding. With the desire that the walk of mystics be understood, respected and imitated. In this world where diversity of footprints and options coexist, some of professional success, others of economic growth, others of family, because they do not make a place also for those who want to walk the path of passion for God.

Pope Francis has recently (February 2016) taken the body of Father Pio de Pietrelcina to St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican, where he has been venerated. What a beautiful gesture to indicate that mystics are welcome in the Church of the Lord!

In this document there are many quotes from the Bible and comments on the "Spiritual Canticle" of Saint John of the Cross . This priest was born in 1542 in Avila, Spain and was proclaimed Doctor of the Church in 1926. He clarified that “this mystical theology is an infusion of secret and mysterious wisdom from God. In it, God, without words and without intervention of bodily or spiritual senses, silently and quietly, enlightens the soul without knowing how ”(In: Martí B .: 2014: p.304). And the soul undertakes the spiritual path purgative, illuminative and unitive, by which he comes to spiritual marriage with God.

“Mystical wisdom, although not perfectly understood, can ignite love in the soul ; it happens with her as with faith, that for her we love God without understanding him ”(In: Martí B .: 2014: p.30).

God invited

"All mine is yours and all yours is mine" (Jn 17, 10).

The foundation of the Christian mystical path is found in Jesus : in his incarnate life, in the institution of the Eucharist, in his transfiguration, in his words, in his miracles and especially in his passion, death and resurrection. In all his life, but especially in those moments, He invited us to enter into communion and witness his glory.

The union with God that leads the soul to experience eternal Life is clearly linked to the living bread taken down from Heaven, of which Christ said: He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal Life, and I He will resurrect him in the last day. Because my flesh is the real food and my blood is the real drink. Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him. Just like me, I have been sent by the Father who has Life, I live by the Father, in the same way he who eats me will live for me (Jn 6, 53-58).

If we believe in Jesus, we have the power to become children of God (Jn 1:12) and to receive his Spirit (Jn 7, 38). Christ said that he is at the door of our house knocking, and that if we open it, he will enter our house and we will have dinner together (Rev 3, 20). That if we love him, we will be loved by his Father and by him, and that they will manifest themselves to us (Jn 14, 21). This, as announced, is what happens in the union. God enters our house, manifests himself to us, loves us and makes us his children. Just for believing him, just for loving him.

Already in the transfiguration Jesus showed how his face shone like the sun and his garments became white as light (Mt 17: 3--3).

The prayer that Jesus raised for all who believe in him before being arrested declares the wonderful and glorious invitation our eternal friend made to us. He said:

I pray not only for them, but also for those who, thanks to his word, will believe in me. May all be one : like you, Father, you are in me and I in you, who also are in us, so that the world may believe that you sent me. I have given you the glory that you gave me, so that they may be one, as we are one - I in them and you in me - so that they are perfectly one and the world knows that you have sent me, and that you have loved them as you loved me. Father, I want those you gave me to be with me where I am, to contemplate the glory you have given me, because you already loved me before the creation of the world. Just father, the world has not known you, but I knew you, and they recognized that you sent me. I gave them your Name, and I will continue to make it known, so that the love with which you loved me is in them, and I am also in them (Jn 17.20-26).

Juan de Yepes remarks that it is in the Cross where the Son of God redeemed and dispossessed with him the human nature and, therefore, to each particular soul (In: Mart B .: 2014: p. 187). With his passion and his death he gave us his merciful hand, gave us eternal life.

God gave all creatures the natural being and also, with just the figure of his Son, left them dressed in beauty giving them the supernatural being. Which he did when his Son became a man, elevating man to the beauty of God and with him all creatures for having united in man with the nature of all of them. When I am lifted from the earth, I will pull everyone towards me (Jn 12, 32). In this pull of the Incarnation of his Son and the glory of his resurrection he left all creatures dressed in beauty and dignity (In: Mart B .: 2014: p. 82).

Interior search

The mystical path begins with the search . Jesus said “Ask and it will be given to you; search and you will find; Call and it will open. Because everyone who asks receives; If you search you will find; and to him who knocks, it will be opened ”(Mt 7, 7).

It is to be sought within the soul, where God is hidden. “Oh most beautiful soul more than all creatures! You already know the place you want. You already know where the Beloved is to look for him and join him! You yourself are his abode. You hide yourself where it is hidden. Great joy should let you know that all your good and hope is so close to you that it is in yourself! You cannot be without Him: " Look, within you is the kingdom of God!" (Lk 17:21); because we are "temple of the living god" (2Cor.6, 16) (In: Martí B .: 2014: p.50).

“To seek God requires a naked and strong and free heart” (In: Martí B .: 2014: p.70). A heart that knows how to live in solitude, that knows how to detach itself from the world, that knows how to travel difficult and narrow roads. A heart in love with the Truth and the Light. A brave heart, who is not afraid to lose everything to find God. A heart independent of what is not love. A passionate heart for God, who is not afraid to manifest his desire to join Him, his desire for Him.

It clarifies Saint John of the Cross that God is present in the soul in three ways. In essence it is in all creatures, giving them being and life. By grace God lives in the soul happy and satisfied with it. And by the presence of love "God manifests himself to many spiritual souls to recreate, delight and rejoice" (In: Martí B .: 2014: p.108).

For this beautiful truth we must listen and obey Isaiah when he tells us " Cheer and shout for joy, inhabitant of Zion, because the Holy One of Israel is great in your midst!" (Is 12, 6).

Hug to the soul

The embrace of God to the soul is when you experience the wonder of intimate union with Him, when the betrothal is realized, when the soul has the joy of receiving this sublime gift from Heaven . It is a hug that can never be described sufficiently with words, because it is beyond words and time.

Union with God

The union with God is indescribable and immeasurable. God embraces you, expands you, floods you with love, fills you with peace, takes you out of time. It is like dissolving in God, there are no limits between God and the soul. Is it all him? Is he in you? Are you in Him? Or you are not?

The union is to be one, it is communion, it is hug . A hug from which nature participates: the mountains, the rivers and you, who are also earth. “By uniting the soul with God, he feels that all things are God:“ What was done in Him was life ”(Jn 1, 4) (In: Martí B .: 2014: p.134).

In this hug, the soul leaves the body and the body is meaningless. “In this divine union the soul sees and savors abundance and priceless riches. Find there all the rest and all the recreation you want. It includes mysterious secrets and intelligences of God, which is one of the delicacies that you most want. Feel that in God there is an enormous power and a force that overrides any other power and force. Like there softness and admirable delights. Find there true peace and divine light. Exquisitely savor the wisdom of God that shines in the harmony of creatures and their works. It feels overflowing with goods and away and free from evil. And, above all, he understands and enjoys an invaluable love food that confirms it in love ”(In: Martí B .: 2014: p.133).

“In the union and transformation of love the one gives himself to the other and each one leaves and changes for the other, and the one is the other, and the two are one for the transformation of love. When St. Paul said: " I no longer live, Christ lives in me" (Gal 2, 20), he was demonstrating that, although he lived, his life was not his, because he was transformed into Christ "(In: Martí B .: 2014: p.118).

In the divine union the “goods of God become of the soul because He communicates them by sharing them with her gracefully and generously” (In: Martí B .: 2014: p.144).

Louis Cattiaux, alchemist and Christian artist, says that all mysteries are reduced to the "admirable reality of God in us, we in God." The beloved disciple said: "God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him" (1 Jn 4:16).

Fray Luis de León says that the “end of the Christian is to become one with Christ, that is, to have Christ in himself, transforming himself into Him” (In: Martí B .: 2014: p.74).

The betrothal

The betrothal is the mutual promise to marry that God and the soul are made in the mystical union . It is an unbreakable promise, made faithfully once and for all. On earth there will be a time between the betrothal, the wedding and the golden wedding. But in the intimate union, which occurs beyond the earth and time, the promise and marriage are given in unison, and that makes them inseparable.

The promise is realized “inside the soul, where the Wife feels that the Husband is there, as in her own bed, where she offers herself, while offering virtues to Him, as the greatest service what can the Beloved do ”(In: Martí B .: 2014: p.144).

In the "Spiritual Canticle" this moment is recreated in the following stanza:

“There he gave me his chest,

there he taught me very tasty science,

and I gave it in fact

to me, leaving nothing;

there I promised to be his wife. ”

Heaven gift

God's hug to the soul is a gift from Heaven. God gives it when he wants, God gives it to whoever he wants. Humanly what we do will be insufficient. We can live an ascetic life, pray, meditate, commune, fast, serve. All of that can help, but it does not assure us that the Father will come, visit us and love us infinitely, eternally, totally. We can be sinners, and still be chosen by the Father to enter his Heaven, his Kingdom, his Home.

Jesus came to live with sinners, with the sick who need to recover health and well-being thanks to his words of eternal life and his touch of salvation.

This gift from Heaven is usually described as infused, implanted by God; extraordinary, since the intellect works in a different way; and passive, since the soul limits itself to surrender to God in a conscious way.

“When the soul realizes what they have done in it, without their own merits, raising it to such high love and granting such noble gifts and virtues, it attributes everything to God. In: Mart B .: 2014: p.252). It is that even her faith, love and praise is due to the grace she received from the Beloved and that lead her to do things worthy of l (In: Mart B .: 2014: p .254).

The soul sees with immense clarity that in itself there is no little thing for God to have looked at and magnified; and that only God has chosen her by her beautiful grace and pure will; and that his is his misery, and of the Beloved all the goods he possesses (In: Mart B .: 2014: p.258).

Jesus had already clarified that salvation is impossible for men to achieve, but that everything is possible for God (Mt 19, 26).

Fray Luis de León says that Christ forges friends and puts love in their hearts in the way he wants. And how much he actually wants to be loved by his own, both his loved him (En: Mart B .: 2014: p.220). Because love only seeks and only desires love (In: Mart B .: 2014: p.220).

That is why the evangelist John explains that this love is not that we have loved God, but that he first loved us (1 Jn 4, 10).

Annihilation

The embrace can be described as an annihilation of being, since none of the personal aspects remain when the Beloved is fully present. It is normal that it be so. Why could one, simple human, contribute to the beauty of celestial music? With what could I contribute in a Kingdom that everything has and in which nothing is missing?

Even if everything that characterized the old man is lost, as Saint Paul said, dying for Christ is gain (Flp 1, 21). The old man is annulled, according to which he lived before. All your knowledge is annihilated first. Everything seems nothing. His old life and imperfections are annihilated too. A new man is reborn (In: Mart B .: 2014: p. 213).

The soul, fascinated with God, surrenders completely because it wants to be in the service of God, although that required him to hate all that is not of God; And what is not of God? Everything else, including myself. I gave up everything and I lost everything. This is how the one who is in love really works. He only cares what he loves (In: Mart B .: 2014: p.233).

The mystic: witness of God

From the day the soul experiences the intimate union, it becomes a witness of God. Because he has felt it, experienced, known. A witness, like the people who lived with Jesus in the Holy Land and knew how to listen to him and could believe him.

That day the new man is born, who, by the purgative path, is losing his imperfections, and by assimilation and imitation of Christ he is cementing his virtues and celestial gifts.

The doctor is not special, he is not great, he is not perfect. The doctor is not unique, because there are many doctors. The doctor is just a lucky one. It is a fortunate being who has received the priceless gift of being visited by God, of joining God. Not because of his merits, but only because of the immense goodness of God.

You may be lucky because the doctor has an insatiable thirst for God. Because despite his innumerable mistakes he has the courage to run to his Beloved, without qualms, without calculations, without reflection. Perhaps he is fortunate for his unbridled passion to join the source of eternity, peace, love. You may be lucky to believe in Jesus Christ with all your heart.

A soul in sorrow

The dark night of the soul is the sore that remains the day after the infinite embrace. It is the day when it seems that God is not there and the soul is paralyzed and distraught after losing the Beloved. The soul realizes that the distance that separates its earthly existence, poor, conflicted and of little value, with the eternal glory of God, is immense. And the soul wants nothing in this world, except to be in the arms of God. She feels abandoned by the Father, who left after his visit. And he doesn't know how to recover it.

A soul in such a state has a hard time living. Depressed and knowledgeable that she has not done anything to deserve the visit and the embrace of God, she does not know how to recover it. But he knows that is all he wants.

Thus can the soul be afflicted, distressed, motionless, for years. Saint Paul said "Even we, who possess the Spirit as a firstfruit, groan in the intimate waiting for the full condition of children" (Rom 8:23).

Saint John of the Cross, who coined the poetic expression of the " dark night of the soul ", explains: "Where love hurts, there is the groan of the wound always crying in the pain of absence, especially if the soul arrived to savor some sweet and tasty communication from the Husband and He later left and suddenly left her alone and in aridity ”(In: Martí B .: 2014: p.55).

“God visits the soul in many ways and in these visits he ignites it with love and the love sore” (p.57). "It is so deep and enormous the sorrow of the absence of God in those who reach perfection when they have already been injured with such divine wounds, that if God did not sustain them, death would cause them immense sorrow" (In: Martí B .: 2014: p.58).

“This soul lives dying until love kills it, making it live a life of love, transforming it into love. Dying of love caused in the soul by a touch of the highest knowledge of Divinity. (...) This touch cannot be continued or very intense, because, if it were, man would die. It happens quickly. But after this touch the soul is dying of love and, as it does not die, the more it dies ”(In: Martí B .: 2014: p.88).

"Seeing the soul that is dying of love and that it has not just died to be able to enjoy love freely, it complains that the earthly life lasts so long and that the eternal life is delayed" (In: Martí B .: 2014: p.93).

“The soul that loves God lives more in the other life than in it, because the soul lives more where it loves than where it animates. That is why he appreciates this temporary life and can say: Kill me your sight and beauty ”(In: Martí B .: 2014: p. 112).

“Wanting to die is an imperfection” (In: Martí B .: 2014: p.110) because God is life and has brought us to earth to live with a purpose. But the soul suffers pain until it is transformed, transfigured, and is able to love more completely, perfectly and fully. “Who has no love ailment is either because he does not love, or because he already has perfect love” (In: Martí B .: 2014: p.114).

Until reaching this fullness of love they will have to spend long, painful and lonely years. But fruitful years, in which the spirit with its suffering is purified, purged and matured . The soul is giving more and more completely to God, and with this donation of itself, desolation becomes smaller.

Spiritual transformation

Love to god

Jesus taught us that the most important commandment is to love God, with all my heart and with all my soul, with all my spirit and with all my strength (Mk 12, 28).

“And this is the guarantee that allows the soul to know clearly if it loves God or not, with pure love. If she loves him, her heart will not be self-centered, nor will she be attentive to achieve her tastes and interests. He will devote himself completely to seeking the honor and glory of God and to pleasing Him. ” (In: Martí B .: 2014: p.98). Because the “lover is not satisfied if he does not experience that he loves as he is loved” (In: Martí B .: 2014: p.291). And although he cannot love as much as God loves him, at least he will imitate him with the strength and purity with which he is capable. Looking to give something similar to that perfect love he has received.

The lover wants to see his Beloved, so Moses asked God to teach him his glory. The lover wants to talk about his Love. The lover wants to do what makes his Husband happy, and that is why he is eager to know and keep his commandments.

To love is to do the will of God, be it sweet or sour, happy or sad. To love God is to do everything with Him, with his help; for Him, for his love and joy; and in Him, in his embrace.

Fear of God

“When the soul reaches the spirit of fear perfectly, it also has the spirit of love, for fear, the last of the seven gifts (of the Holy Spirit), is filial. The perfect fear of son is born of perfect love of father. And so, in Scripture, he who enjoys perfect charity is called God fearing. Isaiah, prophesying the perfection of Christ, says: The spirit of fear of the Lord will rest upon him ”(Is 111, 2) (In: Martí B .: 2014: p.205).

The soul does not want to disappoint God, his greatest good. He does not want to lose God, his treasure . He is very aware that the road to Heaven is narrow and narrow, that there is no room for impurities, for sins of thought, word, deed or omission. That is why he strives to travel it with balance and dedication. He also knows that before the possibility of error, there is the hand of his Friend and Savior so that he can rise again. But he prefers to give his eternal Friend a glass of water and a smile, since so many times before He has given him his hand, just like the angels.

The soul with fear of God is basically a soul desiring the love of God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

God's will

The soul given to God “is satisfied with this union of God as much as he can be in this life, nothing expects from the world or anything he desires from the spiritual, since he looks and feels full of God's riches. In such a way that, whether he lives or dies, he is satisfied and conformed to the will of God and truly speaks his meaning and spirit: `` Thy will be done, without mpetu of another desire. And even the desire to see God is a desire without suffering (In: Mart B .: 2014: p.174).

He has already left all things and lives in her God, where she enjoys all peace, likes all softness and delights in all delight to the extent that in this life you can (In: Mart B .: 2014: p.176). True love accepts everything that the Beloved sends him, whether it is prosperous or adverse (In: Mart B .: 2014: p.111).

The soul has joined God and transformed with his embrace, so he loses his taste in the things of the world and his most intimate desire becomes that the will of the Father be done. Now you can pray the prayer that Jesus taught us, the Padre Nuestro , with the heart and in truth.

The transformation in God resembles the simplicity and purity of God and leaves it clean, pure and empty; purified and illuminated in simple contemplation (In: Mart B .: 2014: p.213).

Wisdom

Being aware of the soul of the intrinsic union between God and her, and between God and every living being; realizing that God is essentially in every creature that has been created by him; it comprises an aspect of wisdom established by Jesus as the second commandment in degree of importance. He understands the importance of loving his neighbor as himself, of respecting him, of valuing him.

In experiencing Unity, understand why Christ said: I assure you that every time you did it with the youngest of my brothers, you did it with me (Mt 25, 40) and with The measure you measure will be measured to you (Mt 7.2).

He knows that to hurt the brother is to harm himself, it is to offend God. He also knows that the Father is omniscient, he sees everything, he knows everything. He knows that no sin can be hidden and that is why the way out of error is in the covenant with the Savior, in repentance, in confession, in the request for forgiveness.

Understand that evil, lies, murder, theft, insult and rape, are first and foremost stupid acts performed by those who do not understand the secret of Unity and the power of God, who is worthy of all glory and praise.

Saint John of the Cross said that there is a “door to enter to enjoy the riches of God's wisdom: the cross ” (In: Martí B .: 2014: p.282). That is why Christians at heart do not deny problems and difficulties, but embrace them and take them as the way to become wiser and more loving.

Weapons

The Virgin Mary permanently remembers the weapons we have at our disposal to fight against evil: prayer, communion, praise, adoration, fasting, confession, reconciliation, meditation, lectio divina, chastity, the sacraments, the dialogue, the request for forgiveness, the service, the help to the neighbor.

Weapons to fight evil inside and outside ourselves. Weapons to overcome temptations and to follow the narrow path that leads to Heaven, to the Father's Home.

Mystical marriage

"Hallelujah! Because the Lord, our God, the Almighty, has established his Kingdom. Let us rejoice, let us rejoice and give glory to God, because the marriage of the Lamb has come: his wife has already prepared herself, and they have dressed her in fine linen of shining whiteness ”(Rev 19, 6-8).

“To reach spiritual marriage, which is what the soul intends (…) it must have reached the degree of purity, strength and essential love” (In: Martí B .: 2014: p.166).

The Wife must be an opening “where the Husband will enter when she has the door of her will open for Him in a yes of authentic and total love . And this is the same one he already gave in the betrothal that prepared the spiritual marriage ”(In: Martí B .: 2014: p.167).

“When the soul has perfect love, it is called the wife of the Son of God, because love creates equality between the Husband and the Wife. Create friendship And in friendship there is neither yours nor mine, but everything is of the two friends, as the Husband said to his disciples: “I call them friends, because I have made known to them everything I heard from my Father” (Jn 15, 15) (In: Martí B .: 2014: p.220).

“When the soul comes to be confirmed in the stillness of the only solitary love of his Husband, there is such a tasty rest of love in God and rest of God in her that she no longer needs intermediaries or teachers to direct her to God, because God is already his guide and his light ”(In: Martí B .: 2014: p. 69).

“At the service of his Husband he has given his body and his soul, his understanding, his will and all his talents and abilities” (In: Martí B .: 2014: p.222). “Everything is used in God, or as God wants. His joy is God, only God, he fears, his hope is set on God and only for God suffers. And all their strength and commitment puts them in God. And he has so dedicated and directed to God all the dynamism of his soul that, even without realizing it and as instinctively and through reflexes, he always tends to do things in God and for God ”(In: Martí B .: 2014: p. 223).

Before “I had the itch to make a good impression and tried hard to please people with their manners and manners (…) Now he has lost these trades. Now all his words, his thoughts and his works are from God and to Him oriented ”(In: Martí B .: 2014: p.224). That is why Jesus deigns to throw the tables of the sellers of the Temple.

Married to the Lamb, the soul gives glory to the Beloved, it makes God shine in itself . It becomes a pure white cup that receives God and spills its attributes. “This is being the soul similar to God. And so that she could reach this goal, God raised her in her image and likeness ”(In: Martí B .: 2014: p.299).

Closing words

“As much as the Doctors discovered, no matter how much the Saints understood in this state of spontaneous life, they had more to say and understand . There is much to deepen in Christ. Christ is an opulent mine with infinite treasure caverns. Now you can go deeper, they never end ”(In: Martí B .: 2014: p.285).

The Wife of the Son of God wants to “move from the divine marriage to which God has wanted to raise her in the militant Church, to the glorious marriage of the triumphant ” (In: Martí B .: 2014: p.310). He wants to travel the narrow road until he reaches the New Jerusalem, the Celestial Church.

He wants to give glory and honor to God, and his Son, on earth and then, even more fully, in Heaven. Where you can praise him with the elders, the angels and the saints.

Sources and Bibliography

• THE BOOK OF THE PEOPLE OF GOD - THE BIBLE. Buenos Aires: Editorial San Pablo, 1981.
• Martí Ballester, Jesus. A new reading of the spiritual song: from San Juan de la Cruz. -1st ed.- Autonomous City of Buenos Aires: Santa María, 2014.

Author: Cecilia Wechsler, editor of the great family of hermandadblanca.org