Read Online The Silence We Keep: A Nun's View of the Catholic Priest Scandal by Karol Jackowski - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Karol Jackowski
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that happens. Even in the darkest nights of the soul, and the darkest ages of the church, mystics experience the blinding light and love of God, along with the fullness of life for which we were created. All mystics write about how darkness and light are the same. One is not intrinsically evil and the other intrinsically divine. Both reveal divinely the dark and light faces and voices of God. In losing the taste for things this world offers as “divine,” mystics write of experiencing all of life as sublime. All of life comes to the mystic as it did to Jesus Christ, as a daily opportunity to meet God face to face in everything that happens. Heaven on earth.
So powerful is the experience of God for mystics that even amid the decadence of the Middle Ages they speak of their souls being awakened by love, purified by love, enlightened by love, and inspired by love to works of mercy and some of the greatest works of art we’ve seen. Emily Dickinson explains it as “The Inner—paints the Outer—The Brush without the Hand.” Living their lives in the presence of God, mystics hear divine voices and see the hand of God in the events of the day. They see things most of us don’t. They are able to relax their minds and souls in such a meditative way that divine insights and truths come to them quite easily, insights and truths sometimes at variance with church teaching. It’s no wonder then that the institutional church always regarded mysticism with mistrust—especially since women and ordinary Christians played such an important role in its development and since mystics tend to be strong proponents of holy disobedience. That’s the clearest sign I know that mystics are touched by God. Women and ordinary people aren’t excluded, and the only voice they follow is the voice of God, regardless of consequences.
Some of the most inspiring mystical writings are those of the women mystics. Teresa of Avila, a sixteenth-century Spanishmystic, is a personal favorite. In addition to composing volumes of inspired writings on the inner life, Teresa worked with her colleague and soul mate, John of the Cross, to reform monastic life in their communities of cloistered Carmelites. So rich is Teresa’s inner life that she envisions the soul as an “interior castle” and speaks of her life as a union with God in a “spiritual marriage.” 6 In understanding “marriage to God” literally, most nuns then wore wedding gowns on the day of their final profession of vows, and most envisioned themselves married to Jesus Christ. While I did not, many did, and I suspect some nuns still do.
I was told the story of a group of contemplative nuns who years ago understood the notion of being married to Jesus literally, in the sense that “Jesus” was the man whom nuns slept with at night. At their solemn vow ceremony, rather than lying prostrate in front of the altar during the Litany of the Saints (we knelt), they lay on their backs so that they could be impregnated by the Holy Spirit. It was a wise bishop who put an end to that practice in the abbey. Even so, while the image of spiritual marriage may sound like the revelation of a perverted sexuality, nothing could be further from the truth. It’s purely a matter of a loving soul and the fulfillment of life that follows. All mystics speak with symbolic and poetic language, just as Christ did. Symbol, image, music, art, and poetry are all the language of the mystic, and are never intended to be understood literally. The visions and voices that mystics see and hear present themselves to us in timeless ways everyone can understand, except the literal-minded.
The fourteenth-century English mystic Julian of Norwich is another personal favorite. In her “Revelations of Divine Love” Julian envisions God as Mother and explains with pure delight how “Sin is no blame, but worship” in the way it can waken the soul to be touched by God. But sin as worship? No wonder the Inquisition harassed,
So powerful is the experience of God for mystics that even amid the decadence of the Middle Ages they speak of their souls being awakened by love, purified by love, enlightened by love, and inspired by love to works of mercy and some of the greatest works of art we’ve seen. Emily Dickinson explains it as “The Inner—paints the Outer—The Brush without the Hand.” Living their lives in the presence of God, mystics hear divine voices and see the hand of God in the events of the day. They see things most of us don’t. They are able to relax their minds and souls in such a meditative way that divine insights and truths come to them quite easily, insights and truths sometimes at variance with church teaching. It’s no wonder then that the institutional church always regarded mysticism with mistrust—especially since women and ordinary Christians played such an important role in its development and since mystics tend to be strong proponents of holy disobedience. That’s the clearest sign I know that mystics are touched by God. Women and ordinary people aren’t excluded, and the only voice they follow is the voice of God, regardless of consequences.
Some of the most inspiring mystical writings are those of the women mystics. Teresa of Avila, a sixteenth-century Spanishmystic, is a personal favorite. In addition to composing volumes of inspired writings on the inner life, Teresa worked with her colleague and soul mate, John of the Cross, to reform monastic life in their communities of cloistered Carmelites. So rich is Teresa’s inner life that she envisions the soul as an “interior castle” and speaks of her life as a union with God in a “spiritual marriage.” 6 In understanding “marriage to God” literally, most nuns then wore wedding gowns on the day of their final profession of vows, and most envisioned themselves married to Jesus Christ. While I did not, many did, and I suspect some nuns still do.
I was told the story of a group of contemplative nuns who years ago understood the notion of being married to Jesus literally, in the sense that “Jesus” was the man whom nuns slept with at night. At their solemn vow ceremony, rather than lying prostrate in front of the altar during the Litany of the Saints (we knelt), they lay on their backs so that they could be impregnated by the Holy Spirit. It was a wise bishop who put an end to that practice in the abbey. Even so, while the image of spiritual marriage may sound like the revelation of a perverted sexuality, nothing could be further from the truth. It’s purely a matter of a loving soul and the fulfillment of life that follows. All mystics speak with symbolic and poetic language, just as Christ did. Symbol, image, music, art, and poetry are all the language of the mystic, and are never intended to be understood literally. The visions and voices that mystics see and hear present themselves to us in timeless ways everyone can understand, except the literal-minded.
The fourteenth-century English mystic Julian of Norwich is another personal favorite. In her “Revelations of Divine Love” Julian envisions God as Mother and explains with pure delight how “Sin is no blame, but worship” in the way it can waken the soul to be touched by God. But sin as worship? No wonder the Inquisition harassed,
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