What is Mysticism?

"We have within ourselves an inner drive toward union with the Supreme Reality. If we call the Reality God, we are saying that all finite beings must ultimately fail to satisfy that thirst in all of us for deeper, more intense interpenetration with God." (Frank X. Tuoti, Why Not be a Mystic, Crossroad Pub., Co., NY, 199, p. 13)

Evan though the Christian has the gift of faith in the Triune God, he or she still longs for a greater union with God in this life because we are made for Heaven which is the ultimate realization of union with God in our soul. St. Theresa of Avila experienced union with God in her life and tells us --

"The Lord unites it [the soul] with Himself, but He makes it blind and dumb, as He made St. Paul at his conversion, and so prevents it from having any sense of how or in what way that favour comes which it is enjoying; the great delight of which the soul is then conscious is the realization of its nearness to God. But when He united it with Him, it understands nothing; the faculties are all lost." (Theresa of Avila, Interior Castle, Doubleday, NY 1961, p. 209) "There is a self-forgetfulness which is so complete that it really seems as through the soul no longer existed, because it is such that she has neither knowledge nor remembrance that there is either heaven or life or honour for her, so entirely is she employed in seeking the honour of God." (Ibid., p. 219)

 

Is there any difference between the Christian and non-Christian mystic?

On the experiential level there does not appear to be any difference but the subjects who experience mystical union are surely different. The Christian bears an indelible character of Christ in his soul which gives him a share in the priesthood of Christ and makes him member of the visible Church. As to the degree of union we can only quote Christ who said, "Among men born of woman there has been no greater man than John the Baptist; yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he." (Jn 11:11) And "In my Father's house there are many dwelling places." (Jn 14:2) Further, the Christian mystic having the revealed truth of God's inner life, as St. Theresa had, expressed her experience thus, "The three Persons of the most Blessed Trinity reveal themselves, preceded by an illumination which shines on the spirit like a most dazzling cloud of light. The three Persons are distinct from one another; a sublime knowledge is infused into the soul, imbuing it with a certainty of the truth that the Three are of one substance, power, and knowledge, and are one God." (p. 82) In the final analysis, the mystery of the Incarnation safeguards the Christian mystic from Pantheism to which they always tend.

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9. The Vision of God's Face