The late Karl Rahner, German Jesuit priest whose imprint upon Vatican II was profound, mused that, “The Christian of the future will be a mystic or will not exist at all.” This insight has clearly become true throughout the Body of Christ in the West: the quest for ethical integrity, happiness, social inclusivity, as well as spiritual intimacy and experience informs the soul of Western Europe, where 60% or more of the populations of England, Germany and France now believe that religion is no longer necessary to live the good life, and much the same is true in the USA, too.(see https: //www.pewforum.org/ 2018/ 10/29/ eastern-and-western-europeans-differ-on-importance-of-religion-views-of-minorities-and-key-social-issues/) While clearly different according to geographical region, 23% of North Americans no longer trust/believe in the value of participation in organized, formal religious institutions - and this does not include those who self-define themselves as atheist. In both New England and the Pacific Northwest, the "spiritual but not religious" (SBNR) sector has become the dominant spirituality surpassing all Protestant varieties as well as Roman Catholic. (see https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-number-of-americans-with-no-religious-affiliation-is-rising/)Fr. Richard Rohr has recently been reflecting on the meaning of mysticism in his daily blog. At the Center for Action and Contemplation (https://cac.org) he summarizes the essence of mysticism clearly:
+ A mystic is simply one who has moved from mere belief or belonging systems to actual inner experience of God. (Sunday)
+ A mystic sees things in their wholeness, connection, and union, not only their particularity. Mystics get the whole gestalt in one picture, beyond the sequential and separated way of seeing. (Monday)
+ A Christian is one who can see Christ everywhere else and even in oneself. (Tuesday)
+ If you want to find God, then honor God within you, and you will always see God beyond you. For it is only God in you who knows where and how to look for God. (Wednesday)
+ Saints embody goodness while mystics embody love. (Thursday)
It is heartening to me that Mary has been raised up to be one of the saints. Her mystical way of living into the truth of Jesus is articulated well in Cynthia Bourgeault's book, The Meaning of Mary Magdalene: Discovering the Woman at the Heart of Christianity. Quoting another mystic, Fr. Thomas Merton, Bourgeault reminds us that the essence of Magdalene's spirituality is the integration of all things - female and male, wholeness and brokenness, joy and sorrow, hope and fear - into her heart:
At the center of our being is a point or nothingness which is untouched by sin and illusion, a point of pure truth which belongs entirely to God, which is never at our disposal, from which God disposes of our lives, which is inaccessible to the fantasies of our own mind or the brutalities of our own will. This little point of nothingness and of absolute poverty is the pure glory o f God in us. It is, so to speak, God's name written in us, as our poverty, as our indigence, as our dependence, as our intimate connection. It is like a pure diamond, blazing with the invisible light of heaven. (p. 60)
Magdalene is a saint who did her own work long before the men of the Jesus movement. In fact, Magdalene was the only disciple to stand with Jesus all the way through his betrayal, passion, death, descent and resurrection. She stood witness to the transformative experience of the love of Jesus in the darkness and the light, in fear and desertion, in understanding and confusion, in sorrow as well as joy. Even when the men arrogantly dismissed her testimony that God's love was stronger than death with disdain, Magdalene stayed the course. Her celebration as "apostolorum apostola" (apostle to the apostles) is long over due.
There are two traditions that suggest what may have occurred to Mary after the Ascension:The Eastern tradition maintains that she went to Rome, and then to Ephesus with Our Lady, where she died. Her relics were taken to Constantinople in the 9th c., to be translated later to Rome and France. The Roman tradition is that, in A.D. 48, she -- along with SS. Martha and Lazarus -- were seized by the Jews of Palestine who put them on a rickety boat without any oars and cast them away into the stormy sea. They made their way to France, and once there, settled in and converted all of Provence. While St. Martha gathered about her a community of women, and while St. Lazarus became a Bishop, Mary is said to have retired to a cave in a hill in La Sainte-Baume to live a life of penance for thirty years. When she was dying, the angels are said to have carried her to the Oratory of St. Maximinus in Aix where she received Viaticum and died. Her body is said to have been deposed in St. Maximin Oratory in Villa Lata until A.D. 745, when she was moved to protect her relics from the Saracens. Later, when the Dominicans built a convent in La Sainte-Baume, the shrine was found intact, with an inscription indicating why the relics were hidden. This church was destroyed during the French Revolution, but was later restored, and the head of Mary Magdalene is said to be there to this day..
((https://www.fisheaters.com/customstimeafterpentecost3x.html))
So how do we mystics - those connected to our various formal communities as well as those SBNR - celebrate this important new feast day? A few spring to mind:
+ Take a look at the Gospel of Mary Magdalene. Bourgeault synthesizes it well in her text and has also published a commentary on it, too.
+ Give yourself - or a loved one - as massage with perfumed oil. Given Mary's tradition this could be an embodied prayer of love and gratitude.
+ Bake and share Proust's famous Madeleine (French for Magdalene) cookies. The recipe is as follows as taken from the Feast of St. Mary Magdalene web site (https://www.fisheaters.com/customstimeafterpentecost3x.html)
Madeleines
3 eggs
3/4 cup sugar
1 lemon
2/3 cup milk
2 cups all purpose flour
1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
butter (at room temperature) for the madeleine pan molds
Butter 2 madeleine molds (molds of 12) and put into the refrigerator. Butter them again in 15 minutes, making sure the butter coats the indentations on the top. Chill molds until ready to use.
Grate the zest from 1/2 of the lemon and reserve. Squeeze the lemon and reserve the juice. Whisk the flour and baking powder together. Melt the butter and set aside. Whisk the eggs, sugar, lemon zest and lemon juice together for about 30 seconds. Don't overmix.
Thin the mixture with 1/2 cup of the milk. Add the flour all at once and, using a whisk, blend just long enough to eliminate lumps. Gently stir in the rest of the milk and the melted butter.
Refrigerate the batter for 20 minutes. Preheat oven to 425°. Spoon the batter into the shell-shaped molds and bake for 15 to 20 minutes, turning the pans halfway through the cooking time so they bake evenly. Immediately remove the cookies from the molds and allow to cool on racks. Sprinkle with powdered sugar just before serving (not when hot!).
One final note: an old English saying is that if it rains today, it is Mary Magdalen washing out her handkerchief, preparing to attend St. James's fair. The Feast of St. James is a few days from now, on the 25th of July (her sister Martha's Feast follows hers in one week).(see fisheaters above.)
Reclaiming the mystical traditions - and importance for our personal and collective well-being - is a joyful way of going deeper into our embodied prayers. Rain is predicted for my part of creation. I hope you find a way to join me and countless others. Today I start my preparations with this poem by Rilke:
Until his final hour he had never
refused her anything or turned away,
lest she should turn their love to public praise.
Now she sank down beside the cross, disguised,
heavy with the largest stones of love
like jewels in the cover of her pain.
But later, when she came back to his grave
with tearful face, intending to anoint,
she found him resurrected for her sake,
saying with greater blessedness, “Do not –”
She understood it in her hollow first:
how with finality he now forbade
her, strengthened by his death, the oils’ relief
or any intimation of a touch:
because he wished to make of her the lover
who needs no more to lean on her beloved,
as, swept away by joy in such enormous
storms, she mounts even beyond his voice.
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