For with God nothing shall be Impossible

St John of the Cross wrote many times on the need for care in appraising mystical phenomena. I think he was right in this as very often such things can be false of deceptive, particularly I think in people who are just setting out on the spiritual path.

There are some phenomena that can and should be dismissed right way. Doors that should not, if you like be ever opened.

For those on drugs.

My brother used to read a series of books by a guy called , I think ,
Carlos Casteneda:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlos_Castaneda

Carlos was deeply involved with a group of Indian 'Wise men', 'Yaqui' in Shamanistic practices involving the use of peyote mushrooms , which he suppose led him in stages of 'spiritual knowledge/growth.'

 

I would just say at the outset ..as an aside ..that there are a lot of questions of fakery surrounding Carlos, his life and even his death, but I'll not go onto that here.

https://www.nytimes.com/1998/08/19/...-fighting-over-carlos-castaneda-s-legacy.html

 

I read these books when I was a kid. Drugs certainly play a central role in them.

''I did the numerology of the day he died,'' she said. ''He ascended to a 22, and that's the highest you can get. He was very highly evolved, and I'm sure he won't come back to this world. I like the pseudo-sciences. They help me find my way and understand.''

 

Well I don;t think so many mature Catholic people will be heading of to the desert anytime soon to pick magic mushrooms.

But Carlos is such a good extreme example of taking a wrong path, for we can ask ourselves the central question, 'What exactly is wrong with taking this path?' I mean what is the central fault here? The answer is important because it is the central fault in all wrong path regarding the mystical. The essential fault is this; pride. Instead of seeking God for God's sake we seek God for our own sake and the source of this is pride. This applies right across the board to New Age, to magic, to witchcraft, to delusions, false messages and so..the source is always pride. The only class not included in this is a pathology, a mental illness.

So ot distinguish the false from the true we must always look for the virtue of humility and its opposite; pride. There are some wonderful stories from the Fathers of the Desert concerning this. One time the devil appeared as an agel of light to a father and greeted him. But the father said that the angel must have made a mistake in coming to him, that he must have been meant to come to a saint, at which the devil retreated baffled and confused; beaten.

Sometimes false humility is very deceptive but in the end Pride must show itself, for it is in the very nature of pride to place itself on display.

For instance. One time many years ago I heard about a Franciscan Priest who was said to receive regular visitations by Our Blessed Lady. I would of course have loved to have met him and maybe heard a few stories about this but never did. But I was saying in a guest house and got talking with the House Keeper, a very down to Earth country lady. The Friar in question had stayed in the Guest House for a week giving a Retreat and I asked her what she thought of him. To which the lady very sensibly replied that she did not know about seeing Our Lady but that he had given her such awful trouble. His eggs had to be boiled for just so many minutes and seconds, his bad had to made just so, his coffee had to be placed in such and such a place and so on...

So I am afraid I no longer believed in the Friar. But so it is when we build a house on false foundations they always ,always fall right back down again. The false foundation is pride , the true foundation is humility.

Look for instance at Our Lady at the Annunciation.she never asked for the angel Gabriel to come calling. But he did.

She never asked to be the Mother of God, but she was.

She never sought to be the Immaculate Conception; but she was.

.and when these things were given to her her answer in the Magnificat was to hand all things right back where they belonged; in the Hands of God.

A good example of the exact opposite in scripture was the case of Simon Magus , the magician , who had the run in with St Peter.

http://www.ancient-origins.net/hist...-christian-pagan-magician-and-sorcerer-003218

 

Padraig,

I thought of you and this post last night. I'm leading a Communion Service at Loretto Nursing Home this morning. Well, yesterday in preparation, I prayed over the readings and this verse from 1 John grabbed my attention:

We have come to know and to believe in the love God has for us.

This knowledge which John speaks of is not head knowledge, but experiential knowledge. Such knowledge is what cements and deepens our faith, so in that sense John is correct in placing knowledge before belief. It is all a marvelous gift through Christ Jesus!

It so happens that as I was eating dinner, a great darkness came over my soul that was heartrending. A temptation was presented: You want to believe in this so-called love of God, but how do you really know it's real? The example you want to give in the homily tomorrow was not God acting. It was only coincidental. Can you prove it was God? How can you stand before those residents and give them false hope when you really don't know for certain?

It was very sudden and very dark. The very foundation stone of my life was being challenged! I wondered if the Dark Night of the Soul can come upon one so suddenly. I fled to Jesus and rebuked it, but the feeling lingered until I fell asleep praying, but thinking I might change my homily.

But I awoke with joy in my heart and all is well. Praise God!

Safe in the Flames of the Sacred Heart!

 

It is certainly diabolical.

I would say in your case, being a Deacon are out in the front line doing good and would certainly be subject to such things. I often am. My Spiritual Director used to tell me to take such things as a compliment, which they are. I don;t think such things are to be answered by intellectual arguments in which we would always be defeated, the demon being cleverer than us. Anyway the heart of the temptation is to the heart, as you mention rather than the head. The only answer is humble prayer.

In St John we see this hitting Jesus at Gethsemane when we read that great fear and distress came upon the Lord and an angel of comfort was sent unto him.

I read a wonderful story of a nun in France many years ago who was presented by the devil with an argument from the devil denying God. It bothered her so much she took it the priest in confession. The poor priest was totally stumped for an answer but promised to take it to the Jesuits. The poor Jesuits were stumped. So they took it to the Catholic Universities in Paris. They were stumped too, but debated and studied it and eventually came up with a refutation.

This was given to the nun and cleared her mind, but she warned never to repeat this argument to anyone as it was so diabolical.

I would take all this as a great compliment , Terry. You must be doing great work.