I happen to have an awesome parish with 4 awesome priests in the diocese of Rockford,Il and we just opened our beautiful adoration chapel. Thank you Jesus!
Of all the new things in our Parish down the years the one thing that gives me any hope is 24 hour adoration. It is terrific. A spiritual powerhouse.
To deal with this, I have a personal rule. When I open to the chosen hymn, my eyes drop to the bottom and I read the copyright date. If it's from the late 1970's or anytime in the 1980's, I immediately close the hymnal and pray instead. This keeps me from losing my peace over sappy songs.
I am sorry I have kind of wandered off topic here, a very Irish thing to do in conversation. To get back to mysticism. I think the best definition of mysticism comes fro a French writer who described it as ,'An exploration of the mystery of Christ'. Or I suppose another way of putting it is that is the science of holiness as St Paul puts it: 2 Corinthians 3:18 18 And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.8
Now imagine for a minute you are sitting beside and staring at a lighted fire. View attachment 1594 Consider its three properties. For these are very similiar to those of how grace works in our souls transforming us to holiness, into the very image of Jesus. The first property and the main one is heat. This is the heat of love melting our hard stone hearts and giving us hearts of golden love. Of hearts on fire like the Sacred Heart of Jesus. "Behold the Heart which has so loved men that it has spared nothing, even to exhausting and consuming Itself, in order to testify Its love; and in return, I receive from the greater part only ingratitude, by their irreverence and sacrilege, and by the coldness and contempt they have for Me in this Sacrament of Love. But what I feel most keenly is that it is hearts which are consecrated to Me, that treat Me thus. Therefore, I ask of you that the Friday after the Octave of Corpus Christi be set apart for a special Feast to honor My Heart, by communicating on that day, and making reparation to It by a solemn act, in order to make amends for the indignities which It has received during the time It has been exposed on the altars. I promise you that My Heart shall expand Itself to shed in abundance the influence of Its Divine Love upon those who shall thus honor It, and cause It to be honored."
I feel it as well when I enter church and every Christmas I well up with tears as the traditional hymms begin Mass and end Mass. Joyful tears, so much that I usually have to stop singing as I can't. And Easter is the same. I think these times are when we are closest to God and our souls feel it.
FatimaPilgrim, How cute, your last words. It was very much as you described, change in the facial expression and like my mother was looking beyond anyone in the room. I have a dear friend from grade school. Multiple times, she sees her father who has died and other relatives who have passed. Wild, her sister recently, at a family funeral also saw their father.
he second quality of fire; of Mysticam is that it gives off light. We see this in prayer with gifts such as Infused Wisdom. That someone who has little or no education can have a knowledge and understanding that outshines that of the most learned Professors.
But it is to the third and least quality of fire that this thread is dedicated the fact that it gives off flames and fire and smoke, the accidentals of fire. In mysticism the supernatural gifts. The fun spiritual fireworks which people like St Padre Pio showed forth in such abundance. The Harry Potter stuff of Catholic mysticism which so fascinates the young at heart like myself.
so, heat, light and accidentals (flames/smoke). Most specifically I am interested in accounts of these accidentals such as gifts of seeing souls in purgatory, while waking or dreaming, as well as spiritual sight in recognizing oppression or harassment, but also holy angelic influence and intercession. Dreams are of interest in this area, as someone I know has been having mystical experiences since childhood that have all elements of the above, in dreams and also while awake.
Yes it was about the sparks, smoke and flames the supernatural I was going to write. First Question is I suppose is why some folks can see things and others can't, or again while some people can very occasionally others seem to have a ring side seat. Well they don't name mysticism after mystery for nothing. I am always uneasy with people who believe they have these things nailed. I have come up with a few theories but they are only that, theories. I am not quite sure how I could prove any of this or even if I want to . Some things are better not nailed down, mystery is not always a bad thing; somethings are simply God's buisness and we'll have to be patient get to heaven to find out. The first thing I would say is to distinguish between two main sources of these visions. The first kind are when God (heaven} comes knocking on our doors Himself. When the veil, so to speak is lifted from the other side, rather than this side ,so to speak. A very good example of this God comes knocking buisness was St Bernadette Soubirous and Lourdes though I am sure you could think of a million other examples yourself. Bernadette seems to have been just an ordinary child with no special gifts. Of all the villages in all the world Lourdes was picked and of all the children in all the world it was Bernadette who was chosen. View attachment 1604 Firstly why Lourdes of all places/ A remote backwater in the middle of nowhere. Well there does seem to be a certain commonality to all these supernatural phenomena running back thousands of years like a golden thread right through scripture. God seems to like to choose these remote rural places, very often mountains and for some reason he seems very fond of shepherds. I suspect this because in such places the pace of life is slower, whereas in towns and cities we tend to live at too fast a pace to be responsive to a tap on the shoulder from the other side. Another reason I suspect is that such remote places are often very , very beautiful. ..and as such so naturally draw the mind and heart to God. However I suspect that most of all it is and was that in certain places in the world like Lourdes the living heart of the Faith of its inhabitants beat stronger and with more warmth than elsewhere thus drawing the attention of heaven.
I was writing about the first type of mystical 'flame' or sight were the 'veil' between us and the other side were the veil thins by the action of God or other factors from the beyond. Pilgrimage places such as Lourdes and Fatima are very good examples of this , 'thinning' of the veil; in Lourdes for instance the miraculous has become almost ordinary. But there are of course other places and times were the veil thins. Haunted hoses/places are a good example of this. Objects and places can also see this thinning. I think the most remarkable example I have ever seen of this thinning of the veil I have ever seen in my entire life though was the now world-famous pilgrimage site of Medugorje in Bosnia-Hercogovina. I have never yet seen a place on Earth were the veil falls away so completely .
Perhaps the most common of all supernatural experience of the veil breaking through from the other side is in the common phenomena of those who have lost loved ones who have very recently passed on. One study in the UK for instance found a startling 35% of people interviewed had some experience of being in contact the recently dead. http://www.liv.ac.uk/~kmb/MyPublishedPapers/BennettBennett2000a.pdf http://www.near-death.com/experiences/visions01.html I first became aware of this phenomena after the death of my brother , Colm. I saw and spoke with Colm the next day and was foolish enough to tell some family members about it who laughed or where outright hostile. It was only when I went down to see my Spiritual Director for advice I was startled to hear from him that priests hear of such occurances very,very frequently at funerals.
Yet another phenomena of the veil breaking through from mostly the other side is near death experience. The late Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross who wrote brilliantly on the stages of grief and was one of the very first researchers no Near Death Experiences tells the story that whilst at first she began to have severe doubts about her own research a visit from a recently dead lady changed everything. View attachment 1609 http://www.greaterreality.com/nodeath.htm In her book, On Life After Death, Dr. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, a pioneer in the study of the near-death experience (NDE), states that her first account of an NDE came from “a certain Mrs. Schwartz.” After being declared dead following 45 minutes of resuscitation attempts, Mrs. Schwartz began to show signs of life and was revived. She lived for another year-and-a-half, during which time she met Dr. Ross and related her experience during a seminar on death and dying at the University of Chicago. Some 10 months after Mrs. Schwartz’s death, Dr. Ross decided to discontinue the death and dying seminar. After giving her lecture on death and dying in a classroom, she was discussing shutting down the seminar with a minister who had worked with her in the program. As they approached an elevator, where the minister would leave her, Ross noticed a woman standing in front of the elevator. The woman looked familiar, but Ross could not immediately place her. As soon as the minister got on the elevator, the woman, who Ross described as being somewhat transparent, approached her and asked her if she could accompany her to her office. Dr. Ross came to realize that it was Mrs. Schwartz and began to question her own awareness. “This was the longest walk of my life,” Ross related. “I am a psychiatrist. I work with schizophrenic patients all the time, and I love them. When they would have visual hallucinations I would tell them.” She told herself that she was seeing Mrs. Schwartz but that it couldn’t be. She did a reality check on herself and wondered if she had seen too many schizophrenic patients and was beginning to see things herself. “I even touched her skin to see if it was cold or warm, or if the skin would disappear when I touched it. It was the most incredible walk I have ever taken, not knowing why I was doing what I was doing. I was both an observing psychiatrist and a patient.” When they reached Ross’ office door, Mrs. Schwartz opened it and told Ross that she had come back for two reasons, first to thank her and the Reverend Gaines, a former minister in the program, for the help they had given her, and, secondly, to ask her not to stop her work on death and dying. Ross got to her desk and did another reality check, touching her desk, chair, and a pen. “I was hoping she would disappear,” Ross continues the story. “But she didn’t. She just stood there and lovingly said, ‘Dr. Ross, did you hear me? Your work is not finished. We will help you and you will know when the time is right, but do not stop now. Promise?’” As a further test of her awareness or sanity, Ross asked the woman if she would write a note to Reverend Gaines. Mrs. Schwartz complied. She then got up from her chair, and said, “Dr. Ross, you promise,” to which Ross replied, “I promise.” With that Mrs. Schwartz disappeared. Ross kept the note and later told the story to many friends and associates. She considered having fingerprint and handwriting experts examine the note to see if they matched up with the fingerprints and handwriting of Mrs. Schwartz, but she never got around to it and eventually gave the note to the Rev. Renford Gaines. Researcher Boyce Batey later contacted Gaines, who had changed his name to Mwalimu Imara, in line with his African heritage, at the Boston Center for Religion and Psychotherapy, Inc. Imara informed Batey that because of various confidentiality concerns relative to Mrs. Schwartz and her family, he could not provide a copy of the note. However, he provided Batey with the exact wording, viz. “Hello there, Dropped in to see Dr. Ross. One of two on the top of my ‘list’. You being the other. I’ll never find or know anyone to take the place of you two. I want you to know, as I’ve told her, I’m at peace at home now. I want you to know you helped me. The simple Thank you is not enough. But please know how much I mean it. Thank you again. Mary Schwartz.” At the time, Dr. Ross was still very much the skeptic when it came to such things. “I didn’t believe in all that stuff,” she expresses her attitude at the time of the encounter with Mrs. Schwartz. Needless to say, Dr. Kübler-Ross would continue her work with the dying and would come to believe in a spirit world, becoming one of the world’s foremost authorities on death and dying. “Death is simply a shedding of the physical body like the butterfly shedding its cocoon,” she wrote. “It is a transition to a higher state of consciousness where you continue to perceive, to understand, to laugh, and to be able to grow.”
I better hustle along with this thread or I will get lost wandering like the Hebrews in the Desert for forty years. I mentioned I thought there were two main kinds of mystical phenomena, those were God pokes through the veil at us (as in , 'The Annunciation', were He sent the angel Gabriel) and the second kind where we kind poke through the veil to see the other side ourselves. I am going t turn to this second kind now for I find it the most interesting , for if God decides to poke His head through the veil, well that's His choice but this second kind is more down to us , more our choice and I find it fascinating. Again this second kind can be broken down into two types of phenomena those of the good, (such as those who pray) View attachment 1617 .....and those of the foolish or wicked or deluded such as Satanists, Spiritualists, witches, New Agers and so on. View attachment 1616 First to the good in which I will spend by far the most time as we should spend time building up rather than casting down. 1 Thessalonians 5:11 Therefore encourage one another and build each other up, just as in fact you are doing.
Padraig, An amazing confirmation? I am reading a book "Visions, Trips and Crowded Rooms" by David Kessler who was a co-author with Elizabeth Kubler-Ross in 2 other books. My sister-in-law gave it to me as I told her of an experience I had with my dying mother. My mom asked me if I could hear the church bells, I was confused. She said it again and said her mother and father were calling her home. I was distraught because I knew what she meant. She died 2 days later and now I am reading about these near-death experiences. Church bells, sounds good to me.
I thought you might like this, Paul in memory to your mother. It was written after the death of his young son. In the concerto he imagines his son entering heaven. The sadness of death..the joy of Eternity with God!
