Mysticism & Religion & Spiritual Growth

MYSTICISM: GOD CAN BE REACHED
Our Holy Father Pope John Paul II has called us to grow in the Mystical Teachings of the Church, and to follow the examples of St. Therese of Lisieux, St. Teresa of Avila, St. Catherine of Sienna, and St. John of the Cross. Occasionally God sends us saints to show us the way to heaven.
THE CLOUD OF THE UNKNOWING: Some thoughts from the book.
Yield yourself unreservedly to God. The awareness of sin will be, until times of when only God is seen.
Contemplation: It is the awareness of God, known and loved at the core of ones being. Of no account whatever, think of giving up the pursuit of God.
Answer each thought, "It is God I want," "Him I covet, Him I seek and nothing but Him."
Thought (sin) from our past life: put them away deep down in the cloud of forgetting if you are ever to penetrate the cloud of unknowing between God and yourself. GOD: think of no other thought but of HIM, to be united to God in spirit, one with Him in love and will.
Man cannot come to the higher part of the contemplative without ceasing from the lower. You may have the awareness of God if He is willing by His grace to give it to you. Since you will it, and desire it, obviously you already have it, yet it is not your will or desire that moves you, go on ever more, so that you will keep advancing.
Have no real thought for anything less than God, and that your desire is steadily and simply turned towards Him. Now if it is like this with you, you can be confident that it is God Himself who is moving your will and desire.
Reading, Thinking and Praying: spiritually it is impossible for a soul blinded by his frequent sins to see the dirty mark (on your actual face) in his conscience, without reading or hearing God’s word. Wash yourself – if the dirty mark is deliberate sin, the "Well" is Holy Church, and the water is "Confession", and all goes with that. Reading, Thinking and Praying: if you had God you would not have sin, and if you had not sin, then you would have God.
For the love of God and soul alike with great care, keep as fit as you can. And if illness comes in spite of everything, have patience and wait humbly for God’s mercy.
Consider now sin: Every day original sin will produce new, fresh sinful impulses, and every day you must smite them down. The more closely we approximate to truth, the more we must be on guard against error. God you want to have, and sin you want to lose. When you lack God, you know all about sin. Good God help you now, for it is now that you have need of Him. See to it that there is nothing at work in your mind or will but only God.
Sorrow: when we have it, it cleanses the soul. It makes the soul ready to receive joy, in all this sorrow the soul does not want to cease existing, the soul wants very much to go on in existence.
God condescends to teach His spiritual disciples according to His good will. There must be a corresponding readiness in body and soul in development and disposition.
It is quite possible to be deceived, unless you have the grace to stop and take advice humbly, one may be destroyed physically and get fantastic ideas spiritually. From falsehood many evils spring, much hypocrisy, heresy and error. Be on your guard if they should attack you on your way.
Learn to love God with quiet, eager joy, at rest in body as in soul, be made one with Him, and be in truth and in depth of spirit far from any misleading bodily thing. The more spiritual your soul becomes, the less emotional are its desires, and the nearer to God, and more pleasing to Him.
There are some who fall into error, giving up the doctrine and counsel of Holy Church. Now I really believe that those who will not go the hard way to heaven, will go the comfortable way to hell…. as we shall all find out for ourselves.
Whoever out of love for God, clothe a poor, or do any sort of good to the needy, whether the good is physical or spiritual, they may be quite sure that they do it spiritually to Christ and they will be rewarded for it as really as if they had done it actually to Him. I shall crown you in heaven as a reward, and not only you (St. Stephen), but all who suffer persecution in anyway for my sake.
Abandon all concern for self and love and trust Jesus Christ. Be aware, for your enemy is subtle, out to make you trust more in your own reasoning power than in the "Orthodoxy of the Early Fathers," or in the work of grace, and the will of the Lord.
God may, can, will and indeed does, touch different souls with the gift of contemplation. I believe He is willing, through His great grace, to do just this in chosen souls. Such a soul, lovingly making itself nothing and exalting God as all in all, is not going to be overthrown by its foes, physical or spiritual, through the grace and goodness of God.
Perfection of man’s soul is the union effected between God and the soul in perfect love. Matthew 5:48 You must be perfect – just as your Father in heaven is perfect. Every soul must have the Virtues. You have to consent yourself to God, and accept the will of God. Matthew 16:24 If any man will come after me, let him forsake himself, let him bear his cross, and follow me. Devotion (to our Lord) is the only real entrance in this life to contemplation. Jesus is the doorkeeper and lets in whom He will in whatever way He likes. Matthew 7:13-14 Go in through the narrow gate, because the gate to hell is wide and the road that leads to it is easy, and there are many who travel it. But the gate to life is narrow and the way that leads to it is hard, and there are few people who find it. He who enters by Jesus will be safe. Dwell on the passion of Christ; grieve over your wickedness that caused it, reprove yourself.
A WORD OF WARNING: If you don’t want to make mistakes "Don’t Judge" others. Instruct others in virtues gently.
There is a higher perfection, which a man may reach in this life, namely, a purely spiritual experience of the love of his Godhead. You will come to this experience by the way that has been described and by God’s grace. You will if without ceasing give yourself up to God.
You are not yet use to this sort of exercise, so it is bound to be most painful for you. Once you get accustomed to it, and know by experience how much it profits you, you will not willingly quit it.
God is the absolutely transcendent One, Mystical Experience, by which the soul has knowledge of Him, and can only come after a progressive shedding of all forms of human knowledge until the Absolute alone remains.
THREE STAGES: 1- The Purgative, 2- The Illuminative, and 3- The Unitive Way.
The need to love God and a longing for union with God must be present in order to achieve the souls mystical marriage to God. The acquisition of this perfect love is however, no easy matter. This desire must be together with the Traditional Disciplines imposed by the Laws of Holy Church, as in all these writings in particular Sacramental Confession (amendment for sins depends on two things: departing from evil, and doing good) and frequent reception of the Holy Eucharist.