Mystical Moments

Tuesday, April 25, 2017

Yesterday, as we celebrated Mass on the Feast of Saint Anselm, I was overwhelmed for a time with a incredible beauty of our liturgy, and the colors, and the sights, and the smells and the words of consecration, and for a brief instant I felt like I was witnessing the great liturgy of the kingdom to come. It didn’t last for two long, but now, whenever I think back on it, I can see a picture of it in my mind that is as clear as it was the moment it happened.

Every once in a while, God gives us a particular gift: a period of time or even a brief moment when it seems like the veil between heaven and earth is rent, and we are filled with a sense of joy and beauty that has us feeling more connected to God than ever before. I believe that experiences of this kind are especially rich during the season of Easter when our attention is focused on the reality of the fact that the Christ is alive and is present with us. Perhaps you have had such an experience, or even more than one. Perhaps it hasn’t happened to you yet, but your time will come. But will you be ready to accept the moment of the Lord’s visitation?

It takes practice to make ourselves ready to receive such a gift. I don’t propose to be an expert on the spiritual life (which is why I entitle my reflections as “spirituality for beginners,” since I always feel like I am one myself), but if I take a look at my own experience and at the work of God’s grace within me, I can report to you a couple of things that I have begun practicing lately. And please don’t think I have mastered these practices, for, as I said, I am only a beginner.

·         Catching judgmental or negative thoughts about others and then reaching deep down inside my self to a level of my soul where there exists nothing but charity and compassion.

·         Actively practicing a certain way of seeing: looking at every single object in my universe as a sign of the creativity and love of God, excluding nothing. Even the bottle of Tylenol on my desk; even my computer mouse; even my unmade bed; and an old Christmas card (from 1984) hanging in my room with one word on it: “Rejoice!”

·         Smiling more, trying to make a smile be my default mouth position.

·         Rejoicing at the beauty I see around me as if I were seeing it for the first time, and not taking it for granted as I so often do.

·         Reading prose and poetry that speaks of love, even human love, in a way that reminds me that God is Love, so all love is God. (I recommend two books to you that I have found inspiring: The Enlightened Heart and The Enlightened Mind, ed. Stephen Mitchell, published by Harper Perennial). And at the moment I am particularly inspired by the Sufi poet Rumi.

Alas, these sublime moments don’t last forever. All too soon, we return to our habitual way of being and thinking. There is a reason for this and St. Augustine explains it beautifully. This will be the subject of tomorrow’s reflection.

In the meantime, stay open, be more aware than ever of the presence of the risen Lord in your life, and practice seeing beauty tucked away in little corners that you have been ignoring lately. You’ll be glad you did!

God bless you!