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Spring 2010, Vol. 25, No. 1

A Prophetic Journey: Walking In

The Footsteps of Jesus the Mystic

With Teresa and John

Vilma Seelaus, OCD

Sister Vilma Seelaus is a Carmelite from Barrington, Rhode Island. She is a member of the Carmelite Forum that offers a yearly seminar on Carmelite spirituality at St. Mary’s College, Notre Dame, Indiana. The Korean translation of her book, Distractions in Prayer, Blessing or Curse: Teresa of Avila’s Teachings in the Interior Castle, will be available in February.

Introduction

When asked to speak on the prophetic dimension of the writings of Sts. Teresa of Avila and John of the Cross in relation to the Rule, my thoughts instinctively turned to the Rule’s prophetic focus on Christ. In his humanity, Christ is the reflector of the mystery of the self, so this presentation also issues from my passion for reflecting on and speaking about the self as a mystery of human God-relatedness. The depth of this reality continues to intrigue and inspire me. Since mysticism engages what is deepest within, Teresa and John, both ardent lovers of Christ, proclaim a clear prophetic message about the dignity of the human person to a world where individual lives often appear to have little value. This reality gave birth to my title, "A Prophetic Journey: Walking in the Footsteps of Jesus the Mystic With Teresa and John."

Threads that I weave through this presentation are, first: That the prophetic dimension of Carmel’s Rule rests on the invitation to walk in the footsteps of Jesus. Jesus, a prophet—and more than a prophet, in that he was the unique Son and beloved of God—lived a profound mystical life. John’s Gospel reveals the intimacy of Jesus’ relationship with his Father. In sharing our humanity, the risen Jesus becomes the source, the wellspring of all Christian mystical experience. Might we even dare say that as the Cosmic Christ, in whom all things have their existence, that he is the source of all genuine mystical experience?

Second: Walking with Jesus can never be a self-seeking endeavor since it is sharing in the life of One Crucified. The prophetic challenge of his life and teachings inevitably met with resistance and death. Jesus’ self-giving in love is the paradigm for all genuine human inter-relatedness. To the extent that we journey in love, beyond the limits of human finitude into the heart of God, we are drawn into the love drama of Jesus’ death on the cross. Impelled by God’s Spirit to follow his human journey to the end no matter what, and in total surrender to his Father, Jesus walked the road of crucifixion. By dying on the cross, Jesus’ mission is accomplished. Jesus hands over his life to his Father as he breathes out his Spirit upon all humankind. This historical event became revelatory of God as an inter-subjective mystery of self-giving in love. His death was an explosive moment in history giving glimpses into what eventually became known in early Christianity as the mystery of the Trinity. To share in this divine inter-subjective mystery of self-giving in love is our graced identity. The divine energies of Jesus’ resurrection are present within even the worst of human life experiences offering potential for transformation in Christ. The Spirit of the risen Jesus works to transform us into a mystical marriage of human and divine life.

Third: The Elijan mottos “The Lord God lives in whose sight I stand” and “With zeal have I been zealous for the Lord God of Hosts” find their way into the mystical experiences of both Teresa and John. Their writings act as lens to reveal not only the prophetic dimension of the Rule with focus on Jesus the mystic, but they also reveal the richness of the mystical life that is already ours. Their writings guide us toward a deeper life in God and toward a respect, even reverence, for each person regardless of differences.

The Rule and Carmel’s Prophetic Witness

The Carmelite Rule is truly about walking in the footsteps of Jesus, the mystic. Although the Rule is a significant historical document given to the early hermits on Mount Carmel, it continues as a living reality because it touches the deepest desires of the heart for the transformation in Christ. The Rule bids us to live in obedience to Jesus Christ, to be a servant in community in fidelity to Christ—to live devoutly in Christ. To disarm the heart through a deep prayer relationship with Christ, to embrace poverty, penance, silence, and solitude—the Rule’s very heartbeat—along with prayer and fasting in union with the crucified and risen Christ, this is Carmel’s prophetic witness. These realities have a profound and far-reaching significance particularly for our world today. As the Carmelite scholar Bruno Secundin writes: "In the rule, then, we find a Christology [that] esteems discipleship and revolves around a 'life in Christ,' prayerful listening to the word, celebration of the Mystery (Eucharist), a vision of meditation as a way of imprinting Christ into one’s life …, and the awaiting of his return. This same way of life…as a dedication to the Lord in the Holy Land…is now transformed into an open journey to be undertaken in any place or time."

Carmel then is a journey into the heart of Christ and into the heart of one’s deepest self. As such, it is intrinsically prophetic in that it focuses on the deepest meaning of human existence: God’s overwhelming love for humankind and God’s desire for our responsive love. Carmel’s prophetic spirituality challenges all of us to turn from peripheral living in order to discover the depth of our human potential. As the lives of our Carmelite saints attest, to live “in Christ” in continuous prayer takes one not only into the heart of God but also deeply into the mystery of the self, into the profound reality of our human potential as God-related beings bound together with all of humanity and the cosmos. Silence, solitude, and prayerful, compassionate living are not the prerogative of the monastic and contemplative way of life. Necessarily realized in varying degrees, they are indispensable to graced human living. Silence, solitude, and prayer are the soil within which we sink deep roots of divine abiding. They ground the inner self into faith-filled awareness of God’s abiding presence. This is the prophetic call of Carmel in a noise-filled world. Christian mystics are those who experience and who taste, as it were, the divine presence within and around them and take on the mind of God through union with and transformation in Christ.

The Sacred Within

Each of us is a potential mystic and prophetic witness to God’s love for humankind. The heart of the Christ mystery is the Word of God mysteriously embodied in all of humanity—for as Jesus said, “What you do to the least of my little ones, you do to me.” Christ would draw all people to himself that we may discover in his life, death, and resurrection our inestimable worth in the eyes of God.

The priestly account of the creation story in Genesis 1:27 images God creating humans, male and female, in the divine image. Can we infer from this that each person, by his/her very existence, reveals something of the incomprehensible mystery we call God? Mystics, whose experiential knowledge in faith of the God in whose image we are fashioned, have a prophetic word for us about God and about what it is to be truly human, which is to know oneself in God. Such knowing is not about intellectual understanding, knowing something about God, but a knowing that draws the self into the very silence of God. It is seeing with the eyes of the heart the Christic shape of one’s inner being that is beyond gender designation. Such self-understanding elicits awesome respect, even reverence for oneself, and for each person before the divine presence within the human.

Teresa and John’s Elijan Roots

For the early Carmelites, the prophetic journey toward mystical union began at the cave and fountain of a great mystic, the prophet Elijah. When the hermits were forced to migrate from Mount Carmel to Europe, they suffered the disadvantage of not having a recognized founder. The Dominicans could boast of St. Dominic and the Franciscans were graced with the popular St. Francis. These hermits, not to be outdone, went in memory to the sacred place of their origin. Before them arose the powerful figure of the prophet Elijah who in their imaginative memory stepped forward as leader and father—dux et pater. They saw their way of life on Mount Carmel to be in direct continuity with his prophetic mission, so they wove a mythic story of origins. The Brothers of Our Lady of Mount Carmel were direct descendants of Elijah, the prophet; his mystical life with the God of Israel informed theirs in the silence of the heart. As we read in the Book of Kings, Elijah, having escaped the wrath of Queen Jezebel, stands at the mouth of the cave for Yahweh to pass by. God comes, not in the violent storm and raging wind, but in the “whisper of a gentle breeze”—in the sound of sheer silence, a silence that resonated in the hearts of the hermits. Elijah’s passionate protestation, “the Lord God lives in whose sight I stand,” seared itself in the heart of the hermits and has inspired Carmel’s long mystical tradition of prayerful living in the presence of God. Elijah’s prophetic stance against the injustices of King Ahaz also resonated with the hermit’s experience, "But the word of the Lord came to him: Why are you here Elijah? He replied: 'I have been most zealous for the Lord God of Hosts'” (1 Kgs 19:9-16).

Presence to God is never a privatized experience. The mystic heart readily embraces all that is of God, a God revealed in Christ as God for us. “The Lord God lives in whose sight I stand” and “With zeal have I been zealous for the Lord God of Hosts” echo through the centuries of Carmel’s existence.

(Note: Have you enjoyed reading this excerpt? You may order the entire article on “A Prophetic Journey: Walking in the Footsteps of Jesus the Mystic With Teresa and John” by ordering a copy of the Spring 2010, Volume 25, No. 1 issue of Carmelite Digest.)

Spring 2010, Vol. 25, No. 1 Table of Contents:

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