When I wrote of St Paul of the Cross’ redemptive suffering, I was unaware of Hugh Owen’s assertion that there is a development in mystical activity in the world in our time.

If it is true, from the ‘exemplars’ he quotes, that God is inspiring a deepening of mystical union with God in our day, and, if that it is the tool by which the new age of the Church will be activated, we need to consider this.

 I will give an example of one of the ‘exemplars’ he quotes who made most sense to me: Bl. Dina Belanguer. She was a Canadian nun who lived for 32 years, from 1897 to 1929. She describes in her writings amazing conversations with Jesus and how that influenced the development of her soul.

She speaks of being immolated to such an extent that Jesus is the one who lives and acts in her. She explicitly explains that this does not take away temptation, neither does it rob her of her identity. She speaks of living within the life of the Trinity as in heaven, but still being in the body in this world.

She reports that she feels the suffering of Jesus from the beginning of his humanity to the end of time, and is aware that, as she shares in it, her suffering is redemptive of millions of souls. She is living in the eternal now of the Trinity while still in her physical earthly body. Jesus’ suffering is much more due to his love of souls tortured by sin than anything he felt physically during his passion. She endures these with him.

The suffering

I have found it difficult to identify with the stress on suffering found in the revelations of the modern saints, and how our mother Mary talks about suffering at her recent appearances. I have for a long time felt that it is morbid to dwell on it so much. For example, the vision of hell given to the Fatima children did not ring true with the sense that I have that we are moving away from a religion of fear to that of love. And the stress on hell seemed to downplay the desire of our loving God that all will be saved.

But, when I see the situations of hell all over the earth in wars and turmoils, I believe there is also hell here now, and many choose it because they are enslaved to evil and sin. I ask myself: can it be that the redemptive suffering of God’s holy people can overcome and negate all the hell on earth as well as the hell of the afterlife? I fervently hope so.

Still, I have to admit that I have hesitated to ask for the intimate union with Jesus, which welcomes suffering. My emotive response to that calling is ‘Please, No!’ Now, though, I am beginning to understand that this suffering is the other side of the passion of love which burns in the Trinity. Such is God’s desire that each soul be saved and healed that it pains God deeply until it is accomplished.

These mystic souls sense this, leaving them with the unutterable joy of being so in love with God that they desire to share in his immense pain as a work of intercession in order to liberate souls into his unmeasurable love. They are so bound to God that they burn with his love for all souls. Now, that I can dare to aspire to.

Climbing the ladder of holiness

But how to climb the ladder to mystical union with God which these souls exemplify? Will I ever make progress there? Why am I so slow? It helps to remember that they are raised up by God as ‘exemplars’ and, even if more and more exemplars appear, theirs is still a special vocation. They were fast-forwarded in spiritual experience in order to give us ordinary people the vision of how redemption functions, and what to aspire to in our gradual progress. They are not raised up by God to make us feel inadequate, but to encourage us.

They tell us that all people are called to this incarnation of Jesus in the soul, and that we are entering an age when the experience of that will become more evident and widespread. A truly Christian heart can only long for that to be true, but we have to trust God with the details. “Oh Lord, my heart is not proud nor haughty my eyes. I have not gone after things too great, nor marvels beyond me. A weaned child on its mother’s breast, even so is my soul” (Psalm 131). God will show each one of us our individual part to be played in the restoring of creation

St Therese of Lisieux

I find a lot of encouragement in the writings of St Therese of Lisieux. She only experienced one mystical experience. She professed that she was a little soul and could only live in intimate union with Jesus by identifying her will with his. She called it her ‘immolation’, which sounds at first to be an attempt to stop being herself and losing her free will and agency. But didn't Jesus say "Anyone who wants to save his life will lose it; but anyone who loses his life for my sake will  find it" (Matthew 16: 25)?

But I think it works out like this: I make the firm decision to cooperate with the grace Jesus offers me, firmly believing that he will aid me to make my will one with his Father’s. Then I begin to attempt to accept all the events of my life as being his will, permitted by him for his own good purposes, which I am normally oblivious to. Sometimes, these events can appear to be Hamlet’s ‘slings and arrows of outrageous fortune’. Often, they seem pointless, or downright crazy. But it is in accepting these as permitted by our Father, and therefore his will, that I grow in identifying my will with his. It is about doing our best with whatever he permits.

We need to discern how to respond to the daily incidents which God has permitted. It takes some pondering. Here’s an example: Brother Leo and St Francis were on a journey and Leo asked St Francis ‘where do we find perfect joy?’ Francis replied that some might think it would be found in converting all unbelievers, but perfect joy is much more to be fond were they to remain humble and silent if they were refused admittance at the friary they were approaching, and also were violently abused by the door keeper. Then he said they could glory in the cross of Jesus Christ as St Paul advised (Little Flowers of St Francis, Everyman edition, Pages 15 -16). Flowers of St

Now that differs from how, Jesus at his trial before the Sanhedrin, turned to the soldier who struck his face and asked him why he did that.  Often we have to challenge abuse and injustice for the sake of the abuser, but quietly accept the pain for the sake of one’s own being filled with God’s love, which always channels the flow of God’s love into the rest of the world.

What St Therese exemplified with her ‘little way’ was that abandonment to Jesus’ will produces a growing sense of his love for all mankind and a desire to make each moment an offering of one’s self for the salvation of all. I think that her little way is the straight path for those of us living in a busy, perplexing world who are not graced with high mystical experiences.

Not muscular Christianity

I had difficulty with all this talking about our will and willing. I have always been wary of muscular Christianity where the will is used to make ourselves pleasing to God almost without real recourse to grace. It is a form of self-glorification. But St Therese’s use of her will is reactive to the grace of God rather than being proactive out of her own determination. As we increasingly accept his will, we grow in the sense of living within the outpouring love and plan of the three person Trinity.

Living in the Trinity is our vocation. We have begun that life through baptism. We are already living in the eternal now. Through contemplation we gradually ‘with all the saints have strength to grasp the breadth and the length, the height and the depth; until, knowing the love of Christ, which is beyond all knowledge, (we) are filled with the utter fullness of God’ (Ephesians 3: 18-19).[2]

Comfort and encouragement

Cardinal Hume taught that the most important thing in prayer is to begin. I always found that comforting because it is mostly up to God what happens after that. My part is so often threadbare.

Another great encouragement comes from St Charles de Foucauld who taught: ‘Love consists not in feeling that one loves, but in wanting to love; when one wishes to love, one loves; when one wishes to love with all one’s heart and strength, one loves with all one’s heart and strength’[3]