E/W Theo. Part III: Western Catholic Mystics

First a recap:

Eastern Orthodox Theology:
--Grace&Free Will working side-by-side (synergistically).
--Practice of Jesus Prayer, more "active" emphasis in prayer style, leading to experience of the Uncreated Light, culminating in the dazzling darkness of the Cloud.
--The soul/God separate but united. Soul made "into" god-like state: Divinization (Theosis)

In terms of States:
The Uncreated Light=Highest Subtle, the last moment at which the Divine is depicted in form (very subtle), leading to total union.
The Cloud=Causal

Western Theology: Augustinianism

--Prevenient and Subsequent Grace. Grace must come "before" and "subsequently" in order to keep one on the path of salvation (NOT UNDERSTOOD PRIMARILY AS DEIFICATION/DIVINIZATION)
--Free Will Dis-eased and Full of Literal Inherited Guilt (Original Sin). No synergism. Grace dominant.
--God="In and Up"....Classic mid-subtle injunction (NO CAUSAL, NO THEOSIS)
--Momentary Glimpse of Nondual
--Subjectivizing Tendency (versus more Cosmic, de-personal view of Orthodox)

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Western Christian Mysticism in Relation to Augustinian Theology

The Catholic Church as McGinn notes did not have a word for union (theosis) until the 12th century. There was a practice of mystical repose and Biblical meditation practiced in the Benedictine monasteries from the time of Augustine (4th/5th c.) until the 12th, just not the explicit interpretive structure for union as in the Christian East.

The beginning of the concept of mystical union in the Western Church comes from the great Cistercian Fathers: Bernard of Clairvaux, Aelerd of Rievalux, and William of St. Thierry.

Bernard is the best known, and I'll briefly touch upon his insights.

Bernard is the first Christian mystic to claim that the mystical path begins with carnal (i.e. fleshly) love of the person of Christ. In the Eastern Orthodox Tradition the body of Jesus is the locus (the mediator) of the Uncreated Energies of God--God's means of manifestation and redemption in this universe. Jesus' body/human nature are then more conduits for the Divine Energies then somehow to be adored by themselves. The second from the top icon is a typical E.O. Crucifixion Icon--notice there is not major emphasis on the pain of his body--his body is glowing as revealer of Uncreated Light.

Compare that to the one above which is from Grunewald Isenheim Altarpiece--that Jesus' suffering with the Black Death on the Cross. This icon is much more common of the Western tradition with its emphasis on the humiliation of Jesus--there is no subtle shine to his body, just the naked glare of death and suffering.

This iconic difference reveals a key distinction between the two theologies and spiritualities (Orthodox vs. Catholic)--the Catholic/Western vision must emphasize the debasement and utter painful descent of Christ's Love far more than the East. This is because the Western Church sees the human nature that Christ must save to be far more dis-eased and sinful than the East. Hence Christ must come that much further down to reach us, to lift us up. Also, as a result, we who are being lifted up will suffer that much more.

All of which is directly traced from Augustine's repulsion at his own unconscious.

So back to Bernard.

Bernard says that we must first love Christ's flesh (in our mind's eye). God must condescend to our condition and meet us at our lowest level.

All our loves, says Bernard start with the flesh, so therefore Christ must meet us here. Progressively our loves moves to higher and higher levels of subtlety until in fact it is God's Love that directly takes us over. This temporary experience of being overtaken by God's Love is known in Latin as "raptus" or "excessus" (ec-stasis)--rapture, being taken out of oneself.

This "rapture" (not the Tim LeHaye kind--check out the graphic it is quite humorous actually) is in fact the Cloud of Unknowing. It is the temporary experience of the loss of self-sense in total loving union to God.

So there are the same three steps: purgation, illumination, and union--but they are differently emphasized than in the Orthodox Church.

More emphasis on the Love-Affective aspect in the West. This practice reaches its apex in the experience, especially though not exclusively female mystics, of the mystical marriage of Christ. The mystic, for example St. Catherine of Sienna, experiences herself mystical wed to Christ. Mystical Marriage in other words is the exact parallel of the Orthodox experience of the Uncreated Light. Mystical Marriage is the culmination of the sublte-illuminative path. The subtle experience of "marrying" Christ is seeing God under the last subtle form--Groom.

This trend has its roots in Bernard as well (through Origen). What is for the Christian, the Old Testament, contains writings known as the Wisdom Writings. One of these writings is called The Song of Songs. It is Love Song between a newly married husband and wife. It is actually about the most "un-religious" of the Hebrew Scriptures. The mystics began to spiritually interpret the Bride as the Soul and the Groom as Christ.

The exegesis is pretty wild. I won't go into it all, but again, the Soul is Feminine (even the Souls of Men) and Christ is Masculine. It is Christ, therefore, who "penetrates" into the "open" soul.

The mystical path of the West is a very Feminine Path--even when practiced by men--insofar as it adovcates a more surrendering, opening, accepting, embracing path.

It is the more the path of the woman giving birth who pushes and helps the process out no doubt, but basically has to ride the pain and let it flow through her.

Just worth noting is that someone like John of the Cross who represents this Mystical Bride path, uses homo-erotic imagery. Again, insofar as when he says that his experience with God is like being taken out to the fields and sexually raptured by Christ, (which he does), then it is a man referring to himself as a woman, sexually congressed by a man. Again, its types (Feminine/Masculine) and I'm not saying John of the Cross was necessarily a homosexual--our understanding of that term does not match up with theirs I don't think.

It is interesting to note, however, the strong Feminine-trend in the Roman Catholic Church and how that influences the treatment of women, priestly celibacy, and the so-called "feminization" of the clegy in the RC. Particularly worth noting the links between this teaching and the well known fact that the RC clergy has a higher percentage of homosexuals than civil society, both open and closeted. [There is more involved to this discussion--way more, and just so it is clear I'm not saying homosexuality=priestly sexual abuse of minors, which is patently not the case, but more on all that a different time].

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But the key point is that one must be more "passive" in waiting for God to come to us to initiate the mystical quest.

For the Orthodox this is not a big issue. Once a person has begun an ethical reformation of their life, studied the Bible, the life of Jesus and the Saints, goes to Church, then they simply begin the Jesus Prayer and don't worry too much about whether there are signs that they are being called on to higher forms of prayer or not. They just simply begin the practice and let Grace work as it may.

In the Western Church with its notion of pre-venient grace, the concept of the unitive path must wait for signs. John of the Cross, the great synthesizer of the Western Catholic mystical tradition (16th century Spanish) spends the beginning of his book The Ascent of Mount Carmel listing the signs for when one is called to contemplation.

So there is a "passivity" in the Western injunction related to the notion that our free will can never freely choose to embrace God or co-operate equally in the mystical quest.

John of the Cro

In another post (here) and also in my longish comment to a response to my post Guidance on GenSit, I discuss the two truths as they relate to the spiritual path.

I don't want to rehash all that, but the basic assertion is this: In the Relative Path there will always be the poles of Self-power and Other-power. In Christianity those are free will and Grace respectively.

My argument is by over-shooting the mark on Grace, the Western Church ended up with no boundaries for the role of free will (the Orthodox having this). As a result, free will did not end up being abolished in the Western Church it just went sorta unconscious--or manifested all over the place with no real way to integrate it.

The reactionary over-abundance of free will in terms of salvation (divorced from deification) led to the Medieval Catholic pratices of pilgrimages, Crusades, indulgences, and public penance--aka "good works".

In the mystical path (deification-sanctification) this over-abundance of non-integrated free will showed up as well. By the nineteenth century the study of mystical theology had become a sub-discipline, just one of the many categories of theology. [For the Orthodox mystical theology=the experience of the truths of dogmatic theology]. Even worse, mystical theology was basically reduced to ascetical theology.

Asceticism are the practices (read: free will, self-power) involved in the spiritual path to union. But since no one in the Western church theologically was able to move into mysticism freely, asceticism is really just considered a preparatory act. Unfortunately that means in practice that asceticism becomes less a means to an end, then an end in itself. And the practice of monks and penitents flagellating themselves, kneeling for hours on end, depriving themselves of sleep/food, etc. once de-contextualized from secondary aids to the mystical path become self-centered obsessive S&M-type psuedo-mysticism. Suffering becomes less a means to higher realization and love (which are redemptive), and more the redemptive act itself. Suffering itself=Redemptive. The more suffering=The more redemption.

See Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ , which is completely seeped in this theology of suffering. No Greek Orthodox Christian would ever make a movie like The Passion, with all the emphasis on the blood and gore.

So as theology came to be dominated by the rational-intellectualist Scholastic metaphysical tradition, mystical theology lost its inherent connection to dogmatic theology. Worse by mystical theology being superseded by ascetical theology, the ancient art of contemplation was (mostly) lost. And the ones who did reach deification were considered completely "supernatural" and different from the lot of common sinful humanity. These saintly mystics did not then become symbols to help people awaken themselves, but pedastalized and turn into non-human angelic beings.

It was the great gift of the Second Vatican Council to return to the ancient (pre-Medieval) sources which taught that deification-sanctification was the potential birth-rite of all baptized Christians. All Christians were called to contemplative union--not just we would say as a temporary state but a permanent state-stage.

For those of you integrally informed, the name of Fr. Thomas Keating is well known. What he did in essence is re-connect the Western Catholic mystical tradition (from Bernard through the Cloud of Unknowing Author, and John of the Cross) for the modern lay church.

Centering Prayer, his prayer method is basically a renewed version of the Cloud of Unknowing's injunction. The Cloud of Unknowing is a 14th century English mystical text written by an unknown mystic (hence referred to as the Cloud Author).

The injunction is very simple:

Sit quietly, relax one's focus and feel your heart reach out to God. As you become distracted with mental-emotional phenomena, use a short word (e.g. God, Christ, Love, Peace) to simply re-aim your focus onto God.

Fr. Thomas uses the analogy of a compass. The sacred word is like moving the needle back to True North. Once the needle is back facing North, that is once your heart is back open yet desiring God, no more need of repeating the word.

So the key is to actively wait for God.

Any "subtle" experiences are to be simply experienced then let go of. If they come, great thank God for them, if they don't, it doesn't matter.

All that matters is that your heart stays pointed towards God alone. It is union with God you seek in order to Love and Serve God and Neighbor more fully.

If it is more mystical experiences you seek, then you are still addicted to your separate self-sense (disconnected from God) and you are seeking Consolation from God not God. God must be Number 1.

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So notice the similarities/differences between that injunction and the Jesus Prayer/Orthodox Tradition.

The biggest difference is the more "active" injunction in the Jesus Prayer--actively repeating the mantra over and over.

Centering Prayer, as more "active passivity" "active waiting." God must come to you.

Both are valid, both bring one into union with God, but both illuminate slightly different worldspaces.

In a post-metaphysical theology, both have their place. Simply undertake the practice and check the facts in the community of the adequate.

But both paths then need to be more transparent, I believe, about their strengths and weakenesses.

Western:
Strengths: More sense of mysticism leading to active charity in the world--kissing the lepers, embracing the widow and orphan. Can be more easily integrated with psychologial therapeduic path (unconscious, shadow).
Weaknesses: Over emphasis on suffering and possible move to self-centeredness. Legitimation through one's own experience (bc mysticism not given strong enough place in institutional church).

Eastern:
Strengths: Well practiced path. Strong communal aspect, Church recognition. Connected to cosmic redemption, large panoramic view. Mysticism as very "normal".
Weaknesses: Overly traditional. Too de-personal to the point of almost being anti-personal. No innovation, no understanding of connection between mystical path (state-stages) and shadow-psychological training (structure-stages, unconscious).

With a post-metaphyiscal path we have then opened up the interpretive space for a theological re-union of the Orthodox and Catholic Churches--along the threefold path of purgation, illumination, and union that is. On Nonduality for another post.

Catholic theology could then open itself up to a more positive understanding of the synergistic model of grace/free will, particularly in the context of the mystical path. It would require, of course, letting go of the Literal interpretation of Original Sin. It is not literal participation in the Rebellion (there was no such literal event), but it is true that there is a Shadow in Rebellion.

But again looking at the therapeduic module/injunction, say depth psychology, is itself another form of an Orthodox-like synergistic path. It requires both grace and fre will (doing the practice). The practice is a necessary but not sufficient instrument. But that there is ever healin is itself a great mystery, that the injunction can even open a space for the possibility of healing is itself grace, much less that healing does and has taken place. That too is the grace element.

Orthodox theology could then open itself up to the Western insight of the unconscious and how this is not healed even in deification. As long as there is a vehicle there will be (mis)translation, impure embodiment.

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In the next of this series, I'll open a thread on doing the same re-union for Catholic and Protestant theologies. Also, cover the even greater lack of mysticism in the Protestant than the Catholic tradition.