Knowledge Alone is not Enough

A Letter to a young mother of four who asked my opinion on the Essence of Mystical Theology. 

I am sorry I should have clarified myself by explaining the difference between Theology in general and Mystical theology in particular in my last letters. The very essence of Catholic Theology and  Mystical Theology can be found in early Christian spirituality. Let me distinguish between the two. Theology is the systematic study of the nature of God, and more particularly his relationship with his creation. It mainly involves the use of our minds.

The Meaning of Mystical Theology

However Mystical Theology mainly involves the use of our will or our hearts, with which we love. As it is only with our hearts or our love that we can be united with God then it stands to reason that Mystical Theology is far more important. Yet for the reasons that I am about to explain, Mystical Theology has been all but totally extracted from Catholic Spirituality since the condemnation and aftermath of Quietism, as I explained in my first letter. Remember, the word mystical comes from the Greek word Mysterion, meaning something secret, unseen, or invisible. St. Paul uses this word Mysterion, or The Mysterion,   to stand for the secret plan of God to unite all of us with himself, to experience the love that he said surpasses our understanding. Later spiritual writers used the word mystic derived from this word Mysterion to describe those who are prepared to give up all else to journey on in what is called the Mystic Way to enable the Holy Spirit to prepare us to enjoy what God has prepared for us from all eternity.

Once Taught in all Catholic Seminaries

Before the condemnation of Quietism, Mystical Theology was taught in all Catholic seminaries, but only a matter of decades afterwards it was no longer universally taught. Before Quietism the whole point of a noviciate for religious was seen as the place where beginners were taught how to meditate in such a way that before the noviciate was over they would have had been led on and into mystical prayer. Then they would be able to re-teach the laity to do what they were first taught to practise in the early Church long before priests and religious had become a separate spiritual class.  Perhaps I can best express the contemporary position – at least when I was a young theology student by telling you a story.

A Terrible Tale that Tells All

When I asked the greatest modern theologian whom I have ever known, about this long-forgotten spiritual science, he simply said, “I am afraid I know nothing whatsoever about Mystical Theology”. It was like saying, “I may know all about God, but I know nothing whatsoever about trying to love him”.  I was utterly flabbergasted. Yet this man had spent years teaching theology in a major seminary and was renowned at the time as the greatest theologian in England, not just because he was awarded a summa cum laude with congratulations, in Rome – the highest possible theology degree, but because of his brilliant theoretical lectures that I, amongst so many others, attended. It was like a marriage councillor saying ‘I know all about marriage, but I know nothing whatsoever about love’.

The 64,000-Dollar Question

On the first Pentecost day the very first question that the 3,000 Jews wanted to know, was how we receive God’s love, as St. Peter and the first apostles had just received it. And this above all else was what all the new converts to Christianity wanted to know. They did not ask to be signed up for a course in systematic theology, to study the inner nature of God, but how to love him. Later St. Paul would tell his new converts that they may have all the known wisdom in the world but without love, it would do them no good at all.

Throughout the early Church, the 64,000-dollar question that everybody wanted answered was how to come to love God. And the answer to that question was always the same. It was simply to turn to God, not just once, that is conversion, but time and time again both inside and outside of prayer. Inside of prayer repentance meant continually trying to turn to God in order to focus the attention of the heart and mind on him as he is in himself, and outside of prayer it meant trying to turn to God in order to focus the attention of the heart and mind on to him in the neighbour in need, with whom he identifies himself  (Matthew Chapter 25). Please remember that this all begins in the family where you first try to love God in your husband or wife, in your children and grandchildren. This is where the principles of loving are first learnt.

Knowledge Informs Love Changes

From what I have just said you can see that from the very first day on which our Church was founded, the most important thing that mattered above all else was not, how much you know about God, but how much you love God. This was abundantly true of the teaching of Jesus and in the teaching of his first apostles and disciples. However in time, how much you know about God seems, at least in practice, to have become more important than how to love him. After Quietism, for instance, all major renewals in the Church were primarily concerned with trying to revitalize priests and religious, and through them the laity, with knowledge about God rather than with how to love him.  Systematic Scholastic Theology was in, Mystical Theology was out.    This emphasis had its origin in anti-mystical witch-hunts that followed in the wake of the condemnation of Quietism.

Aided and Abetted by the Enlightenment

However,  it was strongly aided and abetted by the Enlightenment that rose up as mystical theology was being buried.  The movement proclaimed the primacy of reason as strongly as the early Church proclaimed the primacy of love. Anything that could not be analysed by reason must be immediately suspect if not condemned. Now the love generated by the intimate interaction of our love and the Love of the Holy Spirit which is the formal object of mystical theology, was for them considered anathema, because it was irrational. In other words, it could not be proved by using what came to be called ‘the scientific method’.

But the truth of the matter is, it is not irrational but supra-rational. Just as the God who is Infinite Love transcends human categories, and the rational analysis of homo sapiens,  so also therefore does his intimate interaction with human beings.

On Your Knees Like a Beggar at the Gate

The music teacher at my school was not a believer until one day he went into a Catholic Church to look at the Architecture. Instead of being enthralled by the Architecture he was entranced by the Blessed Sacrament exposed on the altar and came out a Catholic.  For a believer, there is enough knowledge in any Sunday liturgy to set on fire nominal Catholics making them into fervent Catholics. What is needed next is that we have a sufficiently pure and humble heart and the grace to know our need for God’s Love.

Some of the greatest saints were virtually illiterate and some of the greatest theologians were spiritually bankrupt. If you haven’t the requisite humility of heart, or the humility that makes you realise your utter need of God, then get on your knees now, and pray like a beggar at the gate, for the gift that only God can give.

Watch my free course on prayer published by Essentialist Press which outlines these principles