Mysticism - 6 views

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  #1 Alwen Bledsoe on 09 Feb 11

   

  Mysticism-through this form of spirituality, the believer sought to directly experience a merging, special union, or deep intimacy with God. Mysticism was a prevalent aspect of Medieval spirituality that was theoretically open to any believer. Ozment notes that there were two types of mysticism in the late Medieval ages: a Latin tradition embraced by Cistercians and Franciscans and drawing on the writings of Dionysius the Areopagite that emphasized traditional monastic piety, "will, love, and practical piety" (115) aimed at merging with Christ and conforming one's will to God through Christ; and a primarily Germanic tradition embraced by the Dominican order, drawing on the theology of Albertists, Thomists, and Neo-platonists that emphasized "intellectual visions of God" and sought a mystical union not so much through conformity with Christ as through "a merger with the divine abyss" in which one's self is absorbed or lost in God's being (116). The first type of mysticism can be seen in Bernard of Clairvaux and Bonaventura and tended to remain very orthodox. The second can be seen especially in Meister Eckhart and was often considered heterodox by the Church. Both (as well as other mystical movements) emphasized the ideal of poverty and the belief that religious realities can and should be experienced rather than simply believed (116-17).
  
  Artifact: Hadewich was a Beguine mystic, practicing a heterodox form of spirituality related to the Cathars and Waldensians. The Beguines began as a movement among "pious laywomen who wore a habit and practiced poverty and chastity" (Ozment 91). Hadewich is especially interesting to me because of the gender-bending nature of her language and prayers and because of the extremely erotic way in which she writes about her relationship with Christ. She, in fact, seems to combine the two forms of mysticism noted above, seeking union with Christ, but in a very heterodox way, in which Christ is seen as the divine abyss with whom she enters into radical, mystical union, so that she and her Christ-lover become nearly co-mingled. I'll offer some excerpts of her writing:
  
  From Vision 7:
  "My heart and veins and all my limbs quivered with eager desire and, as often occurred with me, such madness and fear so beset my mind that it seemed to me I did not content my Beloved, and that my Beloved did not fulfill my desire, so that dying I must go mad, and going mad I must die…I desired to have full fruition of my Beloved, and to understand and taste him to the full. I desired that his Humanity should be to the fullest extent be one in fruition with my humanity, and that mine then should hold its stand and be strong enough to enter into perfection until I content him who is perfection itself, by purity and unity, and in all things to content him fully in every virtue."
  
  From Letter 18: "the soul is a bottomless abyss in which God suffices to himself; and his own self-sufficiency ever finds fruition to the full in this soul, as the soul, for its part, ever does in him. Soul is a way for the passage of God from his depths into his liberty; and God is a way for the passage of the soul into its liberty, that is, into his inmost depths, which cannot be touched except by the soul's abyss"
  
  From Letter 9: "he will teach you what he is, and with what wondrous sweetness the loved one and the Beloved dwell one in the other, and how they penetrate each other in such a way that neither of the two distinguishes himself from the other. But they abide in one another in fruition, mouth in mouth, heart in heart, body in body, and soul in soul, while one sweet divine Nature flows through them both (2 Pet. 1:4), and they are both one thing through each other, but at the same time remain two different selves-yes, and remain so forever."
  
  From Poems in Couplets 16, "Love's Seven Names": "This is the chain that binds all in union/So that each knows the other through and through/In the anguish or the repose or the madness of Love,/And eats his flesh and drinks his blood:/The heart of each devours the other's heart,/One soul assaults the other and invades it completely,/As he who is Love itself showed us/When he gave us himself to eat,/Disconcerting all the thoughts of man./By this he made known to us/that love's most intimate union/Is through eating, tasting, and seeing interiorly./He eats us; we think we eat him,/And we do eat him, of this we can be certain./But because he remains so undevoured,/And so undesired./Each of us remains uneaten by him/And separated so far from each other./But let him who is held captive by these chains/Not cease to eat his fill,/If he wishes to know and taste beyond his dreams/The Godhead and the manhood!"
  
  Poems and letters found in:
  Hadewijch. Hadewijch: The Complete Works. Trans. Mother Columba Hart, O.S.B. New York: Paulist Press, 1980.

   

  <div class="cArrow"> </div><div class="cContentInner">Mysticism-through this form of spirituality, the believer sought to directly experience a merging, special union, or deep intimacy with God. Mysticism was a prevalent aspect of Medieval spirituality that was theoretically open to any believer. Ozment notes that there were two types of mysticism in the late Medieval ages: a Latin tradition embraced by Cistercians and Franciscans and drawing on the writings of Dionysius the Areopagite that emphasized traditional monastic piety, "will, love, and practical piety" (115) aimed at merging with Christ and conforming one's will to God through Christ; and a primarily Germanic tradition embraced by the Dominican order, drawing on the theology of Albertists, Thomists, and Neo-platonists that emphasized "intellectual visions of God" and sought a mystical union not so much through conformity with Christ as through "a merger with the divine abyss" in which one's self is absorbed or lost in God's being (116). The first type of mysticism can be seen in Bernard of Clairvaux and Bonaventura and tended to remain very orthodox. The second can be seen especially in Meister Eckhart and was often considered heterodox by the Church. Both (as well as other mystical movements) emphasized the ideal of poverty and the belief that religious realities can and should be experienced rather than simply believed (116-17). <br /> <br /> Artifact: Hadewich was a Beguine mystic, practicing a heterodox form of spirituality related to the Cathars and Waldensians. The Beguines began as a movement among "pious laywomen who wore a habit and practiced poverty and chastity" (Ozment 91). Hadewich is especially interesting to me because of the gender-bending nature of her language and prayers and because of the extremely erotic way in which she writes about her relationship with Christ. She, in fact, seems to combine the two forms of mysticism noted above, seeking union with Christ, but in a very heterodox way, in which Christ is seen as the divine abyss with whom she enters into radical, mystical union, so that she and her Christ-lover become nearly co-mingled. I'll offer some excerpts of her writing: <br /> <br /> From Vision 7: <br /> "My heart and veins and all my limbs quivered with eager desire and, as often occurred with me, such madness and fear so beset my mind that it seemed to me I did not content my Beloved, and that my Beloved did not fulfill my desire, so that dying I must go mad, and going mad I must die…I desired to have full fruition of my Beloved, and to understand and taste him to the full. I desired that his Humanity should be to the fullest extent be one in fruition with my humanity, and that mine then should hold its stand and be strong enough to enter into perfection until I content him who is perfection itself, by purity and unity, and in all things to content him fully in every virtue." <br /> <br /> From Letter 18: "the soul is a bottomless abyss in which God suffices to himself; and his own self-sufficiency ever finds fruition to the full in this soul, as the soul, for its part, ever does in him. Soul is a way for the passage of God from his depths into his liberty; and God is a way for the passage of the soul into its liberty, that is, into his inmost depths, which cannot be touched except by the soul's abyss" <br /> <br /> From Letter 9: "he will teach you what he is, and with what wondrous sweetness the loved one and the Beloved dwell one in the other, and how they penetrate each other in such a way that neither of the two distinguishes himself from the other. But they abide in one another in fruition, mouth in mouth, heart in heart, body in body, and soul in soul, while one sweet divine Nature flows through them both (2 Pet. 1:4), and they are both one thing through each other, but at the same time remain two different selves-yes, and remain so forever." <br /> <br /> From Poems in Couplets 16, "Love's Seven Names": "This is the chain that binds all in union/So that each knows the other through and through/In the anguish or the repose or the madness of Love,/And eats his flesh and drinks his blood:/The heart of each devours the other's heart,/One soul assaults the other and invades it completely,/As he who is Love itself showed us/When he gave us himself to eat,/Disconcerting all the thoughts of man./By this he made known to us/that love's most intimate union/Is through eating, tasting, and seeing interiorly./He eats us; we think we eat him,/And we do eat him, of this we can be certain./But because he remains so undevoured,/And so undesired./Each of us remains uneaten by him/And separated so far from each other./But let him who is held captive by these chains/Not cease to eat his fill,/If he wishes to know and taste beyond his dreams/The Godhead and the manhood!" <br /> <br /> Poems and letters found in: <br /> Hadewijch. Hadewijch: The Complete Works. Trans. Mother Columba Hart, O.S.B. New York: Paulist Press, 1980.</div>

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