In this final episode of Season Three of "Life, Love, & Light" podcasts, we examine the goal of The Mystical Path, which is union with God as sons and daughters of the resurrection. Too often, we are so consumed with our sufferings, our fears, and our worries, that we come into the dark tomb of our hearts in meditation expecting to find a corpse. We don't expect to experience the resurrection. The Lord asks us: "Why are you weeping?" Yet, like Mary Magdalene, we don't recognize him until he calls our name. We don't anticipate being filled with the Presence of God! In our practice of contemplative prayer, we have to become silent and still so as to allow Christ to rise within us -- out of the darkness of our inner tomb, our pain, our sadness. Then we may become ablaze with divine joy, the joy that no one can take away from us.
We consider what happens in Eucharist, when we bring our simple gifts of bread and wine, the offerings and sufferings of our whole life, to be transformed by the living Presence of Christ. We don’t have to realize a state of ecstasy to be in mystical union with Christ. The kingdom of God is already rising up within us! And if we could taste it when we celebrate Eucharist, it is the most sublime state of mystical union possible on earth. In fact, the whole contemplative path is about realizing more fully what happens in Eucharistic liturgy.
We ask: "How do we learn to live in Divine Presence, not just in meditation, but in everything we do all day long?" In answer, we reflect on the writings of a seventeenth century monk and mystic, Br. Lawrence, as he describes his own simple and yet sublime practice of the Presence of God. We see again that the whole focus of the mystical path is to become aware of Divine Presence. We discover that the continual practice of the Presence of God in our daily lives, seamlessly interwoven with our morning and evening contemplative prayer, is the best possible description of The Mystical Path -- of living right now as sons and daughters of the resurrection.
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