If the mystic is one who experiences in an extraordinary way the intimacy with God offered to everyone, then Mary is the model and pattern of the mystical life. She literally carried God in her womb and gave birth to him. Spiritual impregnation, gestation and giving birth are the initial stages of the mystical life. God invades our life, usually when we are not expecting it; we embrace that gift. Even if we are tempted to hoard it as ours alone, God will be born from us; we will serve others as a result of God’s own indwelling love. All mystics wonder what is happening to them when the Holy Spirit asks them to believe the seemingly impossible, that God wants to enter their lives. They can, of course, refuse out of fear or doubt, and it is the glory of Mary that she does not refuse but says yes. Each true mystic who says yes to God at some point is sent forth into the world as the Father sent the Son to announce and build up God’s kingdom. For Mary this moment comes almost immediately when the angel announces that her aged cousin Elizabeth is in her sixth month of pregnancy (for nothing is impossible with God). Mary says to the angel, “Here I am, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word” (Luke 1:38). And Mary sets out into the hill country to minister to her cousin Elizabeth. There God will be revealed in Mary’s deep charity, as God had been revealed in her deep prayer. For when she enters Elizabeth’s house, the baby in Elizabeth’s womb leaps, and Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit, cries out, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.… And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord” (Luke 1:42, 45). Mary’s decision and the truth of the angel’s message are confirmed, not when Mary is rapt in contemplation, but when she is doing charity. The truth of the mystic’s visions and intimacy with God is proven in the selfless charity of the mystic’s life.
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If the mystic is one who experiences in an extraordinary way the intimacy with God offered to everyone, then Mary is the model and pattern of the mystical life. She literally carried God in her womb and gave birth to him. Spiritual impregnation, gestation and giving birth are the initial stages of the mystical life. God invades our life, usually when we are not expecting it; we embrace that gift. Even if we are tempted to hoard it as ours alone, God will be born from us; we will serve others as a result of God’s own indwelling love. All mystics wonder what is happening to them when the Holy Spirit asks them to believe the seemingly impossible, that God wants to enter their lives. They can, of course, refuse out of fear or doubt, and it is the glory of Mary that she does not refuse but says yes. Each true mystic who says yes to God at some point is sent forth into the world as the Father sent the Son to announce and build up God’s kingdom. For Mary this moment comes almost immediately when the angel announces that her aged cousin Elizabeth is in her sixth month of pregnancy (for nothing is impossible with God). Mary says to the angel, “Here I am, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word” (Luke 1:38). And Mary sets out into the hill country to minister to her cousin Elizabeth. There God will be revealed in Mary’s deep charity, as God had been revealed in her deep prayer. For when she enters Elizabeth’s house, the baby in Elizabeth’s womb leaps, and Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit, cries out, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb.… And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord” (Luke 1:42, 45). Mary’s decision and the truth of the angel’s message are confirmed, not when Mary is rapt in contemplation, but when she is doing charity. The truth of the mystic’s visions and intimacy with God is proven in the selfless charity of the mystic’s life.
