The saints’ preoccupation is with others: the Other, God, most of all, but also their neighbor, society at large. They live with their eyes fixed on God and their neighbor; they become living examples of what it means to love God with one’s whole heart and mind and soul and to love one’s neighbor as oneself. So it is not the suffering that is the point of the lives of saints and mystics; it is that suffering and illness do not keep them from loving God and neighbor. Their gaze is outward from the place inside where they dwell almost constantly in God’s presence. For some mystics, such as Simone Weil, suffering or “affliction,” as she calls it, is the very place inside where God finds her. This inner absorption in God does not keep the saint inside, rapt in God and unaware of others; it may for awhile, during the time of ecstasy or inner vision, but inevitably absorption in God leads to a greater perception of outward things that makes of the saint and mystic one who serves and loves others to a heroic degree. Charity is what makes mystics and saints, not the inner visions, marvels or miracles.
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