Villa la Paz Newsletter March 2012
mysticism: the doctrines or beliefs of mystics, specif., the doctrine that it is possible to achieve communion with God through contemplation.
Webster´s New World Dictionary
Third College addition
To see God in all things each day is the mysticism of everyday life, the ordinary mysticism that sees the extraordinary work of God even in the mundane events of everyday life. And with everyday mystical eyes we are able to see God in both the cries of the poor and the laughter of a child, in both a tender kiss and in a deadly disease.
Gerard Thomas Straub
To the eye that sees, littleness reveals infinitely more than vastness. God is known more truly by a little finite creature through the contemplation of a snowdrop than through the contemplation of the universe…..From the universe we learn that God is infinite, that we cannot compass Him at all. From such things as insects, flies, little frogs, mice, and flowers we learn that to us He is something else. He is Father, brother, child and friend! If you ever had a little green frog and watched him puffing out with a pomposity worthy of a dragon before croaking, you must have guessed that there is a tender smile on our heavenly Father’s face, that He likes us to laugh and He laughs with us. The frog will teach your heart more than all the books of theology in the world.
Caryll Houselander
British mystic, poet, and spiritual teacher
On reading through the gospels we frequently come across the phrase spoken by our Lord “the kingdom of heaven is among you” or “you are not far from the kingdom of heaven.” We envision heaven as an ethereal place, suffused with light and, perhaps, clouds with millions of well-dressed, deliriously happy persons. I think that what our Lord was trying to say is that you can experience heaven now in the mundane and even painful circumstances of daily life. Heaven exists in the love between persons, in the smile of a child, in a luminous sunset, and in the slums of the world. All of these and other aspects of our life are portals to heaven. They lead us to God if we but let them. How can the kingdom of heaven be found in a slum and in the marginalized of the world, in grinding poverty? It is because God is just as much present there as He is in a luminous sunset. He has a preference for the poor and helpless since that is how He entered our world. Throughout the gospels the poor are mentioned very frequently in loving terms. His closest associates were poor and He sought out the lowly and humble. Even among those who suffer physical or mental pain we can experience the face of God since He suffered both to an extreme degree during His Passion. The love given to an ill person by his/her caretaker has its origin in God’s unconditional love for His children. We have to open our mystical eyes to experience God’s presence in the joyful and painful circumstances of our lives.
Do I see heaven in a suffering child, in someone who is so crippled they cannot walk, in despairing parents who bring their children to us for care? Yes, because I have seen children enter our home in wheelchairs or carried by their parents only to leave walking, albeit hesitatingly, with crutches and braces, ecstatic at their newly found mobility. Parents have brought their children to us with facial malformations, cleft lip and palate, and congenital heart disease and have left overjoyed at the results of surgery. Heaven surrounds us if we but let it.
When I gaze with open eyes at what You, my God have created here, heaven is already mine. St. Hildegard of Bingen
In all things created the eternal Good is to be found.
Saint Ignatius of Loyola
We thank you for making the care of our children possible. We love you and wish you God’s peace.