Mystical Marriage

Today is the the day eight years ago that my wife and I married. Out of nowhere, freezing temperatures came to town and are holding all of us in Minneapolis hostage. My dear parents came over after work to watch our four little ones while my wife, six-month old and I ventured out into the biting, dark cold to partake of a nice, nearby restaurant. My wife and I had a very nice, quiet chat while our littlest one was content to sit in our laps most of the meal and smile at everyone within sight.

One of our points of conversation was about this blog. I love writing it. I haven't gotten any sleep the past two and a half weeks, but I love writing, and I have so much more I want to say. I need to reorganize my very busy schedule a bit so that sleep is not on the bottom of the list of importance all of the time. We also turned our conversation to marriage, of all things, on this night eight years ago when we began ours. Marriage is all I have been thinking about these past fifteen plus years.

One of the reasons I took the theory that the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was sexual relations with some seriousness when I first began looking into it was because I knew from my reading of the spiritual classics from Saint John of the Cross and Saint Theresa of Avila in the Great Books Honors program at Franciscan University of Steubenville that the endpoint of the spiritual life is known as mystical marriage. The fullness of the prayer life is to be married to God. If our final goal in this life and for all eternity is to be married to God, then it would make sense that that is why God created us from the beginning.

Saint John of the Cross, who reached the heights of mystical union with God before he met Saint Theresa of Avila and led her there when he was only twenty-five and she fifty-two, wrote much about the dark night of the soul. Before one reaches mystical marriage with God, he has to undergo a purgation. Any immaturity in one's relationship with God needs to be washed away, so all sense perceptible feelings are entirely bypassed: one does not in any way feel like they love God and all feelings that God even exists are taken away so that one may have a pure and mighty faith, hope and love of God that is unshakable and in no way selfish. When one has successfully climbed past this test, one is truly prepared to receive God in all His fullness (insofar that that is possible on earth).

The reason why God puts a person serious about loving God above all things through all this is that it is the only way to arrive at the fullness of love. Everyone has to go through a test like Adam and Eve or Abraham and Isaac or Mary and Joseph and pass it with an unshakable faith and love if they fully want to bear abundant fruit for God. For it is only on the other side of such a test successfully endured that complete union with God is found. God asks: "Will you marry me?" Saying yes is the easy part; giving ourselves entirely to Him come what may, especially to our crucifixion, is the part that makes most of us shy away and be content with a something less that full relationship.

Earthly marriage has many similarities to our marriage with God; God created the first as a symbol of our union with Him, after all. The point I want to highlight here is that marriage in the mature and full sense of the word, in both cases, has precious little to do with feelings. Feelings are like the wind and come and go and change day by day. Marriage is for life and is unchanging, especially when it comes to God.

One of the greatest roots of the dysfunction and misery in our world today is that we live our life based on our feelings. Sure, feelings are there like the wind is sometimes blowing and is sometimes warm and other times cold, sometimes from the north and occasionally from the south, sometimes with great wrath and other times with a soft caress, but we don't live by the wind. We live in a home that stands strong and is not moved by the wind, no matter how strong or fierce, that isn't bothered by the scorching sun or the whipping rain or the driving, slicing snow. Love is not a feeling. It is a decision. Feelings are present from time to time, but the decision to love remains and endures and does not alter in times of trouble or change.

There comes a time when the pure love of commitment and self-sacrifice grow deep and strong, and it is at this time when all the feelings which supported and propped up that love are stripped away. Only when the crutches and braces and fiberglass casts are removed from our weak legs can we begin to run. The dark night of the soul is a wonderful blessing, and it brings forth the beautiful, pure fruit of love that is never blown with the wind but shines with the light and warmth of the sun.

P.S. Recently, it was revealed that Mother Theresa toward the end of her life had no feeling that God existed. That shouldn't surprise you or shake your faith. That is a wonderful sign that Jesus was bringing her very close to the consuming fire of his bridegroom's heart.

Thanks for reading and your prayers.
Copyright 2007.