Twentieth-Century Women Mystics: Weekly Summary

Sunday
People who know God well—mystics, hermits, those who risk everything to find God—always meet a lover, not a dictator. —Richard Rohr

Monday
Realization of our oneness in Christ is the only cure for human loneliness. For me, too, it is the only ultimate meaning of life, the only thing that gives meaning and purpose to every life. —Caryll Houselander

Tuesday 
I bring myself, my Black self, all that I am, all that I have, all that I hope to become; I bring my whole history, my traditions, my experience, my culture, my African-American song and dance and gesture and movement and teaching and preaching and healing and responsibility as gift to the church. —Thea Bowman

Wednesday 
True silence leads to the final prayer of the constant presence of God, to the heights of contemplation, when the soul, finally at peace, lives by the will of God whom she loves totally, utterly, and completely. —Catherine de Hueck Doherty

Thursday 
No one need starve. There is enough land and enough food. No one need die of thirst. There is enough water. No one need live without mercy. There is no end to grace. And we are all instruments of grace. The more we give it, the more we share it, the more we use it, the more God makes. There is no scarcity of love. There is plenty. And always more. —Rachel and Rosemarie Freeney Harding

Friday 
Whenever I groan within myself and think how hard it is to keep writing about love in these times of tension and strife which may at any moment become for us all a time of terror, I think to myself “What else is the world interested in?” What else do we all want, each one of us, except to love and be loved, in our families, in our work, in all our relationships. God is Love. —Dorothy Day

Experiencing the Love of God

One of the main obstacles to experiencing intimacy with God is our very doubt that we can experience it. The following is a prayer written by Father Richard to center us in God’s love:

Lover of All

Lord, lover of life, lover of these lives,
Lord, lover of our souls, lover of our bodies, lover of all that exists . . .

In fact, it is your love that keeps it all alive . . .
May we live in this love.
May we never doubt this love.
May we know that we are love,
That we were created for love,
That we are a reflection of you,
That you love yourself in us and therefore we are perfectly lovable.

May we never doubt this deep and abiding and perfect goodness

That we are because you are.

Reference:

Richard Rohr, Essential Teachings on Love, selected by Joelle Chase and Judy Traeger (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2018), 21–22.

Explore Further. . .

• Read a week on Black women mystics.
• Learn more about this year’s theme Nothing Stands Alone.
• Meet the team behind the Daily Meditations.

This week’s image appears in a form inspired by early Christian/Catholic triptych art: a threefold form that tells a unified story. 

Image inspiration: She sees the leaves in the ice, gathers the small, unnoticed things, and cherishes her findings. We accept the mystic’s invitation to sit and ponder.