So-called Bridal Mysticism

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I’m thinking people who seem to be excited about Pope Benedict’s apparent desire to re-emphasize “bridal mysticism” ought to be wary of it.

Two of its most prominent practitioners and expounders were Teresa of Avila (or “Teresa of Jesus,” as she took to calling herself) and John of the Cross. I’ve begun reading a book about them, The Dark Night of the Soul, by Gerald G. May, a psychiatrist, and have been poking around the Internet reading some of the primary material as well. And so far, darkness is about all to be found.

For starters, both of these people were panentheists, but that is for another post. What I want to point out here is how so much of what passes for spirituality with people such as these is instead a heady, and flattering, mixture of fantasy and emotion, and especially of sublimated sexuality. Perhaps the most startling illustration of this is Teresa’s famous “experience” called the “transfixion” or “transverberation” of her heart, celebrated yearly by Catholics as a feast day in August. This description is found here.

c.1559-62: Teresa experiences, perhaps several times, her famous "transfixion" or "piercing" by a cherub with a golden, fiery-tipped spear. She records this in her Life as follows:

I saw an angel close by me, on my left side, in bodily form. This I am not accustomed to see, unless very rarely. Though I have visions of angels frequently, yet I see them only by an intellectual vision. . . . It was our Lord's will that in this vision I should see the angel in this wise. He was not large, but small of stature, and most beautiful--his face burning, as if he were one of the highest angels, who seem to be all of fire: they must be those whom we call cherubim. . . .I saw in his hand a long spear of gold, and at the iron's point there seemed to be a little fire. He appeared to me to be thrusting it at times into my heart, and to pierce my very entrails; when he drew it out, he seemed to draw them out also, and to leave me all on fire with a great love of God. The pain was so great that it made me moan; and yet so surpassing was the sweetness of this excessive pain that I could not wish to be rid of it. The soul is satisfied now with nothing less than God. (Life, 29.16-17)

Here is another translation:

I saw in his hands a large golden dart and at the end of the iron tip there appeared to be a little fire. It seemed to me this angel plunged the dart several times into my heart and that it reached deep within me. When he drew it out, I thought he was carrying off with him the deepest part of me; and he left me all on fire with great love of God. The pain was so great that it made me moan, and the sweetness this greatest pain caused me was so superabundant that there is no desire capable of taking it away.”

Also from the same web site is a translation by Alvin Joaquin Figueroa, of Teresa’s poem, entitled, “Dilectus Meus Mihi”, or, “My Beloved is Mine”, a title obviously taken from the Song of Songs.

When the sweet Hunter shot and wounded me
My soul rested upon Love’s arms.
And regaining a new life
I have changed in such a way,
That I am my Beloved’s
And my Beloved is mine.
I have surrendered to Him
And to such a great extent
That I am my Beloved’s
And my Beloved is mine.
He wounded me with a love arrow
And my soul became one with her Creator.
I do not want any other love,
For to my God I have surrendered.
I am my Beloved’s
And my Beloved is mine.

And here is a painting (not true to Teresa’s description of a very little angel on her left side), which any honest person can recognize as depicting an erotic experience. It is quite sad to mistake such sublimation for spirituality.




John of the Cross does it, too. Here is one of his poems. To be sure, he gives each stanza an allegorical, “spiritual” interpretation; nevertheless, this is sexuality posing as mysticism.

Stanzas Of The Soul

1. One dark night,
fired with love's urgent longings
- ah, the sheer grace! -
I went out unseen,
my house being now all stilled.

2. In darkness, and secure,
by the secret ladder, disguised,
- ah, the sheer grace! -
in darkness and concealment,
my house being now all stilled.

3. On that glad night,
in secret, for no one saw me,
nor did I look at anything,
with no other light or guide
than the one that burned in my heart.

4. This guided me
more surely than the light of noon
to where he was awaiting me
- him I knew so well -
there in a place where no one appeared.

5. O guiding night!
O night more lovely than the dawn!
O night that has united
the Lover with his beloved,
transforming the beloved in her Lover.

6. Upon my flowering breast
which I kept wholly for him alone,
there he lay sleeping,
and I caressing him
there in a breeze from the fanning cedars.

7. When the breeze blew from the turret,
as I parted his hair,
it wounded my neck
with its gentle hand,
suspending all my senses.

8. I abandoned and forgot myself,
laying my face on my Beloved;
all things ceased; I went out from myself,
leaving my cares
forgotten among the lilies.

The big mistake – or one of them, at least, is that John of the Cross and Teresa both take their own souls to be the Bride of Christ. That’s flattering, but a no-go. The Bride of Christ is the Church.