I'm Dealing With Something Really Weird

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**“Stay, Lady Soul.”

“What do you bid of me, Lord?”

“Take off your clothes.”

“Lord what will happen to me then?”

“Lady Soul, you are utterly formed to my nature

That not the slightest thing can be between you and me.”

“Lord now I am a naked soul

And you in yourself are a well adorned God.

Our shared lot is eternal life

Without death.”

Then a blessed stillness

That both desire comes over them

He surrenders himself to her

And she surrenders herself to him.[1]

Mechtild of Magdeburg 13C**

I think that the above is a stunning piece of spousal imagery 🙂

I think that Monica has given some incredible and wise advice for which I thank her! 🙂

However I must ask…

If God can stimulate the eyes during periods of ecstatic prayer with visions, can stimulate the nose with beautiful smells (ie flowers), can stimulate ones senses with warmth etc.

Would it be wrong to imagine that God might choose to stimulate the genital areas to help someone understand something spiritually?

Now, I have never experienced something like this and frankly would never want to (God forbid!) however I’m not convinced that this is impossible or would be sinful. Sexual sensation is reserved for marriage between humans, however it is not so with God. I am sure he can stimulate the genital regions in moments of ecstatic divine-human love just as much as he can stimulate the eyes with a vision or the physical senses on the skin with warmth etc without it necessarily being sinful so long as it is beyond the person’s control. Sexual sensation is afterall a physical sensation like any other, although within the human dimension it has an appropriate expression (marriage).

Now PLEASE don’t get me wrong, I’m only “suggesting”…😊

Does anybody understand what I mean or am I just way off…? :confused:
 
I agree though that after passing through the “Dark Night of the Soul”, one should probably have moved beyond the “sense” part of the spiritual journey and into realms of experience that are pure, elevated spirit.

However we are a harmonious union of body and soul, and we will rise again in a Glorified Body, so I personally am not convinced that if a person loves God so much that there entire union of Body and Soul - including even one’s genitals - rejoices and exults in love for him - that this would be sinful.

In the Dark Night of the Soul does not John of the Cross say that his Beloved, "with his smoothest hand, caressed my every sense it would allow"…

This sounds to me like love for God stimulated all of John’s physical and spiritual “senses”. But I may be reading this part completely wrong, for which I apologize sincerely!

St John perhaps is speaking purely spiritually in this line and not carnally at all.

The flesh is holy though. We are not Gnostics. :rolleyes:

Ah here’s the passage from St John’s poem:

Within my pounding heart
which kept itself entirely for him
He fell into his sleep
beneath the cedars all my love I gave
And by the fortress walls
the wind would brush his hair against his brow
And with its smoothest hand
caressed my every sense it would allow

What does the last line mean? To me it sounds like “every sense” means every physical and spiritual sense, but I must be reading this too literally…Does he mean only that his spiritual senses were stimulated by this “caress”?
 
Would it be wrong to imagine that God might choose to stimulate the genital areas to help someone understand something spiritually?
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My reaction is to say that this would not happen, because… well this is just how I look at it: The reason that part of the body exists is not to get personal pleasure. It’s to have children with a spouse. The marital act between spouses is meant to be procreative and unitive. Any sexual act that is intentionally closed to life, or where the purpose is selfish (to receive rather than to give) - is not how it was intended in creation. This explains why those things the Church teaches are sinful are in fact sins: homosexual acts, masturbation, pornography, sex before or outside of marriage, contraception, etc.

This is true for all types of love, including God’s love. When we come to God, it would be ideal if our goal was to give Him our love, give Him consolation, rather than receive consolation. If He gives us consolation, - it would always be something helpful to us spiritually. What you describe, would not be helpful, I’d imagine, because it would tempt us to sin… there’s a danger of making consolation something lustful, carnal, when God’s love is so holy and pure. 🙂

Now I know very little so I am speaking from myself, not from God. I could be wrong about anything and then I’d accept what God would say as the truth. But - this explanation seems to make sense to me.

If someone experiences something sexual during prayer, - that is from themselves, (or even from the enemy at times, depending)… the graces that God gives during prayer are for our sanctification and to love Him better, not just to have some sort of pleasure; spiritual or physical. And when we come to God, it’s best if our intent is to give Him pleasure, not to seek it ourselves. So we can do this by trusting Him, being very open to Him, telling Him that we love Him, giving Him our hearts, etc. I would advise anyone to stay away from any sexual thoughts or feelings during prayer, and to not give consent if they come.

Additionally, to answer your question, God’s love and spiritual truths are better communicated and expressed in other ways. The experience of His love and genuine spiritual consolation, far surpasses any physical earthly feeling.

God bless
 
Ok, I’m a Carmelite at heart (never made my promises, but I’ve studied with them for a time and am a re-aspiring Discalced Carmelite…)…

I see a lot of John of the Cross and Theresa of Avila referred to here. Here is what I have been taught, but a Carmelite brother.

Such an experience like this is simply the body reacting to a spiritual experience. God is not actively doing something to the body, but the body does not know how to respond to the spiritual and mental stimulus during this form of prayer. In other forms of prayer and mystical experience, the body becomes sense-less. This is probably a higher state of being (or prayer, or mystical union) when the spirit seems to disconnect or is so enraptured with God that the body is not even effected (detachment).

So, in one sense, the body reacting this way to a spiritual stimulus does seem to signify a higher form of prayer than, for instance, nothing at all happening, yet an even higher form of prayer would be for the body to be senseless (as in a total ecstasy).

Don’t know how well that was explained. Oh well, did my best. It’s been at least 8 years since I’ve heard anything about this… Don’t know how well my memory serves me.

But bodily reaction or none, sometimes the most profound work God does with the spirit is not sensed at all, or is perceived as rejection or distance from God - this is the essence of the Dark Night experience; when God seems very far away or completely absent, when actually He is nearer than ever. Reminds me of the footprints poem… (“it was then that I carried you”) b/c there is nothing more distressing to a soul than to experience God and then have no sense of Him at all. And that is where so much of John of the Cross’s poetry really touches me. “Where have you hidden, beloved?” sigh…
 
WatchfulPilgrim said:
Ok, I’m a Carmelite at heart (never made my promises, but I’ve studied with them for a time and am a re-aspiring Discalced Carmelite…)…

I see a lot of John of the Cross and Theresa of Avila referred to here. Here is what I have been taught, but a Carmelite brother.

Such an experience like this is simply the body reacting to a spiritual experience. God is not actively doing something to the body, but the body does not know how to respond to the spiritual and mental stimulus during this form of prayer. In other forms of prayer and mystical experience, the body becomes sense-less. This is probably a higher state of being (or prayer, or mystical union) when the spirit seems to disconnect or is so enraptured with God that the body is not even effected (detachment).

So, in one sense, the body reacting this way to a spiritual stimulus does seem to signify a higher form of prayer than, for instance, nothing at all happening, yet an even higher form of prayer would be for the body to be senseless (as in a total ecstasy).

Don’t know how well that was explained. Oh well, did my best. It’s been at least 8 years since I’ve heard anything about this… Don’t know how well my memory serves me.

But bodily reaction or none, sometimes the most profound work God does with the spirit is not sensed at all, or is perceived as rejection or distance from God - this is the essence of the Dark Night experience; when God seems very far away or completely absent, when actually He is nearer than ever. Reminds me of the footprints poem… (“it was then that I carried you”) b/c there is nothing more distressing to a soul than to experience God and then have no sense of Him at all. And that is where so much of John of the Cross’s poetry really touches me. “Where have you hidden, beloved?” sigh…
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I completely agree with what you said here and I think you put it very well! I was trying to say the same thing but you put it much clearer/more concise 🙂

God bless!
 
Monica4316 said:
I completely agree with what you said here and I think you put it very well! I was trying to say the same thing but you put it much clearer/more concise 🙂

God bless!
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Ah, I think our posts compliment each another 😉 - It’s good to say the same thing in different ways! 👍
 
WatchfulPilgrim said:
Ok, I’m a Carmelite at heart (never made my promises, but I’ve studied with them for a time and am a re-aspiring Discalced Carmelite…)…

I see a lot of John of the Cross and Theresa of Avila referred to here. Here is what I have been taught, but a Carmelite brother.

Such an experience like this is simply the body reacting to a spiritual experience. God is not actively doing something to the body, but the body does not know how to respond to the spiritual and mental stimulus during this form of prayer. In other forms of prayer and mystical experience, the body becomes sense-less. This is probably a higher state of being (or prayer, or mystical union) when the spirit seems to disconnect or is so enraptured with God that the body is not even effected (detachment).

So, in one sense, the body reacting this way to a spiritual stimulus does seem to signify a higher form of prayer than, for instance, nothing at all happening, yet an even higher form of prayer would be for the body to be senseless (as in a total ecstasy).

Don’t know how well that was explained. Oh well, did my best. It’s been at least 8 years since I’ve heard anything about this… Don’t know how well my memory serves me.

But bodily reaction or none, sometimes the most profound work God does with the spirit is not sensed at all, or is perceived as rejection or distance from God - this is the essence of the Dark Night experience; when God seems very far away or completely absent, when actually He is nearer than ever. Reminds me of the footprints poem… (“it was then that I carried you”) b/c there is nothing more distressing to a soul than to experience God and then have no sense of Him at all. And that is where so much of John of the Cross’s poetry really touches me. “Where have you hidden, beloved?” sigh…
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As a Carmelite, do you know what infused contemplation is supposed to be like? Because before and shortly after my conversion (for several months off and on) I would experience this profound peace, and it was like I could contemplate God in everything. My gears were greased, so to speak, and everything made so much more sense like reality was becoming so coherent to me. All creation seemed like it had this divine sweetness diffused all through it. It would last for days on end, and I would rejoice in everything. So happy, so loving, so focused, so calm. Is that infused contemplation or some other consolation?

This is confusing, because all of this reeks of Carmelite spirituality, but I had a vision of myself in Heaven dressed as an OFM friar once… with a tau cross on my forehead, but the stigmata wounds were eyes. And a flaming tongue on the back of my neck to the left (I do speak in tongues, actually I have since a few years before my baptism [long story short I was a Protestant but couldn’t get baptized due to circumstances]). I had a white dove for a heart on my habit and olive colored vines were sprawled all out on my torso, and the part that I can’t interpret for the life of me was that my top wrists had gold pentagrams on them, the top point toward my fingers, with two gold arrows pointing to the left and right beside them. Now that last part might cause issues in some eyes, but the thing is that at that time I knew that medieval Catholics used to use the symbol for the holy wounds, and for a symbol of health, and also as a superstitious amulet to repel evil. Plus it symbolized the virtues of a knight. And then there’s the generic miraculous magical association. But the arrows? Uh… telekinesis? :rolleyes: Bi-ritual priesthood? (Problem with that last one is that God promised me a lover in a locution once so no go I assume, although after all these things dumping a truckload off grace into me I would love to do that)

I’ve shown this to several clergy members with really not much response. No one’s told me what it all means (I mean, a peaceful heart filled with the spirit, a suffering seer, stigmatist?) I’ve had a metric butt-ton of miraculous stuff happen to me… oh, not to mention the habit I wore in the vision had no upper… capey-scarfy part? Incomplete… I just took it literally today and called the OFM province for Ohio but they turned me down the moment I told them about my illnesses. Oh, and I had a white cord about my waist.
 
Also, I should mention that God seemed to ditch me for about three years before I converted. Dark night, no answered prayers, doubts assaulting me, horrible health and family issues, dryness, etc.
 
Oh, I’m familiar with the Dark Night - horrible thing to go through, at least from what we can sense (or not sense, I should say…).

Infused contemplation…

I had an experience about 9 years ago that I was told was such an experience (defined, as such, by a Franciscan in fact…). Then, about 3 weeks ago, I had a similar, but more intense experience, that lasted 10 days - and it was just as you described; everything making sense and sensing the divine through creation - like being in a different dimension or something - also, as if everything was orchestrated and I knew everything ahead of time - very surreal… In fact, I was just talking to my husband about this tonight, and telling him I don’t know what to do. I feel like I need a spiritual director at this point - b/c I feel drawn back into this experience but I’m resisting it b/c, for practicality’s sake I need to be “normal” for the sake of my family - yet I was probably more efficient and collected in that state than I am normally…

I would suggest the same for you. Find a good religious to share this with, b/c I’m not really sure what we are supposed to do with such experiences. One of the results of my experience was a physical healing, and definitely a spiritual one. I feel like some of what I was graced with during this experience is unresolved also, so I need to know how I should respond to future promptings to enter back into this “state” (for lack of a better word).

Don’t know about you, but I found the experience a bit scary - almost as if I were dead or dying during it. The Franciscans seemed to know what I was talking about, and they assured me that it wouldn’t last and there was nothing to be frightened about. I guess it’s more common than I realized. But I would really like to be reassured again, b/c this experience had information attached to it - some of which came to pass already, and some of which did not. I’m thinking of paying them a visit again.

Praying for you, please pray for me.

Bless you~
 
WatchfulPilgrim said:
Oh, I’m familiar with the Dark Night - horrible thing to go through, at least from what we can sense (or not sense, I should say…).

Infused contemplation…

I had an experience about 9 years ago that I was told was such an experience (defined, as such, by a Franciscan in fact…). Then, about 3 weeks ago, I had a similar, but more intense experience, that lasted 10 days - and it was just as you described; everything making sense and sensing the divine through creation - like being in a different dimension or something - also, as if everything was orchestrated and I knew everything ahead of time - very surreal… In fact, I was just talking to my husband about this tonight, and telling him I don’t know what to do. I feel like I need a spiritual director at this point - b/c I feel drawn back into this experience but I’m resisting it b/c, for practicality’s sake I need to be “normal” for the sake of my family - yet I was probably more efficient and collected in that state than I am normally…

I would suggest the same for you. Find a good religious to share this with, b/c I’m not really sure what we are supposed to do with such experiences. One of the results of my experience was a physical healing, and definitely a spiritual one. I feel like some of what I was graced with during this experience is unresolved also, so I need to know how I should respond to future promptings to enter back into this “state” (for lack of a better word).

Don’t know about you, but I found the experience a bit scary - almost as if I were dead or dying during it. The Franciscans seemed to know what I was talking about, and they assured me that it wouldn’t last and there was nothing to be frightened about. I guess it’s more common than I realized. But I would really like to be reassured again, b/c this experience had information attached to it - some of which came to pass already, and some of which did not. I’m thinking of paying them a visit again.

Praying for you, please pray for me.

Bless you~
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Very interesting… I’ve never had such an experience. Maybe it accompanies a spiritual healing of some type. I’ve been going through much confusion for the past several months, though now it’s getting better, - it must be great to have clarity about everything 🙂 even if parts of it are kind of frightening like you said. (I’m not sure what that must be like lol, as I’ve never experienced it).

God bless 🙂
 
It’s fascinating, isn’t it? It’s like you’re high but at the same time everything you do becomes so orchestrated and deliberate, like you’re serenely meticulous. A temptation comes up and you just hop, skip, and jump right over it. Gotta do something? It’s like art, you just flow through it, mindful of every action but moving as though by grace alone. I know I had a very severe case of PTSD and when, in a bit of mania, I honestly laid my whole life down at the feet of God I changed drastically for a few days. This was as a Protestant… but I was calm, my social phobias totally disappeared and I became kind and confident, and I went from being a metalhead overnight to hear utter cacophonous insane discord in it (I mean, I keep listening to the “Christian” stuff for some reason but honestly in a philosophical sense the sound makes no sense coupled to the gospel, except for maybe one band I heard that was more virtuous and energetic than “brutal”). All my mood swings vanished, and so on. I had a little taste of essentially saint-like perfection. And then I came down and started screaming at everyone and hating the world again. :rolleyes:
 
lol 😃 I like the part about jumping over temptations. 😉 I guess that’s how it would be one day. But perhaps the regular way we have to fight through them is more meritorious, - if we win that is.

that is interesting about music. You might be interested in this: ceciliaschola.org/notes/benedictonmusic.html

God bless 🙂
 
When I experience impure thoughts during prayer, I know it is Satan so I say, "behind me Satan!; and take a moment to get before Our Lord and ask forgiveness and I feel better and ready to continue. Its important to not watch or read unclean images because they will come back and re-play in your mind.
 
WoundedIcon said:
It’s fascinating, isn’t it? It’s like you’re high but at the same time everything you do becomes so orchestrated and deliberate, like you’re serenely meticulous. A temptation comes up and you just hop, skip, and jump right over it. Gotta do something? It’s like art, you just flow through it, mindful of every action but moving as though by grace alone. I know I had a very severe case of PTSD and when, in a bit of mania, I honestly laid my whole life down at the feet of God I changed drastically for a few days. This was as a Protestant… but I was calm, my social phobias totally disappeared and I became kind and confident, and I went from being a metalhead overnight to hear utter cacophonous insane discord in it (I mean, I keep listening to the “Christian” stuff for some reason but honestly in a philosophical sense the sound makes no sense coupled to the gospel, except for maybe one band I heard that was more virtuous and energetic than “brutal”). All my mood swings vanished, and so on. I had a little taste of essentially saint-like perfection. And then I came down and started screaming at everyone and hating the world again. :rolleyes:
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Lol… You are really good at describing what I’ve never been able to describe! I’m a pianist and an artist and I have tried to describe this experience as what artists typically call “flow” - when everything becomes effortless. And the most pitiful, and most humbling of all is, as you described it, that after having experienced something that awesome, we go right back to “normal” - screaming at everyone and hating the world again…Very well-put, and very honest!

Just like the Israelites - you can see the waters split and the manna fall from Heaven and still not make it to the Promised Land. I’m convinced, drawing from previous experience, that we need to cling all the more to Jesus, b/c the higher you get, the more painful and deadly the fall could be.
 
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