You have made so many excellent points here.
The systematic can be very clear, precise and focused - very effective in clearing out the clutter and debris of a superficial worldly life.
However, even the most precise words are just symbols, and too intense a clinging to a specific set and sequence of such words easily degenerates into obsession with the symbols (words) themselves - rendering their use as spiritual tools ineffective.
This is what I describe as a form of mental idolatry.
This would be an excellent example of why some people who call themselves “Traditionalists” are so adamant about Aquinas. It’s not that Aquinas spoke with any canonical authority. He was was never a pope. But the Church liked him, because of his precision. Aquinas was a gifted soul able to take from his mystical experience and use philosophy to explain it. It did not always work, but it worked enough times to make him a reliable teacher.
However, Aquinas also has a dry quality about him that did not appeal to some of the other great minds in the Church, such as the Franciscan School led by Bonaventure and the Carmelite School led by Teresa and John. They avoided words as much as they could, because it felt like mental gymnastics.
Mystical language can take a person’s spirituality to very expansive and transcendent levels - escpecially (or perhaps almost ‘only’?) if the person is already far along in clearing out the clutter and debris of superficial worldliness.
Probably a reason this approach is typically connected more with those who have taken up the religious life formally.
This language does appeal more to the contemplative than to the soul who is very active in the world.
The downside is that for those not properly prepared, mystical concepts can degenerate (in the unprepared mind) into vague, “means anything you want it to mean” psycho-babble.
It can sound like psycho-babble to the mind that is not trained to read and digest this language. You’re absolutely right.
Good reasons to find a qualified spiritual director, (from the spiritual tradition you are at home in), when going deeper into the spiritual life.
(Disclaimer: I don’t claim to be such a qualified person in any spiritual tradition).
The spiritual director should be one who is trained in the mystical life and the life of the soul. Not every priest is trained in this area. Spirituality is not part of the program of studies in diocesan seminaries.
Perhaps Pope Benedict’s use of language that requires more thoughtful reflection and discernment on the part of the listener/reader indicates his intention to push for a more spiritually advanced Catholicism - not just for the formally religious, but for the laity as a whole.
Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI are both very mystical men. When they speak, they tend to use the language and the methods of the great mystics and philosophers, rather than Aquinas. Therefore, they have a vision of the Church, dogma, doctrine and Jesus Christ that is out of the ordinary. Their insights are not in conflict with the faith. However, their insights are very new to the average Catholic who has been raised on the Catechism of Trent and the Baltimore Catechism, which go directly to the conclusioins, without expounding on the process that it took to get there.
John Paul II and Benedict XVI are much more interested in the process the the higher layers, if you will, of the faith. Benedict has made it a trademark of his pontificate to elevate the thinking of the average man in the pew to that of the mystical theologian. While many people love his discipline and his love for tradition, they are very uncomfortable with his discourse, because they don’t get back those nifty one line rules and guidelines that we were all used to getting from the catechism of Trent and Baltimore. Instead, John Paul and Benedict lay out the great spiritual challenges and let the listener do the work. By doing the work I mean that they leave it up to us to meditate and analyze each word, go in search of more and fill in the blanks.
An excellent example of this is Benedict’s statement on the Novus Ordo. He said that we had taken something that was the product of a long develoopment process and we replaced it with something that was fabricated with banal novelties. However, if we watch his celebration of the liturgy, he does the work that it requires to turn that into a very profound and solemn form of prayer. He never meant that statement as a license to dimiss the Novus Ordo. Had he meant that, he would not have elevated it to the Ordinary Form of the mass.
He accepts that the Holy Spirit acts through this. He proceeds to find the holy and to bring it out in what was originally the banal and the created. His example should invite others to do the same.
Some people have taken his original statement with it, rather than taking his example and finding the holy in it and fleshing that out But this is what a mystic does. A mystic takes the common and finds the supernatural in it. Benedict and John Paul II were experts at this.
The average Catholic has to step outside of his comfort zone and do as Thomas Merton once said, take the present as it is, with its strengths and weaknesses, recognize that this is the reality that we are living and then present oneself before God and ask him to help us find him in the middle of this. Merton also reminded us that we have to begin with ourselves, rather than with the universal Church. Saints did not begin their journey by examining the Church and the tradition. They examined their lives in light of the Church at the present. They adjusted their lives to respond to the Church. .
The mystic is the person who see the divine at work, slowly and meticulously.
Fraternally,
Br. JR, OSF
