Wanting Mystical Experiences

[Sirach2]

Neil,

Spiritually speaking, these desires are not healthy. Whereas you speak about desiring these things, if this is a passion with you, you need to detach from this. If it is only an occasional wish that enters your fancy like another poster mentioned, in order to be close to God, it can be irregular, but not dangerous.

WIth regard to desiring the gifts/charisms that many in CCR experience, St. Paul has taught that we may ask for these, but it is best to desire prophecy - not in the sense of foretelling or foreknowing events, but in the sense that the Church understands this gift. It is the ability, through the anointing of the Holy Spirit, to speak God’s words to encourage and uplift another. Strive for this gift, he tells us, for it is born of God’s love.

“Warm, fuzzy feelings when you are full of praise for God” are not possible to experience whenever we like. To detach us from consolations, many of God’s friends come to experience desolation and aridity in prayer, for God does not want us to be attached to “feelings” but to fidelilty, whether we sense his holy presence or not. The withdrawal of warm fuzzies is common experience that comes to spiritual people fairly early in their walk with God.

Ask the Lord to keep you in his will, and let go of these desires for the paranormal. I do except the recalling of your two visions though, for if they rekindle your love of God when you think of them, it is a blessing that you have been given.

 

[Neil_Anthony]

Thank you so much for the good and specific advice.
I suspect I might have a latent gift of prophecy, in the proper sense. Is there anything I should do, or should I just forget about it and let God do what He wills?

 

[Sirach2]

Sometimes you’ll sense that God is speaking through your words, and the person to whom you speak will respond in ways that let you know God entrusted you with his message. In that case, you simply give thanks to him and ask that he bless the person. His words are fruitful for the listener like those mentioned in Isaiah 55:10-11:
For just as from the heavens the rain and snow come down and do not return there till they have watered the earth, making it fertile and fruitful, giving seed to him who sows and bread to him who eats,
So shall my word be that goes forth from my mouth; it shall not return to me void, but shall do my will, achieving the end for which I sent it.
Rarely will a word from God be a condemnation or accusation, so you can sense the heart of the message’s source. You won’t HEAR words, as in a locution, but there will be an impression in your mind when possibly you were not thinking of the message. It will first edify you before you deliver it.

Hope this helps. Maybe others can add to this. I have the sense that this is a prophecy to you.

 

[Sirach2]

Just a point of clarification regarding prophecy. St. Paul was speaking in his epistle to Corinthians about the type I have shared above.

However, there is another type of prophecy that does involve disclosing future events. This post was shared by me in another area of the forum, so I just recopied it here for your benefit.

Prophecy, when it is authentic, will have most of these signposts:

• fulfillment
• accompanying condition met (if thou wilt do such and so, then I will …)
• agreement with scripture
• judgment of others (often a group witness to the truth of the prophecy)
• confirmation of something previously spoken to you in prayer
• spiritual witness to one’s heart (peace, joy, assurance)
• purity of the vessel (the one who prophesies lives his faith)
• the spirit of the message (spoken in the character of Christ, never condemning)
• the burden of the Lord (a sense of urgency)

Simply berating the listener to “despise not prophesyings” is to induce guilt and fear, without any providing any inner witness of peace or assurance to them. This is not of God. However, we do know that there was a prophecy in Acts 11:27-30 from prophets who foretold about a great famine, and the disciples determined to send aid. This inner burden had to be sensed by them prior to the famine and the disciples could not afford to wait to see its fulfillment. That inner sense of urgency accompanied by the judgment of the other disciples who listened and confirmed the message of the prophets is an example of true prophecy.

 

[AlanFromWichita]

Thank you so much for the good and specific advice.
I suspect I might have a latent gift of prophecy, in the proper sense. Is there anything I should do, or should I just forget about it and let God do what He wills?

Tell us about it. What kind of things do you think? Say? Do? See/hear? You don’t have to be specific, because it could cause the discussion to get unruly. Just how do the behave, is what I’m asking … like … Are they (thoughts, feelings, inklings) abstract and hard to put into words? Do they have to do with reactions to scripture or to feelings you get during devotions? Do they improve your outlook on the world or your prospects, or gain you fruit of the spirit? Or is it that you feel some sensitivity to other people in ways that help you empathize extraordinarily well?

Just some questions to try to dissect this thing a little and see what we’re talking about.

Alan

 

[Neil_Anthony]

Tell us about it. What kind of things do you think? Say? Do? See/hear? You don’t have to be specific, because it could cause the discussion to get unruly. Just how do the behave, is what I’m asking … like … Are they (thoughts, feelings, inklings) abstract and hard to put into words? Do they have to do with reactions to scripture or to feelings you get during devotions? Do they improve your outlook on the world or your prospects, or gain you fruit of the spirit? Or is it that you feel some sensitivity to other people in ways that help you empathize extraordinarily well?

Just some questions to try to dissect this thing a little and see what we’re talking about.

Alan

Nothing very exciting or unusual. Words come to mind along with intense emotion. Like at a wedding I sensed that God was sending “tremendous blessings” to the couple (the word tremendous with such great emphasis that even to this day thinking about it brings tears of joy to my eyes). And I’m not an emotional person. I just thought maybe I was supposed to tell the couple about these blessings, but I didn’t want to seem crazy so I just signed the card “May God’s tremendous blessings be with you”.

 

[Robert_Caritas]

Thank you so much for the good and specific advice.
I suspect I might have a latent gift of prophecy, in the proper sense. Is there anything I should do, or should I just forget about it and let God do what He wills?

Don’t forget about it, but definitely let God do what He wills above all else. In my opinion, such gifts are only useful to a person who has reached a certain level of holiness in behavior and life, and a certain knowledge of doctrine.

So I think that these a signs to consider, but if they distract in any way from self-improvement you should forsake them.

When in need of guidance, I find the prayer “Come Holy Spirit” very helpful. I heard a priest in an interview call it “the prayer that always works.” I might add, that always works, and for anything – it is like asking for light into your life. You can always use it!

Nothing very exciting or unusual. Words come to mind along with intense emotion. Like at a wedding I sensed that God was sending “tremendous blessings” to the couple (the word tremendous with such great emphasis that even to this day thinking about it brings tears of joy to my eyes). And I’m not an emotional person. I just thought maybe I was supposed to tell the couple about these blessings, but I didn’t want to seem crazy so I just signed the card “May God’s tremendous blessings be with you”.

I have had this type of experience before. I once felt that I should go up to a friend who is a lapsed Catholic and say “God wants you to go to Church on Sundays.” I chose caution and didn’t do it, but I have a feeling that these words could have gone straight to her heart. Though in case I was wrong I didn’t want to risk alienating her. I hope one day to have the faith and discernment to be able to speak such messages.

I don’t see this as prophecy, but as God speaking his will into our hearts.

 

[AlanFromWichita]

Nothing very exciting or unusual. Words come to mind along with intense emotion. Like at a wedding I sensed that God was sending “tremendous blessings” to the couple (the word tremendous with such great emphasis that even to this day thinking about it brings tears of joy to my eyes). And I’m not an emotional person. I just thought maybe I was supposed to tell the couple about these blessings, but I didn’t want to seem crazy so I just signed the card “May God’s tremendous blessings be with you”.

I think you did well to confine it to the “natural.” To have told the couple about your vision would have tended to grab the spotlight from their occasion and made it yours. Humility stepped in and saved you from doing that to them. It was a great thought to share it, and you got to enjoy the thought. Then you got to enjoy the prudence of keeping the details to yourself, while still conveying exuberance. I think it was a win all the way around.

If you trust in the Holy Spirit, you will be given the words when you need them.

Alan

 

[Robert_Caritas]

I think you did well to confine it to the “natural.” To have told the couple about your vision would have tended to grab the spotlight from their occasion and made it yours. Humility stepped in and saved you from doing that to them. It was a great thought to share it, and you got to enjoy the thought. Then you got to enjoy the prudence of keeping the details to yourself, while still conveying exuberance. I think it was a win all the way around.

If you trust in the Holy Spirit, you will be given the words when you need them.

Alan

I agree very much.

 

[Pitcharan]

…Prophecy, when it is authentic, will have most of these signposts:

• purity of the vessel (the one who prophesies lives his faith)

Is the above signpost true in this case too?

*"You do not realize that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish.”

He did not say this on his own, but as high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the Jewish nation* (John 11:50-51)

 

[R_C]

Who hasn’t, at some point in their prayer life, wanted to hear the voice of Jesus or Mary? And if you have heard it, who hasn’t wanted to hear it again? Who hasn’t been between a rock and a hard place and begged God to speak to him in words?

I think if you didn’t want to have that experience, there would be something really wrong! What woman does not want to hear the voice of her beloved? Who doesn’t want their lover to ease their mind and calm their fears? What person does not desire to be lifted up above this world and it’s vanities to the reality of God’s ecstatic love?

I think there is absolutely nothing wrong with it. We were made to KNOW God, we were made to love Him. How can we love what we do not know? How do we know Him unless He reveals Himself? How do we ever know ourselves if we don’t know Him who made us for Himself?

Ask away! You have every right to ask your Beloved for whatever you want! In this godless society with so few who really love God, I bet God would be delighted that someone wants to share His life and experiences with Him.

Beautiful, but I would agree only to an extent. The more I read the writings of saints and mystics, the more I see their prayer to not receive such experiences, their advice to treat them with great care and always under spiritual direction, and their warning against the great deceptions that come both from our mind and from the adversary. I am barely starting to read through the works of St. John of the Cross, perhaps the greatest mystic the Church ever had, and He was rather careful with these things, as Sirach2 can confirm Ultimately “God’s grace is enough”, and it is not in visions and revelations that we find holiness. We should, I think, never ask things we want to God, for our will should be that we conform perfectly to His will…and, as St. Teresa of Avila (another great mystic) once said: “If you have God you will want for nothing. God alone suffices.” I don’t want visions or consolations or anything: I want God! And I will only find Him in Heaven. Anything in this earth can only stop me from approaching him, and the more I am attached to earthly things, the less I am attached to Him whom my soul longs for. This is why I love this passage of a poem by St. John of the Cross:

Send me no more a messenger who cannot tell me what I wish!

Reveal Your presence, and let the vision and Your beauty kill me…

Behold, the malady of love is incurable…except in Your presence and before Your face.

 

[Neil_Anthony]

I think you did well to confine it to the “natural.” To have told the couple about your vision would have tended to grab the spotlight from their occasion and made it yours. Humility stepped in and saved you from doing that to them. It was a great thought to share it, and you got to enjoy the thought. Then you got to enjoy the prudence of keeping the details to yourself, while still conveying exuberance. I think it was a win all the way around.

If you trust in the Holy Spirit, you will be given the words when you need them.

Alan

The wedding was full of charismatic catholics and pentacostals, and this came to me when the couple were being prayed over by select people. So I’m sure there were lots of miracles and signs and wonders going on I eventually told the groom about it maybe 6 months later.

 

[Sirach2]

Is the above signpost true in this case too?

"You do not realize that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish.”

He did not say this on his own, but as high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the Jewish nation (John 11:50-51)

Here is what Haydock’s Commentary had to say:

Ver. 51. The same words have an impious and sacrilegious sense in the intention of the high priest, the enemy of Jesus Christ: and a divine and prophetic sense, in the intention of the Holy Ghost. — We here behold the privilege of the office and order, though in a wicked person: and as we have the assistance of God for the utterance of truth, which Caiphas neither meant nor knew, we may rest satisfied that Christ will not leave Peter’s chair; (Luke xxii. 32.) whose faith he promises should never fail, though the occupants be as bad as their enemies describe them.

Although my post mentioned that true prophecy will have MOST of these signposts, we perhaps can omit the purity of the vessel in this instance, but not the purity of his office through whom the Holy Spirit chose to speak.

 

[Lady_Love]

We should, I think, never ask things we want to God, for our will should be that we conform perfectly to His will.:

If I remember right. Our Lord complained to St. Faustina many times that, “We do not have because we do not ask.” Our Lord is the giver of ALL good things. It is true that we desire His will above all but we do not have to ignore our own desires. We can express our desires and leave it to Him to “do whatever He tells us.” There is no sin in asking, rather a sign of our vulnerability/our utter dependence on God for everything. I trust that I will have all I need without even having to ask for it but should I ask for it and the Lord gives it to me or withholds it, I have been REAL in my relationship with Him.

 

[AlanFromWichita]

If I remember right. Our Lord complained to St. Faustina many times that, “We do not have because we do not ask.” Our Lord is the giver of ALL good things. It is true that we desire His will above all but we do not have to ignore our own desires. We can express our desires and leave it to Him to “do whatever He tells us.” There is no sin in asking, rather a sign of our vulnerability/our utter dependence on God for everything. I trust that I will have all I need without even having to ask for it but should I ask for it and the Lord gives it to me or withholds it, I have been REAL in my relationship with Him.

Exactly. The part that helped me is that I no longer concern myself with whether any particular prayer will be answered in any particular way. So I ask for anything I wish for, and enthusiastically enjoy whatever I get.

But one more “serious” reason for asking what we desire, is that I think a lot of times God stands ready to give us gifts, but we aren’t quite disposed to receiving them. If we ask for these gifts from God, then that helps condition our minds to the reality of receiving them – at least as a possibility. That is useful I think because gifts from God can be so amazing that if we don’t open our minds to accept it, it isn’t going to fit. How is God going to get a gift package the size of a city, into a mind and heart that doesn’t think it will ever “deserve” – or can handle any more than – a street bench? They have to renew their wineskins, and asking for things beyond what we can reasonably expect is one way i’ve found to condition my minds. Pondering the mysteries and “paradox” of Jesus’s parables and stories and teachings is another way; really imagine them, though … don’t just think “wow that’s confusing,” but “through what kind of eyes can I look at this story and have it makes sense?”

Here are a couple others: “be perfect” says Jesus. Instead of saying, “I’ll never live up to that,” try being “like a child” and take it at face value: “gee I wonder what life would be like for a perfect person” or if you’re just a bit more bold, “gee I wonder what life would be like for me if I were spiritually perfect? Like if I were totally and absolutely non-judgmental, have all the fruit of the spirit, are merciful and serene, etc.” Will God give you a taste? Well in my experience God is more likely to give me things I’ve imagined and asked for than those I have not.

So yeah, why pray for little stuff like nice weather for a picnic? I go for the Big Prayers:

“Lord, I pray that you open all of our eyes so that we may see the kingdom the way Jesus intended for us to see it. This applies to posters and lurkers who believe and agree with my prayer. We open our hearts and minds to you so you may touch us in order to accomplish this in us. If You so will, then let it be done to us. We ask these things through Jesus Christ our Lord, Amen.”

Alan

 

[Pitcharan]

Here is what Haydock’s Commentary had to say:

Ver. 51. The same words have an impious and sacrilegious sense in the intention of the high priest, the enemy of Jesus Christ: and a divine and prophetic sense, in the intention of the Holy Ghost. — We here behold the privilege of the office and order, though in a wicked person: and as we have the assistance of God for the utterance of truth, which Caiphas neither meant nor knew, we may rest satisfied that Christ will not leave Peter’s chair; (Luke xxii. 32.) whose faith he promises should never fail, though the occupants be as bad as their enemies describe them.

Although my post mentioned that true prophecy will have MOST of these signposts, we perhaps can omit the purity of the vessel in this instance, but not the purity of his office through whom the Holy Spirit chose to speak.

Thank you Sirach. It was enlightening.

 

[R_C]

It is true that we desire His will above all but we do not have to ignore our own desires. We can express our desires and leave it to Him to “do whatever He tells us.”

That is beautifully expressed!

But I am very much afraid of a radically different approach: not one that is, perhaps, fascinated by the readings of some of our saints having been granted mystical experiences, visions, and ecstasies (or, sometimes au contraire, granted a share in the sorrows of the Cross), and thinks it would be so nice to be able to follow their path, but one that actively seeks those things, rather than leave thins to God. I think, but it’s only my opinion, that we should never say the words “I want”.

St. Teresa de Los Andes was granted since First Communion the grace of interior locutions with the Lord and the Blessed Virgin, and she thought was a quite natural thing until much later in her age She later wrote to a friend, regarding locutions (which she still seems to presume to be a grace granted to many ): “One must only do what is in accordance to God’s will …] and when one has this kind of prayer, one must let the confessor know all that is heard.” Later on she’d recall in her letters that her spiritual director told her to be “very prudent about the words she heard, and to never request things from the Lord”. She also longed to share in the Lord’s redemptive sufferings, to which her spiritual director replied: “to not ask Him [the Lord] for the Cross, otherwise I’d experience sufferings that resemble the pains of the damned.” to which she adds: “I’d be glad to suffer something for God.”

See, the last prayer is exactly what you describe: to place a desire in God’s hands. In His wisdom, He grants what we need to be saved and to help saving others, even if this means to understand, say, that to desire something is not good for me while it may be good for others.

 

[Samson01]

Is the above signpost true in this case too?

*"You do not realize that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish.”

He did not say this on his own, but as high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the Jewish nation* (John 11:50-51)

"Writing on the recipients of prophecy, Benedict XIV (Heroic Virtue, III, 144, 150) says: “The recipients of prophecy may be angels, devils, men, women, children, heathens, or gentiles; nor is it necessary that a man should be gifted with any particular disposition in order to receive the light of prophecy provided his intellect and senses be adapted for making manifest the things which God reveals to him.”
“•the recipient of the gift of prophecy should, as a rule, be good and virtuous, for all mystical writers agree that for the most part this gift is granted by God to holy persons. The disposition or temperament of the person should also be considered, as well as the state of health and of the brain;”

newadvent.org/cathen/12473a.htm