Imagine Mary, sister of Martha, sitting at Jesus' feet. Her cultural duty was to serve her brother's guests, of whom there were many. Her familial duty was to uphold her brother's reputation as a host. Her sisterly duty to help Martha with the work.
Once the Lord was present, she ignored it all. She was oblivious to everything and everyone but her Savior and His Word. Mary was Elect. She had ears to hear. Finally, the One had come and spoken the LOGOS, the transcendent truth of the living God.
It is literal to say we are living in times of great tribulation all over the world. Whether we can say we have entered the Tribulation will be discussed in another series. In either case, in the worst of times, the Elect are called most strongly to one themselves with the will of God. To do that, we need to know what divine intent has chosen for us, and so we yearn to be in communication with Him, to be Oned with Him.
As Jesus told his Elect, “I am in my Father, you are in me, and I am in you.”
Part 1 of this podcast will be a series on the Prayer of Union—contemplation, recollection. There are many names. This begins now in the introduction. I am Kyrie Dicentis, contemplative Christian, professional writer and now, nascent podcast host.
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I am looking to make available to the Elect, to those called to this, those who in their heart know that there's this something that they need to do, this thing that is ahead of. It's more than saying a prayer, going to church, reading some bit of scripture. This is seeking union with God. I don't think that this is common. I don't think those called are easily found, but you're who I am speaking to.
I'm going to read to you from chapter 74 of something called The Cloud of Unknowing, considered to be the most followed document and instruction about how you do the prayer of faith, contemplation. How you seek being Oned with God. I'll talk more about Julian of Norwich, who wrote it in another podcast, but right now, let's hear what she says because she has exhorted the reader from beginning to end not to make this thing public. This is Middle English translated into modern English.
I do not want the loudmouthed or flatterers or mock modest or busy bodies or tail bearers or cantankerous to see this book, for it has never been my intention to write all this for them. I would rather that they did not hear it, and also those learned or unlearned people who are merely curious. Even if they are good people, judged from a more spiritual standpoint, all this will mean nothing to them.
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When you do this kind of prayer, you have experiences, and knowledge that is direct when you come to God. When you are Oned with God, however briefly, you know. Sometimes you are shown, but what you are shown is very often not at all congruent with what Christianity, in the form of what organized religion will teach you.
Everyone will be saved. Everyone will sooner or later make the journey into the Divine Presence, into the Divine Light. Everyone will be joined to God.
That does not mean everyone will lose themselves, it just means you will be joined to God. The hell that is taught—especially in the more radical of the evangelical type churches—simply doesn't exist. Nor did the Savior ever say the word. These things are considered heresy.
People think Cloud of Unknowing was written by some monk because Julian wanted them to think that. She wanted them to think that because there had been a law passed by Parliament in, I believe, 1401 that made it legal to burn heretics at the stake.
But we don't get burned at the stake anymore, although I believe there are some who would like us to be. I would also like to read you something (because now you're just listening to me and you don't know me) from Thomas Merton. You may have heard of him. Thomas Merton was a contemplative and he wrote many books and much articles, gave lectures about this reaching for God. And one of the things he says in his book, New Seeds of Contemplation, which is still available, you can still get.
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He says this.
In the end, the contemplative suffers the anguish of realizing that he no longer knows what God is. He may or may not mercifully realize that after all, this is a great gain because God is not a what, not a thing.
That is precisely one of the essential characteristics of contemplative experience. It sees that there is no what that can be called God. There is no such thing as God, because God is neither a what nor a thing, but a pure Who. He is the Thou before whom our inmost eye springs into awareness. He is the I AM before Whom our most personal and inalienable voice we echo. I am.
I was reading a conversation about having experiences of the kind of mystical experiences or visions that we have, and two people were talking and one of them said “I always thought of myself as a religious soul trapped in an atheist's body.” When Thomas Merton says there is no such thing as God, he is actually echoing a lot of Mystics all the way back to 500 AD. But if you say something like this that people are going to think you're a heretic, a delusional druid, I, as I was called, they're going to think there's something wrong with you. And so, if you are a person who has ever had an experience or a thought or something that you feel a knowing that you, in your heart, in your spirit, realize is true.
{ 00:08:16 }And no amount of anyone writing and no amount of anyone talking, any person can make you believe otherwise because they are not God. And this is where it came from.
If you are that person, I am talking to you. I will try not to overwhelm with my own experiences, though I think that some might be useful not because of what they mean to me, but because they may mean something special to you. They might also let you know that you aren't alone. This is the problem … is when we think we're alone. And if you simply have always felt that there is nothing else that satisfies, if there is another way to be closer, to be in the presence of your God, then contemplation is what you need to know about.
Let's just talk about one thing that happened the very first time I pursued this kind of prayer. God had called me to be Catholic when I was quite adult, not at all involved in church, not thinking about anything at the time, but always knowing, always knowing that there was God. I didn't know in my unchurched existence what that was, but I knew it was. I knew He was. I knew He was there.
The Pope came to town and I actually believed, since his helicopter flew directly over our apartment building at the time, to reach the place where it landed at the end of the day. Speaking at World Youth Day, which I did not attend or pay attention to or read about because I wasn't Catholic, didn't care, and thought being Catholic was weird.
But I believe he prayed all the time for all of us, for the conversion of hearts and souls. Because why else would I have had the bizarre and insane thought as his helicopter flew overhead for the last time before he was the next day to have a sort of parade or something down the middle of the city of Denver downtown where I lived at the time.
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Where would the thought come from: He's here for you. What? Wait, what? He's here for you. He came here for you. Now, let me tell you that later I realized that while it is true that this was the Holy Spirit, He wasn't here.
God wants me specifically, the way He wants you specifically, the way He wants us all specifically. And yes, the Pope was here for me, but He was here for me as a person who was able to hear but had not ever been involved in what it takes to live the active life of a contemplative which is spoken about by Julian of Norwich and many others. The seeking of the Lord, actively seeking who had no background, no support, no nothing. He wanted conversion of souls. And heaven knows I needed a little converting. So I said to myself, “You seem to be losing your mind. Obviously the Pope did not come here for you.”
And I had this other very bizarre thought, that if I went to this parade—and I never go to where there are large groups of people and I don't ever, I don't shop on Christmas Eve—that somehow I would be there and he would recognize me like he would make some sort of connection with me. Of course, I didn't go because that's insane and stupid. What in the world is wrong with me anyway? What? Oh my God.
After that, I had the need to be Catholic and I believed that I was not insane or having delusions. And I said to God, “No. Catholic? No.” God nags. Did you know He's a nag? He's a nag.
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After three years of resistance, after moving out of this apartment to a suburb, I found this parish, this little tiny parish, this salt box of a church. And again, it came back stronger than ever.
Finally I go, and I wonder what I'm going to say to these people when I walk in the door and say, “How do you get to be Catholic?” Because I wasn't committed to doing it, but I was going to go at least to find out.
Sooner or later they're going to say, how long have you been coming to the church? And I'm going to say I've been to one Catholic service in my entire life, and that was 15 years ago. And I've never been inside your church. Why do you want to be Catholic? I don't know. God said so. And then…?
OK, so I have no idea what I'm going to say. I don't know if you've ever read in Scripture, which I hadn't then, I wasn't a Scripture reader. Jesus says don't worry about what you're going to say. A very nice woman talked to me, who is the head of RCIA, which is the process that you go through when you're becoming Catholic. It takes about nine months. There are a series of, they don't like you to call them classes, but they’re classes basically in Christianity. You're not Catholic, you're Christian. I don't know why other people think Catholics aren't Christian, but of course we are.
So she did ask me finally, after talking about the process and what had to happen and so forth, she said, “So why do you want to join the church?” And I said with no plan whatsoever, “Because the water's full of sharks and I need to get into the boat.” And she said, “Huh, I never heard it put that way before. That's interesting. OK, So would you like a sponsor or do you have a sponsor? If you don't, we have some people that I can find someone for you.”
Now. I do not do that. I do not want to be … I'm reclusive. I like my space. I don't want some stranger that I'm supposed to tell a lot of personal stuff to.
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And so I opened my mouth and said, “I don't have a sponsor. I would like that, thank you.”
Who's talking? I was in RCIA for three weeks before I admitted to—and by the way, the sponsor, my sponsor was a wonderful woman. She was very spiritual herself. She was terrific. But it was weeks before I told the same woman, the RCA director, that I'd never been to Mass or inside the sanctuary. I think in the back of my mind, I was pretty sure they were going to look at someone who lived the life that I lived, and there would be pitchforks and torches and shouting and running me out and blocking the door so I could never get back in.
And she said, “I'll meet you at 10:00 and we'll go.” And she took me to my first Mass and got me through it. And it can be a little intimidating.
At any rate, the more and longer I was there, the more I knew God stopped nagging me because I was where He wanted me to be. That parish, not some parish, that priest, not some priest, those people that sponsor. This is where He wanted me. And I can tell you that this little church was very spiritual. These were people who did not question. This wasn't the modern day Protestant, there's no real such thing as miracles, because they were used to miracles in this church.
After I entered the church at Easter, I was immediately called within maybe a week to do this contemplative prayer. I don't even remember how I found out about it. Yes I do. My sponsor gave me a book when I said I didn't understand how to pray. I have that book here … wish I remembered the name of it right this minute … oh! When the Well Runs Dry. I think his name is Green that wrote it. He wrote a whole series on prayer. They're quite good.
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But in it he mentions contemplation and some books and I knew I had to find Cloud of Unknowing. I just had to find it. And I started scouring bookstores. Finally in a little store—not anywhere near Bookstore Central, which was a whole area on East Colfax in Denver—that was on South Broadway. It was a little hole in the wall, and I went in not expecting much, but it was a bookstore I hadn’t been in yet.
On the bottom shelf by the floor in the Jewish Mysticism section, I found Cloud of Unknowing, written by, of course, a Catholic woman. They didn't know what it was. What was important was, it was the Evelyn Underhill edition. My copy, I believe she first published in about 1902, my copy was from 1940-something that opened everything for me.
I told my sponsor I was going to start doing this prayer and she said, well, you can't do that without a spiritual director. I said, well why? I believe she said you're not allowed, as in the church you're not allowed because there you open yourself to the influence of the liar and demons. And that just was ridiculous to me, I was called, I was called to do this.
God called me to the church, not some guy, not some writing, not the Bible - God. And He called me to prayer, and prayer I would do. I picked noon because all the staff met in the kitchen of the house that was attached to the offices where Father lived. There wouldn't be anyone in the church. And I began by following the instructions, some of which had to do with clearing your mind of concerns about the world and giving this time to God. This was His time. This wasn't about me. I couldn't do anything about it anyway. If I'm going to be in church, on my knees in front of the Eucharist, and I'm going to be praying because that's the safest possible place your spirit can be, nothing could possibly hurt me there.
{ 00:18:40 }
I'm not going to be able to fix anything wrong with my car, my relationships, my health, my anything. This is God's time, so I could let all of that go. This is about naked intent, yearning for God. We'll learn more about that later. I managed 7 minutes, the first time, in which I felt I had achieved the detachment from the world that was necessary. I also expected nothing. You should expect nothing. The benefits of contemplation, they say, don't come during contemplation, but afterward. And that's true. Afterward you can have a little more peace, a little more understanding, a little less judgment.
There is no conviction of the Holy Spirit that makes you feel badly about yourself, because God truly never makes you feel badly about yourself. There's only love.
The third time I came, it was a very nice day. It was early spring. All the windows were open on the side of the building where I was. I was up in the sanctuary. The parking lot was closed and it was full of children from the elementary school across the parking lot. They used the parking lot during the day, during the week to play in and kick balls in and run around screaming.
And I thought, oh man, now I'm going to have to change my time. And then there'll probably be people in the church. And then I thought, no, I don't. I'm to be detached from the world. So there are people. All I need to do is learn how to separate myself from that. And so I got over myself a little bit and was on a kneeler. That means on your knees, upright. It's a small thing, very near where the Eucharist, which is the body of Christ, is retained.
{ 00:20:40 }
I composed myself and I closed my eyes and the children went quiet.
Now I came from a background, a police background, lawyers, criminal lawyers background in my family, and I had this immediate “what would could possibly make all these children go silent?” And I thought something dangerous must have entered the school ground and I opened my eyes.
At the end of the Church of the sanctuary, the nave that where the people sit, the congregation sit, above the back door is a large clock or was a large clock for Father to keep track of the time in Mass. 30 minutes had passed.
I was not asleep. I was exactly as I was. I had closed my eyes. I had opened my eyes and 30 minutes had passed.
I got up, I looked outside and the schoolyard was completely empty, of course, because they had gone back inside. What is so significant is not that. It's that once I calmed down and got over my human reaction to, Oh my gosh, something may have happened to the children, and then my human reaction to, wow, this is weird. Where did the time go? What, what, what, what? And got back and said, OK, get back to work. Get back to your kneeler, get back to your prayer.
And before I could start, I had the feeling. And the feeling was that I had been gone and had come back. Paul describes being taken up to the 3rd heaven, whether in the body or out of the body. He did not know. I have had visions that are very visual and I do recall everything that happened. I'm supposed to and it's true. You don't know if you're … it's …, there's no awareness like, oh, I'm in church. And now I'm actually seeing this vision. You are there. I had been somewhere. And what I feel, what I felt was, that I had been part of, Oned with God, that God was not a person, that God….. was ….. God was a wave.
{ 00:22:47 }
We are the particles, particles in waves, which means we are God at some level. And God, like Thomas Merton said, was not a thing. I hadn’t read Merton. I hadn't read anything. What I knew was that I knew something. I knew something that no human being could ever talk me out of, and I also thought it was heresy and I had no one to tell, to share, not even my sponsor. Luckily I was led to others who'd had the same experience and then found out that this was common in Catholic mysticism, which is not advertised to the general public.
Why is this important for me to tell you? Because it's something about me? No, this contemplation, this being Oned with God, these experiences are for us each. What this is about, what the podcast is about is for you to know you are not alone. When I found one person online that had a similar experience, I knew I was not alone.
We are being called. A lot of us are being called. We are being called from our atheism, we are being called from our lukewarmness. We are being called from our passion. We are being called wherever we are, whatever country, from whatever faith system, because God has no religion. There's no religion. There's only the gospel that Jesus brought for the world. I would love to hear from anyone, their experience if they wanted to share either in a post or directly. My e-mail address is here. If you want to make a recording and send me an MP3 in the mail, I can put it up here.
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I might edit it a little just so it's everything sounds sort of the same. I would love to hear from you. Not so that I have your benefit, although I will have a benefit, but so everyone can have a benefit. I do not expect this podcast to have thousands of viewers because there aren't a majority of the Elect in the population.
Why are we being called now? I will end by telling you what my theory is. I have lots of theories. I'm always, always happy to share my theories. ; ) You don't have to believe them. You have your own theories and you share your theories. I do believe we've entered the Tribulation. I don't believe that Jesus is coming on a cloud next week. I think this will take hundreds of years.
But I do think we're close to Parousia. And I think right now, in order to shorten the terrible suffering that's coming and that is present all over the world right now in many ways, we must pray. We must bring Christ to the world, bring the light to the world, and we must provide the other side with the spiritual goods. They need to be powerfully present, powerfully present in this that we call reality. But reality, according to Julian of Norwich, is eternity. And in that I agree.
The wisdom of the Holy Spirit be with you all, the presence of the Savior is with you all, and the ever abiding and total love of God will never leave you. I'll talk to you soon.
