The History of Christian Theology

Lecture 34: Catholic Mystical Theology

The lower stages of the spiritual life consist of mental prayer. The soul

begins with meditation, which involves the work of the intellect and its

many thoughts. Through recollection, withdrawing its faculties within

itself, the soul comes to the prayer of quiet, the ¿ rst stage of supernatural or

infused contemplation. The soul proceeds through a sleep of the faculties to

a suspended state of the faculties as it enters the prayer of union.

Beyond these levels of prayer, Teresa describes extraordinary raptures

or ecstasies. A key feature of these experiences is that they center around

Christ in his humanity. In her most

famous experience, called the

“transverberation,” an angel pierces

her heart with a golden spear that

sets her a¿ re with love for God.

The most famous concept of John

of the Cross is the dark night of the

soul. Like Teresa, John ¿ nds God

in the inmost being of the soul. The

dark night is the soul’s loss of all that

is not God, which is necessary for it

to ¿ nd God.

The highest level of mystical

theology is the spiritual marriage,

for both Teresa and John. It is a

permanent union in love, the closest

thing to beati¿ c vision that is

possible in this life. The union is of

two who remain distinct, not an absorption like a drop into the ocean. As

with Teresa, the soul’s ultimate ¿ nding of God is a spiritual marriage, which

John depicts as a mutual self-giving.

Both in Spain and in France mystics went further than the church could

approve. Quietism, condemned in 1687, made the passivity of infused

contemplation into the whole of Christian life. Quietism contended that the

perfect spiritual life involved eliminating all activity of the soul. Once the

This statue of Saint Teresa is inside

St. Peter’s Basilica.

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