Table Of ContentMystics
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Mystics
william harmless, s.j.
1
2008
1
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LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData
Harmless,William,1953–
Mystics/WilliamHarmless.
p.cm.
Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
ISBN978-0-19-530038-3
ISBN978-0-19-530039-0(pbk.) 1. Mysticism. 2. Mystics. I. Title.
BV5082.3.H372007
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For my sister Jane
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Acknowledgments
I wish to acknowledge the following publishers for their kind
permission to use copyrighted material.
OneWorld Press for excerptsfrom:
Rumi: Past and Present,East and West:TheLife, Teachings and Poetry
ofJala¯l al-Din Rumi by FranklinLewis.#2000,OneWorld Press.
Oxford University Press for excerptsfrom:
Evagriusof Pontus: The GreekAsceticCorpus by Robert E. Sinkewicz
(trans.) (2005). By permission ofOxford University Press.
The Lettersof HildegardofBingen (2005) by JosephL. Baird and
Radd K.Ehrman (trans.). Bypermission ofOxford University
Press, Inc.
Rumi: TheMasnavi:Book One(2004) by Jawid Majaddedi (trans.).
By permission ofOxford University Press.
Paulist Press for excerpts from:
Bernard ofClairvaux: Selected Writings, Classicsof Western
Spirituality, by G.R. Evans (trans.), copyright# 1987,Paulist
Press, Inc.,New York/Mahwah, N.J. Used with permission of
Paulist Press. www.paulistpress.com
Bonaventure: The Soul’s JourneyintoGod, The Treeof Life, TheLife of
St. Francis, Classicsof Western Spirituality, by Ewert Cousins
viii acknowledgments
(trans.) # 1978, Paulist Press, Inc., New York/Mahwah, N.J. Used with
permission of PaulistPress. www.paulistpress.com
Meister Eckhart: The Essential Sermons, Commentaries, Treatises, and Defense,
ClassicsofWesternSpirituality,byEdmundColledgeandBernardMcGinn
(trans.) # 1981, Paulist Press, Inc., New York/Mahwah, N.J. Used with
permission of PaulistPress. www.paulistpress.com
RandomHouse forexcerpts from:
ConjecturesofaGuiltyBystanderbyThomasMerton,copyright#1966byThe
Abbey of Gethsemani. Used by permission of Doubleday, a division of
RandomHouse, Inc.
StateUniversityofNewYorkPressforexcerptsreprintedbypermissionfrom:
The Heart of D¯ogen’s Sh¯ob¯ogenzo¯, translated by Norman Waddell and Masao
Abe, the State University of New York Press # 2002, State University of
New York.All rights reserved.
University of ChicagoPressforexcerpts from:
MysticalPoemsofRu¯m¯ı,FirstSelection,Poems1–200,translatedbyA.J.Arberry.
# 1968, University of ChicagoPress.
Preface
Weteachersareprivilegedwitnesses.Everynowandthen,intheswirl
of this enterprise called education, we stumbleupon these fragile,
fleetingmoments when the world suddenly stops in itstracks.It
can happen duringa lecture, aswe struggle to pass on old things to
new hearers. More often it happenswhen a student of ours speaks,
eloquently onoccasion, but more often haltingly, strugglingto give
voice to the newly glimpsed. Suddenlythere isthis silent, shared
lightningflashofinsight.Suddenlywesee,andourstudentssee—see
thingswethoughtweknewbutseethemnowasifforthefirsttime.
If we could bottle suchmoments, if we could packagethem,we
would. Butthere isno way to bottle or package epiphanies. In such
moments, the classroom becomessacred ground.
A momentlikethis happened severalyearsago when Iwas
teaching anew undergraduatecourse onmysticism. Wehad been
goingalongforafewweeks,readingamysticaday.Webeganwitha
modern, ThomasMerton. From there we moved backwardin time,
back to two classic (and in manyways,opposite) figures: Teresa of
A´vilaand John of the Cross.We then began rummaging around the
Middle Ages,withBernard ofClairvaux and Aelred of Rievaulx,
Francisof Assisi and Bonaventure. It was at this juncture in the se-
mester when one ofmy students raised her hand. Class had just
begun, andthe other students were still settling into their seats.
I called on her. She said, ‘‘I don’t want to sound arrogant orany-
thing. But you know—when I read these people, I think that I’ve
Description:Mystics are path-breaking religious practitioners who claim to have experience the infinite, word-defying Mystery that is God. Many have been gifted writers with an uncanny ability to communicate the great realities of life with both a theologian's precision and a poet's lyricism. They use words to
