Mysticism

Earlier this month, Stephen Hawking, England’s leading scientist declared that the universe spontaneously created itself and that God was not necessary in creation. Of course I’m sure that he will have more “facts” to back up his claim and more “scientific data” to support his theory but that would have been the gist of it. His book will be released as the Pope makes his controversial visit to England. 

Coincidence? I’m sure the conspiracy theorists would believe otherwise and I would be inclined to believe them in this case. But the fact that disturbs me most about this whole thing is that, nobody really seems to care all that much. When did we come to this, I wonder? How is it that we now live in a society when a man makes a claim that God (even if He does exist) does not really matter and we just let it roll off our backs? Sure, Church leaders were angered and the more passionate Christians among us took notice, but everyone else just went on about his day without even caring. And we took less notice of it then, say, the hostage crisis and Ms. Philippines’ major-major faux pas.

And then I consider how a few years ago, a drawing of the prophet Mohammed came out and Muslims were up in arms all over the world. And yet, here we Christians are, shrugging our shoulders and shaking our heads…and then just walking away. Some people might say we’re just living out of creed of forgiveness. And others say we’ve grown too complacent. What I’m worried is that maybe it’s really because we’ve grown apathetic.

I can’t shake off the feeling that there are many Catholics these days who are lukewarm about their faith—who find going to Mass irrelevant, and confession burdensome, who find the teachings of the Church more like suggestions rather than words to live by, who think the saints are old-fashioned and outdated, who cringe at the mention of apparitions and miracles. There are many, I think, who’ve lost touch with their faith, who’ve lost the appreciation for the mystical part of life.

And by mystical I mean the whole caboodle—and not just a general concept of mysticism as communion with the Divine Being but everything that surrounds the contact with the Divine—apparitions and stigmatas, bilocation and prophecy, miracles and dancing suns, messages and white lights at the end of the tunnel and yes, even chastisement and the belief in the devil. We should certainly be careful about what we believe but we shouldn’t dismiss anything out of the extraordinary as merely smoke and mirrors. The problem is that these days, we shy away from these things because it’s not scientific and therefore not really accepted by “intelligent” circles. And so we close our eyes to the mystical aspect of our lives. We relegate meditation and contemplation to those who are “more spiritual” than we are. We are consumed with efforts to end global warming when perhaps we should couple our efforts with conversion and fasting. We look to men of science to show us the way to the future that we forget to look at God. We read scientific journals and leave out the Gospel.

Really, when I think about it, if God had wanted our lives devoid of mysticism, would Jesus, when he was on earth, have made all the effort to walk on water, turn water into wine, cure every sort of disease and then raise the dead for good measure? If He who is creator knew that we lived on intellectual food alone, wouldn’t He have spent more time wowing us with lectures on the scientific laws on time and space and quantum physics? But He didn’t. Because He knew (as only He can fully know), that human beings were created (along with other attributes) to be awed by the miraculous, to be drawn to the mysterious and to be captivated by the supernatural.