Divine Visitations & Fragrances Continue: A Mystic’s Jou

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A Mystic’s Journal Entries March 10-15, 2005

Thursday, March 10
11:30 p.m.

When I came home from quintet rehearsal tonight, the entire house was filled with the light scent of roses, upstairs and down.

Friday, March 11

Went to the church tonight, for the Stations of the Cross. As I knelt & prayed the various Stations of the Cross, I was surrounded and filled with the Divine Presence, more so than usual. It was as though I were floating in a cloud.

Afterwards, when finished praying, I joined M. and Sister Edna at the front of the church. They were with a small clump of people, near Our Lady’s statue. One person standing to M’s right especially caught my attention - a tall woman with dark hair & a wonderful smile. I did not recognize her. Her Light was very clear and strong, very unusual & bright, & I found it difficult not to gaze at her. As Sister Edna greeted me, I was suddenly surrounded by strong perfume, the scent of roses. I thought to myself: “Someone here is wearing very strong perfume”, but then the perfume disappeared as quickly as it had come, so I assumed whoever was wearing the perfume had moved away. It struck me as very odd, because noone I know wears that sort of perfume, certainly not Sister Edna. I thought that perhaps it belonged to the woman I had not recognized.

However, later in the car driving home, both M. & I were suddenly aware of the strong scent of fruit, a sugary fruit. It was one of the fragrances we have experienced in meditation classes, & we both remarked on it. Then, as I answered & wrote e-mails at the computer, more fragrances arose, & I mentioned it to M. She was not aware of them & continued her various tasks. Then she appeared in the doorway & said that she might have an answer to the mysterious perfumes of that night. A friend had given her a volume of daily meditations at the church, before the Stations of the Cross began, & some of the meditations were quotes from the Desert Fathers. The woman had brought the book to the Stations of the Cross because she knew M. was devoted to the Desert Fathers. I asked if the friend was the woman I had noticed standing near Our Lady’s statue & M. said that it was the same woman.

Then M. got out the Catholic Encyclopedia & read aloud that the Desert Fathers were initially hermits in the desert. Disciples flocked to them, for their wisdom & deep prayer life, & it was in this way that the first monasteries were established. The Desert Father Anthony of Egypt (circa 356) is generally regarded as the founder of monasticism, although the earlier Desert Fathers had their own flocks and communities. Women were among their number. M. showed me the book & the fragrances continued.

Why Our Lady & the Desert Fathers have decided to make themselves known to us in this fashion is still a mystery. Even as I type these words into the computer, a few days later, I am receiving mild whiffs of a fruit I do not recognize. And a bit of incense.

I just went downstairs to reread the first poems we had read in class, that first night. In the words of the Desert Father Theodoros, the perfumes represent the inner holiness of a saintly soul. In another passage by Theodoros, he compared fragrances to the holiness of a saintly soul. There were two quotes which used the word “incense”, both written by Evagrios of Pontus. In one, incense was likened to the mystical knowledge of true prayer, in another it represented the prayers of the saints. We read all these quotes in the first class on the Desert Fathers, the night the supernatural fragrances began.

Before, during & after meditation I sometimes inwardly see the Desert Fathers, in a little movie in my mind - like a short film clip. This began before meditation on the first night, after I had chosen the writings we would later read in class. The images are indistinct, although I can see that the Desert Fathers are wearing hooded, flowing robes. They seem to be bending down over a low, rough wooden table or perhaps making a fire. Others are walking away or toward the table, & I cannot tell what exactly they are doing, but they all seem absorbed in some task. It is always the same film clip, lasting only for some seconds. I see only a four to six foot area, & I cannot extend or expand this visual perimeter - I am only allowed to see what I am given to see. This little inner movie often appears to me before the fragrances begin, although not always.

Tuesday, March 15

A friend stopped by, a very special person. When she meditates with us in class, her beautiful presence fills the room. She is very ill now, & could barely walk. I told her that I have been sending her all the healing I am allowed to send. I clairvoyantly saw that she was lost in negative thoughts, understandably - & I reminded her to be mindful of her thoughts. She looked surprised, so I reminded her that negative thoughts can make you more ill. I told her, that in my life, the Higher has often kept me ill until I learned to always come from God & the soul. To come from the soul’s energy instead of the body’s energy. To breathe from there, to think from there, to live from there. The faster I learned this, the sooner I regained my health. Remembering the Divine Presence, remembering Jesus & Mary - are only half the task. We must also all remember that we are the soul. Only then can the Divine Presence truly come through us always & radiate out into the world as Divine Love & Healing.

To remember that we are the soul is the greatest Healing that we can give ourselves. We have God within us, & so we must find Him there. St. Teresa of Avila once wrote that the Divine meets itself in us - one of the most beautiful images I have ever read. We ask for Healing from the Divine, from God - but then we must also remember that we are the Divine Light as well, it is our very essence, our true being. She began to cry & apologized for crying, it was the result of the medications she is on. I said that it was good to cry, that it could be very purifying. As long as she remembers that she is the soul while she is crying, & she should image herself as that Light as she cries. That awareness should be constant. No matter what thoughts we have, to remember that - as during meditation, when thoughts appear, but we are focused on the soul. We live in the world, thoughts & events will appear. But where is our attention - on the thoughts & events or on God & the soul? To have thoughts & emotions but not identify with them. To have a body but not identify with it.

I told her that she is going through the Dark Night of the Spirit, & if she makes it through to the other side, she will be in the Illuminative stage of the interior life. The only way to get there is to keep your mind on God & not get lost in negative thoughts & emotions. I also told her not to underestimate the difficulties. St. Teresa tells us that even very few nuns & priests make it through the first Dark Night. Unlike the second Dark Night, the first Dark Night is a leap of Faith. By the second Dark Night, we have already achieved glimpses of mystical union.

An e-mail from another friend who is still going through the Dark Night, & it has been many years of suffering. For her, it is not illness, but she has lost everything she cared about in the world. Over the last years she has lost her mother, her husband, her job. In this e-mail she wrote that she had been robbed of all her possessions. She came home from work & everything was gone. She asked for our prayers.

I wrote back & said that the first Dark Night is always a leap of Faith. But no matter what happens, we must look to God & put Him first in our lives. We must not become bitter, resentful or succumb to despair. Whether we lose our usual lives through illness or betrayal or the apparent separation of death - the Dark Night of the Spirit & the Dark Night of the Soul both insist that we look only to God & put Him first before all else. We must put Him before all material things. Before the physical, material relationships we have with other people & creatures, before our thoughts & emotions. To get through the Dark Night, we must leave all our fears & negativity behind us & look only to God. Then the Dark Night will end. I just had a whiff of perfume as I wrote those words.

In meditation class we spoke of many things - but I stressed the need to get to the higher octave of all the human emotions. The fragrances appeared while we meditated, but I was not aware of them in class. Again, I was also aware of mild perfumes as people left - as though the Desert Father ushered people in & out of class.