Our Beginnings

Our fourth and final woman mystic, Mechthild of Magdeburg, had a special passion for the poor, and worked among them with a community she founded for many years. She was not well treated by local church authorities, who were suspicious of her activities as a woman leader, and her mystical views as well.

I chose this reading it expresses the experience of God's Love so eloquently, an experience which is shared, though expressed differently, by so many mystics of the world's religions.

You speak to me of my beginnings?

I will tell you.

I was created in Love.

For that reason, nothing can express my beauty, nor liberate my nobleness,

except Love alone.

From the very beginning, God loved us.

The Holy Trinity gave itself in the creation of all things,

and made us, body and soul, in infinite Love.

We were fashioned most nobly.

God takes such delight in the human person

that Divinity sings this song to our soul:

"O love rose on the thorn!

O hovering bee in the honey!

O pure dove in your being!

O glorious sun in your setting!

O full moon in your course!

From you, I, your God, will never turn away."

The Holy Spirit flows through us with the marvelous Creative Power of everlasting joy!

As love grows and expands in the soul, it rises eagerly to God

and overflows towards the Glory which bends towards it.

Then love melts through the soul into the senses,

so that the body too might share in it,

for Love is drawn into all things.

Again, I offer a prayer by Mechthild in place of my words.

"I cannot dance, O God, unless You lead me.

If You will that I leap joyfully,

then You must be the first to dance and to sing.

Then, and only then, will I leap for love.

Then will I soar from love to knowledge,

from knowledge to fruition,

from fruition to beyond all human sense.

And there I will remain and circe forevermore."