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Geschiedenis van de Christelijke Mystiek rond personen
(23)
Mystiek van de Contrareformatie
Like St. Catherine of Siena, these
mystics - and to them we must add St. Teresa's greatest disciple, the poet and
contemplative St. John of the Cross (1542-1591) - seem to have arisen in direct
response to the need created by the corrupt or disordered religious life of their
time. They were the "saints of the counter-Reformation"; and, in a period
of ecclesiastical chaos, flung the weight of their genius and their sanctity into
the orthodox Catholic scale. Whilst St. Ignatius organised a body of spiritual
soldiery, who should attack heresy and defend the Church, St. Teresa, working
against heavy odds, infused new vitality into a great religious order and restored
it to its duty of direct communion with the transcendental world. In this she
was helped by St. John of the Cross; who, a psychologist and philosopher as well
as a great mystic, performed the necessary function of bringing the personal experience
of the Spanish school back again into touch with the main stream of mystic tradition.
All three, practical organisers and profound contemplatives, exhibit in its splendour
the dual character of the mystic life. They left behind them in their literary
works an abiding influence which has guided the footsteps and explained the discoveries
of succeeding generations of adventurers in the transcendental world. The true
spiritual children of these mystics are to be found, not in their own country,
where the religious life which they had lifted to transcendent levels degenerated
when their overmastering influence was withdrawn, but amongst the innumerable
contemplative souls of succeeding generations who have fallen under the spell
of the "Spiritual Exercises," the "Interior Castle," or the
"Dark Night of the Soul."
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LITURGIE
&CETERA 
