Mystics: Ten Who Show Us the Ways of God

Like many others, Fr. Bodo was initially troubled by the suffering the mystics endured. He came to realize, however, that their lives reflect an inner absorption with God that allows them to overcome suffering and illness as they practice love of God and neighbor. "Charity is what makes saints and mystics, not the inner visions, marvels or miracles," he writes. His reading of the mystics has revealed "God speaking and relating with humans in their own language throughout the ages," and he presents these 10 examples in the hope that "one or the other may strike a chord in the heart of someone trying to live the Gospel and know God." Bodo is an excellent writer and story teller, blending personal experience and spiritual insights with his knowledge and deep appreciation of his subjects. He begins the chapter on Francis of Assisi from the modern day vantage point of the Piazza del Comune where "a procession of tourists or pilgrims walks around or through the pigeons" reminding him of Saint Francis and the birds. He introduces mystic Robert Lax with a story of his own love for books and words, so affronted by what the United States was doing "not only to the people of Iraq, but to words." At that time Bodo was teaching at St. Bonaventure University, which houses the largest archives of materials by Robert Lax, whom he recalled vaguely as a friend of Thomas Merton. "I had no idea that in him I would find again the truth of words and the Word of Truth." In the remainder of the chapter Bodo shows us his path with numerous quotations from Lax's poetry and examples of his "simple and other-oriented" life.

Murray Bodo is a Franciscan priest who has become aware of God and shares with us commentaries of other mystics who have embraced God and lived a life in God's footsteps. Although Fr. Bodo does not confess to being a mystic, one can read between the lines. Fr. Bodo could not do justice to the commentaries otherwise. I have read many of the mystics that Fr. Bodo introduces in his book but I had not been introduced to Robert Lax and Gerard Manley Hopkins. I was enlightened by the poems of Robert Lax and his ordinary lifestyle. When all is said and done this to me is the fullfilment of life in the mystical, to be ordinary, to feel, to love and to be at peace with oneself and others whom we encounter in our life's journey. In his afterword Fr. Bodo explains in the last paragraph that one cannot know God that only God knows God. I have to differ with Fr. Bodo's final perception. We have been created to know God and to be known by God. Of course God already knows us but we have to come to the realization that when we know ourselves within, that God is within, we will know God, know ourselves and know one another. The Cloud of Unknowing (HarperCollins Spiritual Classics) Waiting for God (Perennial Classics) Julian of Norwich: Showings (Classics of Western Spirituality) The Story of a Soul (L'Histoire d'une Âme): The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux