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Appendix (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the religious life which they had lifted to transcendent levels degenerated when their overmastering influence was withdrawn, but amongst the innumerable contemplative souls of succeeding generations who have fallen under the spell of the "Spiritual Exercises," the "Interior Castle,"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."