St. Teresa of Jesus, the Spanish nun who established the Carmelite order in 1526, described it as talking lovingly to God as though He were a friend and sharing a divine intimacy. The experience happens only once or twice in a lifetime, typically before a person turns 30.
Sister Diane, A Carmelite nun, from a Monastery near Montreal, had it happen twice in the same year -- 1977, when she was 29 -- and not again since. She has never talked about it before, she says; it was too private, too intimate. She was at a religious retreat, praying silently and recalls entering an altered state, with an intense sense of God's physical presence. She lost herself in it.
"I don't know what happened. I don't know how much time had passed. It is like a treasure, and intimacy. It is very, very personal. It was in the centre of my being, but even deeper. It was a feeling of fullness, fullness, fullness."
Sister Teresa, 43, also experienced her unio mystica when in her 20s. "It is more than a feeling," she says. "It is more intense than feeling, but you sense God is physically there. It brings intense happiness, even bliss."
Sister Diane compares her love for God to the way two people love each other. When they fall in love, they feel a physical rush. They blush. They feel tingly. That, she says, is the kind of love young nuns feel for God when they experience unio mystica. But over time, the love deepens and matures. It isn't as thrilling, she says. It becomes more of a day-to-day relationship.
This is an intriguing observation, because some researchers have speculated that the human capacity for mystical experiences may have co-evolved with the brain networks involved in sexual pleasure.
At 55, Sister Diane describes her relationship with God as more like a marriage, solid, secure, but without the rush. She says she knows God has been present by the peace he leaves behind, not from the excitement of a mystical union.
"That feeling of peace flowing through you -- pacification -- tells you He has been here."
~The Globe and Mail
** Is the Ecstasy of St. Teresa a unio mystica?
