Notes and
Reflections for a talk on Franciscan Mysticism by Maury Smith, ofm
Angela of
Foligno, Franciscan Mystic
4a
Notes from: A FRANCISCAN MYSTIC OF THE THIRTEENTH CENTURY: THE BLESSED
ANGELA OF
FOLIGNO. By
I think this is an extraordinary article to have a mystic
reviewing a mystic. Kerry Walters writes: “
She is a respected expert in Western Mysticism. The spelling and
grammar are those of the early 1900nds.I found it best to place the footnotes
within the text in this format. Formatting underlining and large type for
emphasis is mine.
Once again I choose a mystic to guide us as I choose Longpre to
guide us in reflecting on Francis.
I have chosen a talk she gave to the British Society of Franciscan
Studies in November of 1911 because she compares Angela to other mystics
and also notes her Franciscan roots and how she is unique. I think this
talk fits the purpose of this three year program in Christian Mysticism.
[cf. Handouts Section
of this web page.]
I will also use commentary from Bernard McGinn’s Flowering of
Mysticism and Paul LaChance.
There is one issue that needs to be addressed immediately and that
is a famous or perhaps infamous statement that Angela makes in her Memorial.
It is as Underhill introduces the topic:
“At the ninth step, the instinct for renunciation shows itself;
still, however, quaintly mixed with the vanity, self-importance and narrow egotism of the old Angela.
This is the one passage in all her writings which every one knows, and by which she is generally — and most unfairly — judged. “
Angela: “I then decided to put aside my best garments, fine food, and fancy headdress. But this was still a very shameful and burdensome thing for me to do, for at this point I was not feeling any love. During this period I was still living with my husband, and it was bitter for me to put up with the slanders an injustices leveled against me. Nonetheless, I bore these as patiently as I could. Moreover, it came to pass, God so willing, that at that time my mother, who had been a great obstacle to me, died. In like manner my husband died, as did all my sons in a short space of time. Because I had already entered the aforesaid way, and had prayed to God for their death, I felt a great consolation when it happened.“ (Lachance translation, p. 126)
Underhill explains this awfully cold statement by noting four
things about it:
This unfortunate paragraph outweighs for many minds the whole of Angela's subsequent life and achievements. I do not deny that, taken alone, it is a monument of spiritual egotism.
1. But we must remember that it represents, not Angela the peaceful mystic, but Angela the worried and storm-tossed penitent; living in a thoroughly discordant, thoroughly unspiritual environment, maddened by the difficulties of her position, knowing that the ascetic life was her only hope; but hemmed in on all sides by conventional existence and unsympathetic surroundings.
2. She “had already long out-lived the natural human sorrow
which, as she says here and in another place, she felt at these accumulated bereavements. Now, looking back, and seeing her past existence spread out before her, she recognizes even this awful and drastic series of deprivations as a necessary factor in the life to which she was called.
After all, we may as well be fair, and acknowledge that
3. family affection is not the strongest point in the character of the mystical saints.
In the interest of their vocation, they are always ready to leave father, mother, brothers and sisters; and more over there is evangelical authority for this attitude. (Luke xiv. 27.) They are specialists, and are therefore bound, in the interests of the race, to give up many things which other men must develop and preserve.
Artists are under much the same necessity. The vitality which we diffuse amongst many interests and loves, these must concentrate on the one object of their quest.
Hence St. Francis himself flung his family aside without scruple
when it came to the parting of the ways.
Angela was only following in his footsteps; though she doubtless expressed herself with unnecessary and ill-regulated vigour.
4. Underhill observes It was after her release from the duties
of family life, and her more complete concentration on the ascetic life,
that her visionary powers began to develop.
Lachance also offered some reasons more in terms of the context of
the culture and that other saints who experienced a conversion after the death
of their husband.
Namely
McGinn says that Angela’s book is
“one of the treasures of medieval mysticism.” …
“Angela of Foligno, whose Book rightly stands as
the premier text of all Franciscan women mystics,
a judgment confirmed not only by recent scholarship,
but also by the role that the work played in later mystical tradition.” “…
the controversial Angela was widely read,
especially in sixteenth-century
as well as in the modern era. 159”
Angela stands out because of her Franciscan identity and
also because she did not use the language of courtly love like other mystics did.
“The description of the supplementary stages constitutes one of the richest accounts of mystical union present in autohagiographical form in Christian history.”
It is an “original teaching about the divine-human encounter based on the Franciscan penitent’s inner life.”173
Typical among the Franciscan mystics:
Francis continue to play a major role
Concentration on the passion as the central mystery providing access to God
and typical of most Franciscans and thirteenth-century mystical women is the importance of the Eucharist as a path to God
and devotion to the Blessed Virgin.
“At least three important themes, however serve to set Angela off from the other Franciscan ecstatics:
her understanding of the role of the Trinity
her appeal to negative theology
her description of the soul and God as mutual abysses. (McGinn Flowering p. 141-146.)
Part I First a few notes on her outward life.
Angela was born of a prosperous Umbrian family in 1248 —
twenty-two years after the death of St. Francis,
She married whilst still very young, and had children; but lived not only a worldly but also an immoral life.
She makes it quite clear to us that she was a vain, self-important, and hypocritical little egotist. and an offensive sanctimoniousness about her too.
Angela's conversion probably occurred about her thirtieth year—
a very common period for the mystical disposition to show itself—
and that it originated in disillusion, that unfailing spur of the born romantic.
It took place under Franciscan influence; which was of course
paramount in that part of
The earliest of her visionary experiences was a dream in which St. Francis appeared to her; and her confessor was a Friar Minor.
After conversion she took the habit of a Tertiary, and
remained faithful to the Order till her death.
About 1284, when she was thirty-six years old, she was already known and deeply respected as a spiritual teacher by Ubertino da Casale—then a young man of twenty-five.
She was then living a strict religious life in great poverty, and
seems to have been the centre of a group of Franciscan tertiaries of both sexes for whom she was at once friend and prophetess,
like St. Catherine of
Apparently soon after 1290 she formed a sisterhood at Foligno.
Her sisters took the Rule of The Third Order and also the three vows of religion, but they were not cloistered.
They devoted themselves to the care of the sick and other works of charity. With them Angela spent her last years.
She died 1309 at sixty-one, surrounded by her spiritual children, and was buried in the Church of the Franciscans at Foligno, where her body still lies.
“…this woman [Angela] has probably exerted a more enduring, more far-reaching influence than any other Franciscan of the century which followed the Founder's death.”
Of her book:
“the translation being one of the first Italian books of devotion to appear in the vulgar tongue. “
A psychospiritual note:
Because of editing and redactions of the book by Fra. Arnaldo and perhaps a second hand, the book is of little value to a psychospiritual close study of the dynamics of the growth of a mystic. On the other hand even though it would teach us a great deal about Angela’s relationship to God that does not mean what we would learn from her would necessarily apply to others. In philosophical logic there is a principle that states it is false to jump from the particular to the universal. My conviction is that although there are certain generic elements we all share in our relationship with God; at the same time we all have a unique relationship with God. Each person must be true to their special relationship with God. And perhaps that is especially true of the mystics who search out their unique relationship with God with a devotion and passion unequal to most. Francis said as he was dieing: “I have done with is mine may Christ teach you yours.” (FAED II 2C 214 p. 386; LM 14, p. 642 See The Formation of Angela’s Book in Angela of Foligno. Angela of Foligno Complete Works: Classics of Western Spirituality Translated with an Introduction by Paul Lachance. (NY: Paulist Press, 1993), 47-54.
the vocation of Angela of Foligno was more thoroughly Franciscan
more broadly human, more complete.
She was a great contemplative, but she was also
an exceedingly successful teacher of the secrets of spiritual life:
one of the great line of artist-mediators between the Infinite and the human mind.
This passionate, faulty, very human woman, who came to the
has earned the great title of "Mistress of Theologians”.
Part II Now for the inner life:
Angela was of the stuff of which great mystics are made—
First she possessed a strongly romantic temperament;
she had also a latent simplicity and ardour,
a mingling of the child-like and the heroic—
an extreme sensibility to impressions,
great power of endurance, a strong will—
all the potentialities of a great sinner or a great saint.
she possessed that peculiar, unstable psychic make up
which the mystic shares with other types of genius; and
which is seen in its highest development in the two greatest of
Italian saints, Francis of
Underhill views the eighteen steps of Angela through the lens of
Pseudo Dionysian spiritual theology of ‘Purgation, of Illumination, and
the Way of Union. “
Bonaventure uses the same to synthesis in his theology of
spiritual growth through praying in his De Triplici Via
See The
Threefold Way in Bonaventure. Writings on the Spiritual Life.
Works of Bonaventure, Volume X. Introduction and
Notes by F. Edward Coughlin.
Since next month’s talk in our three year program on Christian
Mysticism is on Pseudo-Dionysius I will leave a fuller explanation to next
months speaker.
This is a three course
that meets monthly for three hours.
Those "eighteen steps" extended over many years.
When they began,
Angela was living luxuriously,
as a married woman, with children
in her husband's house.
Lachance notes that for five and half years, from the time of her conversion until the great vision that took place in Assisi in 1291, she struggled “making only small steps at a time, ”to liberate herself from the sinful past and to grow more sensitive to the demands of her new calling.
For about four years (c. 1201-1296) Angela talked to Friar Arnaldo about her inner mystical life and he would as best as he could record what she told him. She first told him of nineteen steps and then an additional eleven steps but Arnaldo was unable to complete all eleven and so condensed them to seven supplementary steps.
Underhill points out that Angela’s “long inward battle culminated about 1294 in a state of acute misery and torment,
answering to that terrible period of final purification
which other mystics have called the Dark Night of the Soul.
[Ibid. (
When they ended,
she was a poor widow
vowed to the religious life,
stripped of every superfluity,
everything that could entangle her in the web of appearance,
apt in contemplation,
companioned by visions,
esteemed as a teacher and an ecstatic, and
the centre of a group of disciples.
Her inner life, during these years of ascent, of hard and difficult growth, seems to have been a life of bitter and almost continuous struggle. perpetually flung to and fro between those old tendencies and those new ideals
From the turmoil which surrounded the hard re-making of Angela's character, there emerged
two great principles round which her subsequent life and
teaching were to be grouped
The first was poverty,
the second self-knowledge.
Mystics know that possessions dissipate the energy
which they need for other and more real things—
that they must give up ownership, the verb "to have,"
if they are to attain the freedom which they seek, and
all the fullness of the verb "to be".
Self-knowledge, which Richard of St. Victor, and afterwards
St. Catherine of
Self-knowledge is the first chapter of Bonaventure’s On The
Perfection of Life written as a brief summary of the spiritual life for sisters
and it is also at the beginning of his Soliloquium.
(On the
Perfection of Life Addressed to the Sisters pp.135-196) and the Soliloquium
(215-344) in Bonaventure. Writings on the Spiritual Life. Works of
Bonaventure, Volume X. Introduction and Notes by F. Edward Coughlin.
There are signs in her book that she ran through the whole gamut of mystical experience.
She practiced, and described, all those degrees of contemplative prayer
which are analyzed by St. Teresa and
She heard interior voices.
She saw visions.
She was an ecstatic.
Her ecstasies were of that rare and supernal kind
which, far from being signs of mental or nervous disease,
actually renew and invigorate the physical life of those who experience them.
Her visions were of two kinds.
First we have a long series of "imaginary visions": pictures,
no doubt representing deep and imageless intuitions,
resulting as it were from some communion with reality,
but taking their form—as distinct from their content—
from the memory and imagination of the visionary.
These are not mere day dreams, but definite experiences—seen, as she says, with the eyes of the mind far more clearly than anything can be seen with the eyes of the body.
Many deal with the Passion;
others are inspired by her devotion to the Eucharist.
One or two seem, like the visions of St. Gertrude, to anticipate the later cult of the Sacred Heart.
In virtue of these visions she belongs to the great family of women Catholic mystics; women possessing a rich emotional life, and, largely by means of that emotional life, obtaining and expressing their communion with the spiritual world.
SECOND. But there is another, and rarer, form of spiritual perception— that imageless intuition of pure truth,
which St. Teresa and other mystics call intellectual, but which would be better named metaphysical vision.
Angela's real importance amongst mystics came from the fact that she possessed this power in a high degree of development.
In virtue of her immediate apprehensions of transcendent reality, she belongs to the rarest and highest type of mystic seer—
a class in which Plotinus holds perhaps the first place,
and of which Ruysbroeck is the most conspicuous mediaeval example.
There are indications in the poetry of Jacopone da Todi that he too knew,
either directly or
by the report of other adventurers, something of those strange astounding regions, " beyond the polar circle of the mind," where Angela tasted of unconditioned reality.
There are eight of these great visionary experiences recorded in Angela's book.
In them she says that she apprehended God successively under the attributes of Goodness, Beauty, Power, Wisdom, Love, justice; and that after this she beheld the totality of the Godhead "darkly"—a way of describing her perceptions which is of course traceable to the "Divine Darkness" of Dionysius the Areopagite.
I give one more—particularly interesting to English students because of its parallels with our own great mystical work, The Cloud of Unknowing:--
I have called her a Franciscan mystic.
If by Franciscan mysticism we mean that
exquisite sense of the divine immanence in nature,
that poetic temperament,
that peculiar and elusive charm,
which we associate with St. Francis himself—
then, perhaps, there is little that is characteristically Franciscan in Angela.
But if by Franciscanism we mean rather— as I think we should—
the recapturing and making available for life of the primitive Christian secret of spiritual freedom;
that romance of heroic and eager suffering co-exiting with the exultant joy;
then I think that we may see in her one of the link: by which that secret has been transmitted to the modern world.
cf. Handouts pages 7-8 in the Handout Section of this web page.
Blessed Angela compared to other Mystics by Underhill
This is a list of similarities to other mystics from Underhill’s talk on Angela.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
A Presentation: Introductions and comments
on the Seven Supplementary Steps of Angela. 4 Ángela Memorial 7 sup mjs.doc
In the first
eighteen steps there are four spiritual events constantly repeated by Angela:
doubts, presence and absence sweetness/peace and inexpressibility.
An Outline of
Lachance’s book on Angela:
Paul Lachance has arranged this
translation of the critical works of Angela into the Memorial which
Angela dictated to a Friar Scribe and the Instructions which she gave to a
group of people who had gathered around Angela. Lachance also provides an
introduction to his translation.
Chapter I is the first 21 steps
of Bl. Angela in the way of penance and spiritual perfection.
In earlier studies before the
critical edition like
Chapter II is an explanation of
the Br. Scribe concerning the visions, the rationale and the truth of the
Memorial.
Chapter III. First
Supplementary Step p. 138
IV Second
“
“ p. 147
V
Third
“
“ p. 158
VI
Fourth
“
“ p. 168
VII
Fifth
“
“ p. 179
VIII
Sixth
“
“ p. 196
IX Seventh
“
“ p. 202—218
Part Two is Thirty-Six
Instructions Angela gave to her followers.
In the
following notes I am using both Lachance and McGinn, and their commentary on
the seven supplementary steps of Angela. My goal here is for the participants
to have a taste, an experience of hearing from Angela herself. I want to stress
the importance of reading the Memorial itself and not being satisfied
with a summery, with an abstraction. It is an experience to read the
actual revelations of a mystic. It is an extraordinary experience which
can not be replaced by any other means. One must experience her thoughts and
her spiritual experiences to begin to appreciate the revelations of a mystic.
Hopefully by
now everyone has come to an appreciation of tasting the test itself and that is
the purpose of this next exercise.
The format of
this presentation is that I give a very brief introduction and then I have
seven different readers read the selection. Sometimes I give a comment noting
other important aspects of that particular supplementary step.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Chapter III. First Supplementary Step (Lachance p. 138)
The Revelation of Divine Intimacy, Locutions, and Teachings.
Introduction One:
This stage contains two further notices typical of Angela's mystical itinerary, though it is not clear that these events all happened at this time. The first is a vision of Christ on the cross in which he shows her his throat, which is described as of such beauty that she knows it must be divine (a rare reference to the Song of Songs, in this case 5:16). (McGinn Flowering p. 146)
Chapter III is a continuation of the twentieth step. Angela says that she immediately felt the cross and the love in the depths of her soul and even the bodily repercussions of the presence of the Cross; and feeling all this, her soul melted in the love of God
READER ONE (time 1 min 4 sec)
The Holy Spirit speaks to Angela: “I did not want you any other messenger than myself. I am the Holy Spirit who comes to you to give you a consolation which you have never tasted before. … You will not be able to do otherwise then listen because I have bound you fast. … My daughter, my dear and sweet daughter, my delight, my temple, my beloved daughter, love me, because you are very much loved by me; …” Very often he said: ”daughter and my sweet spouse … I love you so much more than any other women in the valley of Spoleto. I have found a place to rest in you, now you in turn place yourself and find your own rest in me. … I will do for you what I did for my servant Francis, and more if you love me.. …I am the Holy Spirit who enters into your deepest self. … I will hold you closely to me and much more closely than can be observed with the eyes of the body. …You whole life, your eating, drinking, sleeping, and all that you do are pleasing to me.”
Comment on One:
According to Lachance this is when Angela became fully conscious that the Holy Trinity had established a dwelling place in her. And now came the betrothal, the pledge of final union. In addition over the next five supplementary steps Angela’s perception of Christ’s passion and the mystery of the Cross were heightened. She became more identified with and fused with Christ crucified. (Lachance pp 61 & 142)
Christ spoke to Angela: “My temple, my delight, … You are holding the ring of my love. From now on your are engaged to me and you will never leave me. May the blessing of the Father, the Son and Holy Spirit be upon you and your companion.”
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Introduction Two:
CHAPTER IV SECOND SUPPLEMENTARY OR TWENTY-FIRST STEP [Lachance pp. 147-
In this twenty-first step, Angela is told by God: “You are full of God.” … Angela continues: “The voice then told me, and I felt it, that God was embracing my soul.” But then this was followed by doubts and remembrance of sins in the past and a feeling of have never pleased God.
Then she experienced other joys and was again amazed that she still doubted.
She was told that God “stands continually over you even if you do not always feel his presence in the same way ... “ She is anointed and she comes to understand that way to “salvation consists in loving [Christ] and to want to suffer torments for the sake of his love.”
READER TWO: (time 1 min 8 sec)
Angela: This will make you understand that he was the All Good. … I concluded that what I was seeing was the supreme Good as I became aware that all that was good in the saints and in the angels was from him and in him, and because I did not and could not care to look at either the saints or the angels, for I delighted only in him. Furthermore, he also told me: "I hide some of the great love I have for you." And my soul understood that he was showing me very little of this love he had for me, virtually nothing in comparison to what his love really was. Then my soul addressed him and said: "Why do you have such love for me who am such a sinner, and why do you take such delight in me when I am so ugly and despicable, and throughout my life I have offended you?" I became aware, then, that 1 had never done anything good that was not also filled with many defects. To this he replied: "Such is the love that I have deposited in you that I am totally unable to remember your faults; my eyes do not see them. In you I have deposited a great treasure." [Lachance p. 152]
Comment two:
Angela is told by God: “But if here on earth you were granted everything you desired, you would no longer hunger for me; for precisely this reason, I do not want to grant your wish; for in, this life, I wan| you to hunger for me, desire me, and languish for me,” [Lachance p. 153]
…
God told her::. And whoever wishes to stay in a state of grace should never turn the eyes of their souls away from the cross, whether it be joy or sadness which I bestow upon them or allow to happen to them." (Lachance p. 156:)
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Introduction three:
The third step (#22; ed., 230-54), basically a meditation on the status of "legitimate sons" (i.e., those willing to share in Christ's sufferings), contains one of her disconcerting but typical expressions of identification with the abject Christ.180 Angela and her servant go to the hospital on Maundy Thursday to wait on the poor, especially the lepers, where, as a gesture of extreme asceticism, they both drink from the water in which they had washed the decomposing limbs of a leper. "We tasted such sweetness," she says, "that the whole way home we went in a sweetness as great as if we had received Communion."181 (McGinn Flowering p. 146)
CHAPTER V THIRD SUPPLEMENTARY STEP (Lachance page 158 f67)
Reader Three: (time 1 min 9 sec)
Angela asked: "Tell me, Lord, when do you send out this invitation to everyone?" And he answered: "I have called and invited everyone to eternal life. Those who wish to come, let them come, for no one can give the excuse of not being called. And if you want to understand how much I loved and wanted them at my table, simply look at the cross. Afterward he added: "Behold, those called are coming, and being placed at the table." And he also made it understood that he himself was the table and the food which he was offering. …
I then asked: "By which way did those who were called come?" To this he replied: "By way of tribulation, such as happens to the virgins, the chaste, the poor, the long-suffering, and the sick." [p. 159]] …
And to those who are, strictly speaking, his sons, God permits great tribulations which he grants to them as a special grace so that they might eat with him from the same plate. "For to this table, I was also called," said Christ, "and the chalice that I drank tasted bitter; but because I was motivated by love it was sweet to me."
(Lachance p. 161)
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Introduction four:
The fourth supplementary step, … is described in chapter 6 and
contains three unusual visions.
The first takes place during Mass when God reveals his power to her in such a way that she cries out, "The world is pregnant with God!" (ed., 262.65).
The second is a total immersion in Christ, "more than I had ever had or experienced that I could recall," which significantly takes place when she receives the Eucharist.
In the third vision, which happened as she was gazing at a crucifix, she felt Christ within her embracing her with the arm with which he was crucified. This gave her a certainty about the truth of her manifestations and an abiding joy in Christ's passion-"All my joy is now in this suffering God-man."182 (McGinn Flowering pp. 146-147)
In spite of these revelations from God Angela continued to doubt. (Lachance p. 171:)
Reader Four: (time 1 min 15 sec)
Angela: Once I was at Vespers and was gazing at the cross. And while I was thus gazing at the cross with the eyes of the body, suddenly my soul was set ablaze with love; and every member of my body felt it with the greatest joy. I saw and felt that Christ was within me, embracing my soul with the very arm with which he was crucified. This took place right at the moment when I was gazing at the cross or shortly afterward. The joy that I experienced to be with him in this way and the sense of security that he gave me were far greater than I had ever been accustomed to.
… I was so completely certain that God was at work in me that even if everyone in the world were to say that I ought to doubt this, I would not believe them. This is why I am amazed now when I recall how I sought reassurance in the past and relief from. my doubts, for now there can be no doubt whatever within me concerning certainty that it was God at work. My delight at the present is to see that hand which he shows me with the marks of the nails on it, and to hear him say: "Behold what I have suffered for you and for others." The joy which seizes my soul in this moment can in no way be spoken of. (Lachance p. 175-6)
Comment four:
Angela begins to talk of darkness and illumination and the indescribable power of God. The reference below to darkness is possibly to Pseudo-Dionysian apophatic terminology so widespread among medieval and later mystics; next months lecture will be on Pseudo-Dionysian. (Lachance page 177:)
… I would keep right on working and do what I could to pray and honor him. And as a result, my soul was in a state of peace, quiet, and stability, the like of which I cannot recall ever having experienced so fully and so continuously.
… The effect in me was that my vices were put to death and my virtues strengthened; … (Lachance p. 178)
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
CHAPTER VII FIFTH SUPPLEMENTARY STEP
Introduction five:
The passion motif continues in the fifth supplementary step Here Angela is given ever deeper realizations of the sufferings of Christ, in his soul as well as in his body, to the point she found herself in ecstasy (in excessu mentis) with Christ in the tomb. …
This step closes with an analysis of seven modes of increasing intensity by which God enters into the soul, the highest of which is the reception of Christ as pilgrim (ed., 312-24). These modes may be considered a form of summary of the whole thirty stages. (McGinn Flowering p. 147)
READER FIVE: (time 1 min 9 sec)
On Holy Saturday,84 after what has just been related, Christ's faithful one told me the wonderful and joy-filled experiences of God which were now hers. Among other things, she related to me, brother scribe, that on that very day, in a state of ecstasy, she found herself in the sepulcher with Christ. She said she had first of all kissed Christ's breast —and saw that he lay dead, with his eyes closed—then she kissed his mouth, from which, she added, a delightful fragrance emanated, one impossible to describe. This moment lasted only a short while. Afterward, she placed her cheek on Christ's own and he, in turn, placed his hand on her other cheek, pressing her closely to him. At that moment, Christ's faithful one heard him telling her.- "Before I was laid in the sepulcher, I held you this tightly to me.” Even though she understood that it was Christ telling her this, nonetheless she saw him lying there with eyes closed, lips motionless, exactly as he was when he lay dead in the sepulcher. Her joy was immense and indescribable.85 [Lachance p. 182]
Comment Five:
Angela gives us the seven ways in which God comes into the soul to reveal his presence
1. God comes as an unexpected gift, but the soul is unaware it is God himself.
2. The soul mysteriously hears divine words which makes the soul secure it is God present.
3. When the soul receives the grace to want God perfectly and God becomes the soul’s companion.
4. When the eyes of the soul sees a fullness of God of which cannot be spoken.
5. When the soul is renewed by divine unctions and understands it is God within it.
see pages 189-200.
6. God’s love embraces the soul so tenderly that it produces bodily effects.
7. When the soul grants hospitality to Him as Pilgrim and this is the greatest and most indescribable experience of the goodness of God.
Finally she talks about deceptions in love are eradicated by the power of the virtue of poverty. some people are [Lachance pages 187-193]
[ftnt 116 Angela speaks of her feeling of
damnation. Other mystics have had similar experiences: Francis of Sales, Philip
Benizi, Hildegard, Margaret Mary Alacoque, Suso are examples.] Lachance
thinks that Teresa of
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
The sixth and seventh supplementary stages are the most complex.
First of all, Angela insists that they take place at least in part simultaneously, a fact not easy to understand because these stages represent such differing forms of consciousness.
A second difficulty is that the seventh stage marks the transformation to a realm that cannot be conceived of or expressed in words and therefore can only be suggested by a variety of strategies of an original form of apophatic mysticism that transgresses the ordinary bounds of language.184 (McGinn Flowering p. 147)
Introduction Six:
The title for Chapter VIII tells it all:
Chapter VIII the Sixth Step contains the many and unbearable suffering, a veritable passion and martyrdom. – which Angela endured which were caused as much by bodily ailments as by countless torments of Body and soul horribly stirred up in her by man demons
.
From one viewpoint in spite of or from another viewpoint perhaps because of the five previous supplemental steps there was a complete breakdown in the next two steps. In other words perhaps the five previous steps which seem to have tenderness and love prepared Angela for a deeper “dark night of the soul.” It is here that Angela talks of ‘the most horrible darkness.” A darkness of being in an abyss of utter loneliness and despair. For Lachance explanation of this darkness see pp. 67-69 and correspond footnotes pp 347-348.
a. First, the effects of humility
READER SIX: (time 1 min 55 sec)
Angela: A certain kind of humility was in continual conflict in my soul with a certain kind of especially vexing pride. It is humility because I perceive myself as fallen from every good and devoid of every virtue and grace. In this state, I perceive myself as so full of sins and defects that it is impossible for me to imagine that God could henceforth ever wish to have mercy on me. I perceive myself as the house of the devil, a worker for and a dupe of demons, their daughter even. I perceive myself devoid of rectitude and virtue, indeed, worthy only of the lowest part in hell. This, I want to specify, is not the same humility that is sometimes mine, which brings contentment to my soul and makes me come to the awareness of the goodness of God. Rather, this humility is accompanied with countless ill effects. It gives me the impression that my soul is surrounded by demons and makes me aware of the defects of my body and soul. I am completely closed off from God in such a way that I cannot recall God's presence, have any remembrance of him, or even be aware that he is the one who allows this to happen. I see myself as damned, but I am in no way preoccupied with this damnation; rather, what concerns me and grieves me most is having offended my Creator, for I do not want to offend him or to have offended him for all the good or evil that can be named.116 Perceiving my innumerable offenses, I fight with all my strength against the demons so that I may conquer and prevail over the aforesaid vices and sins. But there is no way I can do so. I cannot find any ford to cross to safety, not even a small window through which I could escape; I find no remedy which could be of any help to me. It weighs heavily on me to have fallen so low. (Lachance pp. 200-201)
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
CHAPTER IX SEVENTH SUPPLEMENTARY STEP\\
Introduction seven:
Although there are many extraordinary experiences throughout Angela’s Memorial, this seventh supplementary step teaches us a lot about what union with God is all about.
The seventh step is full of the kind of language that is typical of the mystics, for example: “the soul sees nothing and everything.” (Lachance p. 204)
RE apatheia
It is likely that this theme infiltrated the Franciscan Spirituals and the Free
Spirit movement, at least in part, through the
influence of Angelo Clareno and his Latin translation of John Climacus's The
Ladder of Divine Ascent, as well as passages from Macarius and other Greek
Fathers. For the influence of the Greek Fathers on the Spirituals and the Free
Spirit movement, see Guarnieri, //movimento
ftnt 129 This is probably the moment of mystical marriage for Angela.
129. cf. pp. 383-384 Probably, the moment of mystical marriage. Poulain explains that spiritual marriage or transforming union contains three principal elements: "1. a union that is almost permanent persisting even amidst exterior occupations, and this is in such a manner that the different operations do not interfere with one another; 2. transformation of the higher faculties as to their manner of operation; 3. generally, a permanent intellectual vision of the Blessed Trinity or of some divine attribute" (The Graces of Interior Prayer, 283); see also, Pierre Adnes, "Marriage spiritual," DS, vol. 10 (1980), cols. 389-408.
READER SEVEN: (time 3 min)
When I am in that darkness I do not remember anything about anything human, or the God-man, or anything which has a form. Nevertheless, I see all and I see nothing. As what I have spoken of withdraws and stays with me, I see the God-man. He draws my soul with great gentleness and he sometimes says to me: "You are I and I am you."129 I see, then, those eyes and that face so gracious and attractive as he leans to embrace me. In short, what proceeds from those eyes and that face is what I said that I saw in that previous darkness which comes from within, and which delights me so that I can say nothing about it.130
When I am in the God-man my soul is alive. And I am in the God-man much more than in the other vision of seeing God with darkness. The soul is alive in that vision concerning the God-man. The vision with darkness, however, draws me so much more that there is no comparison. On the other hand, I am in the God-man almost continually. It began in this continual fashion on a certain occasion when I was given the assurance that there was no intermediary131 between God and myself. Since that time there has not been a day or a night in which I did not continually experience this joy of the humanity of Christ.
At this moment, my desire is to sing and praise
I praise you God my beloved;
I have made your cross my bed.
For a pillow or cushion,
I have found poverty,
and for other parts of the bed,
suffering and contempt to rest on.132
ftnt 132. cf. pp. 383-384This song is a laud, a form of composition widespread in the popular piety of the time.
Comment seven:
At the end of this experience Angela wants to sing and praise which is reminiscent of Francis’ constant praising of God especially after his stigmata.
After Angela’s soul experiences its presentation to God she told Friar Arnaldo that God spoke “to her in words too wonderful to relate.” Friar Arnaldo then wrote: “She was told that this unspeakable good mentioned above is the same good and none other then the which the saints enjoy in eternal life, but there the experience of it is different.” (Lachance p. 217)
Lachance comments that Angela is one of the rare mystics who claim to have attained the beatific vision at the apex of their ascent. He quotes the famous Butler of The Lives of the Saints as saying that Angela’s experience is the most arresting one of his acquaintance. (Lachance ftnt 156 p. 391)
The above
presentation of seven excerpts form Angela’s Memorial is only a
highlighting of some of her mystical experiences and her growth and development
in the process of becoming a mystic. As Underhill has noted she went
through all the experiences that John of the Cross will theologically and
poetically express in his writings. Once again I want to implore you to
read the Memorial itself. You will transported into another world view
that is beyond what we usually experience.
Return to Franciscan Mysticism page or to the Table
of Content.