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Mystics
 
Today, in the Church Calendar of Lesser Feasts and Fasts, we remember three prominent figures associated with the development of Christian Mysticism in England: Richard Rolle, Walter Hilton and Margery Kempe. According to “The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church,” mysticism involves “knowledge of God attained in this present life through personal religious experience.” It is primarily a state of prayer in which the mystic attains a union of love and will with God that produces an “increase of humility, charity and love of suffering." There are passages in St. John’s Gospel, St. Paul’s Epistles and the Book of Revelation that mark their authors as having personally enjoyed mystical experience.
 
“Richard Rolle, born in 1290, was an English hermit about whose early life we know little. Although he grew up in a poor farming family, he was sponsored to Oxford by the Archdeacon of Durham. However, at age 18, he dropped out of Oxford to live as a hermit that led to a ministry of prayer, writing and spiritual direction. His writings were among the most widely read works of spirituality in England in the fifteenth century.
 
“We also know little about the early life of Walter Hilton beyond his birth in 1340. He spent time as a hermit before becoming an Augustinian Canon at Thurgarton Priory in Nottinghamshire in the late 14th century. In his great work The Scale of Perfection, he develops his understanding of the ‘luminous darkness’ which marks the transition between self-love and the love of God. His writings were influential in England not only in the years leading up to the Reformation, but also during the Oxford Movement (1833-1845), whose chief objectives were the defense of the Church of England as a Divine institution, the importance of the doctrine of Apostolic Succession, and of the Book of Common Prayer as a rule of faith.
 
“Born around 1373, Margery Kempe had no formal education. Though illiterate, she dictated the Book of Margery Kempe, from which we learn most of our knowledge of her. She went on pilgrimages to Canterbury, the Holy Land and to Santiago de Compostela [in Spain]. Her book describes her travels as well as her mystical experiences and her deep compassion for sinners.
 
“These three writers of English mysticism, together with the anonymous authors of The Cloud of Unknowing and the Ancrene Wisse, all exerted a great influence on later English and Anglican spiritual writings.
 
“Direct our hearts, O Gracious God, and inspire our minds; that like your servants, Richard Rolle, Walter Hilton and Margery Kempe, we might pass through the cloud of unknowing until we behold your glory face to face; in the Name of Jesus Christ our Lord; who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever. Amen."

"Lesser Feasts and Fasts," 2018, Church Publishing Inc., pp 492-493
The Rev. John R. Bentley, Jr.
Pastoral Associate
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