Brief Biography:

Monika Petry, born November 1955, formerly a Protestant, clerk, translator / interpreter. She was an atheist for 33 years and converted to Catholicism in 2009. Since her mystical transformation she gave over her life completely to the Divine Providence. She is a Healer and prayer and concerned with religion and spirituality.


Contents

Introduction: St. Teresa of Ávila

I. Absolute Trust - Basic Trust

II. Providence

Life with Providence - a life of Joy and Devotion
Wish-fulfillment rather than Providence
What is the Reaction of your Environment, if you turn to God?

III. GOD

Who or what is God?
Who or what are we?
How do we find God?
My God, why? - When we doubt and despair
Doubt
The Despair

IV. The Holy Spirit

Who or what is the Holy Spirit?
The Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit (Charisma)
The Twelve Fruits of the Holy Spirit
The Seven Consolations of the Holy Spirit


V. Jesus
My Path to Jesus
Encouraging Words of Jesus in you

VI. Mary

V. Jesus
My Path to Jesus
Encouraging Words of Jesus in you

VI. Mary

Mary, Mother of God
Sister Mary

VII. Enlightened Faith

The Light of God in Man
Mindfulness / Awareness / Enlightenment
Thoughts and Feelings

VIII. Prayer

The Types of Prayer
Levels of inner prayer

IX. Forgiveness and Liberation

Sin, Repentance and Penance


X. Healing through Faith and Prayer

The biggest Secret of Healing

XI. Humility

"Take me as I am" or:
My Path through the Bottleneck

XII. Love, Ego, Awareness, Enlightenment

Love
Dolorism
Ego
Attentiveness
Enlightenment

XIII. Mysticism

Do we need a new Mysticism?
Nice Words from nice People: What is Mysticism?

Literature

Appendix:

Transverberation

Thanks

Introduction
St. Teresa of Ávila

Teresa Sanchez de Cepeda y Ahumada was born on 28 March 1515 in Ávila (Northwest of Madrid, in Castilla, Spain), her father was a Jew converted to Christianity. To avoid the accusation of heresy, he accepted a peerage. Teresa enjoyed a strict upbringing. For fear of marriage, she finally came in 1535 into the Order of Carmelites in Ávila. Her health deteriorated steadily, until she lay in a coma a year later and was buried almost alive. During her three years of convalescence, she had the first mystical vision. The more she grew in her spirituality, her condition became better. Through many trials, Teresa found her way to God and perfected her worship of Him. Her friendly nature, her natural authority and her female wisdom helped her along the path to her own monastery of the Discalced Carmelite Foundation, a more severe form of the Order. Other convents of monks and nuns followed, overall, it was to amount to seventeen convents.

Teresa's life was a ceaseless development of intellectual maturity and inner strength, at the end revealing the mysteries of the Trinity, and she eventually found her soul within the mystical marriage, the perfect union with God, her true peace. Teresa died on 4 October 1582. She left behind numerous works: more than 400 letters, poems, documents of the trials of her confessors and monastic foundations and the gifts of her mystical experiences of the Inquisition. She described her maturation process of contemplation, transformation and awareness in her books "Way of Perfection", "Book of my Life" and "Interior Castle".

The mystique of this woman is an expression of absolute and uncon- ditional love for God and Man; humble and grateful joy. Her devotion to God was marked not only by this great love, but characterized by an infinite trust and the willingness to everything, absolutely everything to accept what God had intended for her, always knowing that God meant well and had transformed her from a rough to a dazzling diamond.

As had Saint John of the Cross and Saint Padre Pio, Teresa also experienced the Transverberation, the transfixion of her heart. This event is presented in the Appendix of this book. Teresa described it with great sensuality. Her choice of words and the presentation of the transfixion of her heart by the sculptor Lorenzo Bernini in a beautiful marble sculpture, had left the impression that it was Teresa's way of expressing her eroticism. It was the finale of her Divine heart opening, which she experienced physically and mentally. On 4 July 1585 her coffin was opened – she was found to be undecayed. In 1614 followed her Beatification by the Catholic Church, and on 12 March 1622, her Canonization. Pope Paul VI. appointed her on 27 September 1970 to Doctor of the Church.

*

I went over to Teresa of Ávila via Edith Stein, because on a large portrait of Edith Stein something fascinated me that I had watched only for a short time upon myself, a dark dot on the forehead above the nose (a position of the “Third Eye”). It was after my own confirmation in June 2009, when the Holy Spirit came with great effect upon me. This confirmation was a mystical experience, which I reflected on that day in a strong dazedness and the even stronger desire for quiet reflection. During the next three days and nights a great change happened within me. In retrospect, since that day everything became different.

In the next few days, this impression was also visible externally by two vertical red lines on my forehead. They appeared whenever I connected with God, through prayers for others and for myself every day. These lines became stronger, as well as the Holy Spirit restructured and refined His grace that He had given me. I was informed by a former healing client of the change on my forehead. For almost two months she came every day and therefore had the opportunity to watch my progress. "Again there are those lines on your forehead," she often said after her treatment. It reminded me of the Book of Revelation: "And they shall see His face, and His name shall be on their foreheads." (Offb.22, 4)

One afternoon I visited the St. Mary's Church in Bad Bergzabern to find rest and recharge. There was a large picture of Edith Stein. I stood before her and spoke to her. It was not long before she began to glow, just as the Virgin Mary is lit, when I am talking to her. So now I had become acquainted with Edith Stein, and thus I was interested in this woman and her story. I read some of it, but at that time it became too difficult to pursue at this stage in my life. Edith Stein died on 9 August 1942 in Auschwitz- Birkenau. Pope John Paul II blessed her in 1987 and Canonized her in 1998. "Blessed are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb" (Rev. 7:14). With these words Pope John Paul II began his oration at the Beatification of Edith Stein in Cologne 1987.

Edith Stein thus led me to her great Teacher and her role model: Teresa of Ávila. When I read of her, I was captivated by her, and that has not changed since. Teresa of Ávila had herself become one with God. She gave herself entirely to be recreated by God. She was at the end to become a Being that had refined and deified the Human condition to the highest possible level. This is a state of being that is accessible to all of us Humans on Earth. It is the proverbial Heaven on Earth.

From the worldly point of view considered, Teresa is through and through a true woman, although a very enlightened woman. She was strong, intelligent, humorous, sensual, passionate and devoted. Somehow I found myself in her. Everything about her, and not through just finding myself on a sympathetic wavelength, she became a foremost part of my consciousness, even though I had never set out intentionally for it to become so. This was a person whose soul I felt I was deeply connected with. This was to somehow drive my own inner strength as well as deriving from the power of those around me, yet forever in absolute loyalty and devotion and humility before the One composing all of my life: God. I was fascinated over Teresa's writings! I then found the courage to live within the present time with a strong, powerful, dedicated, passionate and joyful spirituality, although I also confess to following my own interior mystical experiences derived from the past. Now I find that I want to serve my fellow Man with greater love for the Infinite Love of God.

*
"Get to make me as lovely as possible to others.
I do not want to be a Saint - living with that
would be so hard – but to become an old curmudgeon
would instead be the crowning work of the Devil. "
(Teresa of Ávila)
*

I.
Absolute Trust - Basic Trust

What does absolute Confidence mean, and how do I get it?

The universal, irrevocable and indestructible trust is the basic trust of the people, which is created in our brain stem. It is the willingness of a Human’s innate devotion to his Creator and to his fellow men identified as brothers. However, we have the basic trust to be activated by mental awareness - in contrast to the primal instinct laid down in the subcon- scious. It is closely related to the energy of life, the affirmation of life and sexual power. An energetic, powerful person who enjoys life and always says yes to life, has a basic trust. The absence of this basic trust leads to the missing of primal energy of life and the affirmation of life, and he must always take from the outside and others the power to live.

The activation of basic trust is done according to the in-depth psychology given during the first year of a child. In my experience, the seed is placed for this already in procreation: A welcomed baby begotten in deep love and devotion will always be a beloved child. Within this love there is often a year-long yearning for a child and the boundless joy when it finally has arrived. These feelings of longing, joy and love are the energies that are never dissolved, they remain stored in the hearts of the parents and are transmitted to their child; this will enable an interior trusting and loving during its life, because that trust and love is dwelling in itself. Therefore, this trust is irrevocable and indestructible. It may be shaken by a strong disappointment in the short term - but it will never be extinguished! Because it will always be nourished by the love of God, and this love of God takes us through all difficulties as His consolations handle any disappointment, allowing us to forgive and forget.

An 'accident' of parenthood will never know this deep love, of course, even though it may also be loved, but it is another form that does not include those seeds of basic trust. My message to all those good "random products" of parenthood: God has willed that you were conceived! He has brought together your parents. You are inscribed in the Book of Life of your mother and your father. Even if you were not planned: In their subconscious hidden depths, your parents knew it.

If that was not quite enough to instill the basic trust, you can still learn it at any age and then from then on to put it into practice. Although you may or not lose your confidence in it completely, you will eventually be preventing others from descending into unreasonable ways.

The best way to learn deep confidence is by believing in God. You can trust Him unconditionally. Then you can believe in yourself, and gradually open yourself to other people of similar faith. You then gain the confidence that these people are serious about you and you will never be cheated by them. This of course applies to all others that may come and go in your life. If you have a tendency to cling to them, there should be no fault expressed if that person decides for good reason to leave you. Trust means giving others the freedom to live their own life. There can be only so much overlap with another as God intended it for you both and how you may need it to last in order to develop together.

Look confidently into the future, even if your life situation is uncertain. If you believe in God, then you know that this will help, you can then safely jump into the cold water. This is life within Providence. Surrender to the power of life and to say:

– "Maybe I'm at a turning point in life."
– "Maybe I should lose this job because somewhere a better one is waiting for me. "
– "Maybe I should go through with this disease, and through experiencing it, learn to grow in my life. "
– "Maybe I should ask for nothing, but just let Providence make it happen!"

"So how can you let yourself just drift like this and not even make a decision?" I'm sometimes asked. No, I do not let myself drift. Quite the contrary; I live mindfully, attentive, aware, empathetic and gazing intensely focused on everything I do and others do around me. I watch, open myself to surrendering to my basic confidence of trust and know it's good, that everything is in Divine Order. That's the freedom I am looking for.

Once a person engages in opening his own life path outside of God’s chosen path, he is closing his great Book of Life written by God, and through opening his own where he can romp with free will, in life that God has made available to him, this becomes the Book of Detours. He may be free to undertake countless detours, no question. But it is not the chosen by God. Of course we may make decisions and draw conclusions, we can even turn the world upside down and begin each day as if it were the first day of our lives, but the main thing is that we remain united to God, and to know our true Book of Life. We also assume the responsibility to do so and we must therefore take it on whole-heartedly.

Imagine: God knows every hair on your head - so he already knows the next step in your life. He knows your next Boss, your next home, your life partner, and He knows who your child is to be. "He looked at everything He had made, and behold, it was very good" (Genesis 1:31). And you know that the Creation has never been completed. God creates in every day of our lives. He therefore takes a second look at everything that He has created and He will always find everything to be good and correct.

Provided we bring Him what we have received from Him, constantly present, so to speak, for inspection. "Look after that, does it still fit with my current life or do we have to change something about it?" Let the energies flow constantly, so that everything may adopt to our life, and we never make the mistake of being lazy and think: "Now, everything will stay the way it is." This is a dangerous illusion. Just as every cell in our body is constantly changing, so too must we change and adapt everything around us. This is God’s will and care for as long as we allow Him to work with us, because he has already completed our major network of life long ago and updates it constantly. So it is important not to rely too much on the advice of our friends and acquaintances or of the many professional life advisors.

In my healing practices undertaken with many people, I try to make sure not to directly alter their actions when they are seeking help. The solving and goal-oriented support designated as 'coaching' is ideal. Here I will address myself to your Soul. What does your Soul need, wherever does it takes your heart? This can tell me what is in your subconscious mind, and I'll help you to perceive the messages of your Soul, to respect and implement your ideas into reality.

You see it in nature: When Man intervenes, the climate goes out of balance. Or if he is deleting an animal pecies, that can have a huge impact on the entire animal kingdom. The farmer spraying his fields to keep out the weeds, is killing off the wild plants that serve as food for the insects, and then the birds stay away, and so on. Once we begin to enforce things without making a connection to God within our own mind, we not only bring ourselves out of balance, but also our environment because we are not isolated from God as Beings.

This carries over to our immediate environment and within more and more circles. When deciding on a new job, you are influencing your entire family, and, so to speak, you are re-mixing the cards for your future and the future of your family, your friends, your colleagues and in turn their future – and so it goes on endlessly. Rely on your inner voice that comes from God, and be ready for everything to come from that. He knows your Life’s Plan, one in which not only you are involved but many other people.

Providing that you are not stuck in a time warp and repeating your life over and over like the actor in the movie "Groundhog Day", experiencing every day the same scene over and over again until he becomes, through his self-education a better person, and finally one morning reaches a totally new scene, so it will depend on you how you will be come to your Book of Life. Here it will be written who you will meet on any given day or in finding a new job, what direction your life will then take you. The situation you come to is already waiting for you.

Which people did God probably write into your Book of Life? Think about situations that were somehow special, where you felt: now God has just laid the groundwork for a major new phase of my life. When you first met your life’s Partner, for example, you probably felt you were not just waiting simply for any Human that might come along, but for this particular person, this special Soul. You have your whole life long sought each other unconsciously, until now you have found each other.

What was your age when the most important people in your life came to you or when your life changed? There is the famous rhythm of seven in our lives, that is, a certain age which can be divided into seven periods of life when there can be serious changes. Each of those stages of life can be coupled with a certain age period:

0 – 7: Toddler
7 – 14: Child
14 – 21: Puberty / education
21 – 28: Study / family planning / career
28 – 35: Profession / career / family
35 – 42: Profession
42 – 49: Additional activities
49 – 56: Rearranging Life to a new Phase


56 – 63: Reaping the experiences of life
63 – 70: Retirement and letting things be as they are

The rest depends on how you have presented your life. If you were talking constantly of a retirement at 65 years, it will very soon be upon you as you will feel this way. If you were thinking: "I will die soon", it will also become the case. You will be living as if you were already dead. If on the other hand you take life in a relaxed way, you may reach a hundred years of age. Through the way we experience our Book of Life can be written the last dates of our life. We can determine through our thoughts how we achieve it, whether we feel young or old and used, whether we stay healthy or ill. For these life stages the course and the cornerstone are set.

Of course we can ourselves choose! If we remember that we are composed of a combination of Body, Mind and Soul, everything is fine. Then the Mind is doing nothing he has not already discussed with the Soul. And this Soul is united with God. Ideally, you are one with Jesus Christ. Ideally, the Holy Spirit hovers above you. As long as this ideal situation has not occurred, your Soul will show you through so-called tragedies, bad luck, or by disease. Then you again have a chance to find God and to be found by Him. You have the chance to find Jesus and Mary – God is very resourceful when it comes to sending you His helpers. Maybe I'm your helper with this book.

Now we are back to the people in your Life’s Book. After all, some of these are the Divine helpers. In my Book of Life, there were some important helpers. By a helper I mean a person who helps us in a positive sense. Some also help by doing nothing because we are then reduced to relying on ourselves. However, there were also people who are shaking up those hurts from the past, and then what – in hindsight – has put us back on track. So they were helpers, even though they were people to whom we do not like to look back at and to whom we also had to forgive even before we began. These volunteers are not always in our Book of Life. They are in the "auxiliary books," which we wrote for our detours. They nevertheless helped us back on to track in our Book of Life. Think about whom you hurt very much in your life, and who has really hurt you - the result from that, and how it has changed your life.

Many people have a single major upheaval in their lives. This is usually caused by a disease or affliction that can change your life. In my experience, after many healing consultations, this happens mainly between the 42nd and 49th years of age - and that is usually the last warning. So it was with me. I was 48 years old when I had strained the patience of God enough that He gave me a serious lesson. My then 14 years old daughter and I lived together with our seven year old dog, a cheerful and clever Border Collie named Timmi, and to this dog I owe my life now. He gave it back to me in his own way.

More of that experience I do not want to enlarge upon, but it is enough to know why it happened: I was not on my true Road of Life, I did not have my salvation in sight. Because at a young age I had banished God from my life, assuming He had sent me too many disasters in my family, too many losses through their having all died or moved away. And the worst thing was that I somehow felt guilty, knowing that with my high internal spiritual energy there was something wrong - I constantly had too much. Not in terms of the physical strength of my body, but an energy that you cannot easily identify, which is felt internally and constantly bubbling inside like a volcano. I just knew that I seemed to attract people who had not long to live, people of all ages.

Anyone who begins life with a near-death experience, finds a deep imprint of God. So it was with my birth. God showed me exactly at 3 pm at the time of St. Mary His light and carried me into life whilst my parents and the midwife were fighting for my life at home and the rest of my family was praying for me in church. This light, which I did not consciously experience, but which is deeply imprinted in my subconscious, I searched for all my life and found it again at my Confirmation. The Holy Spirit enlightened me again, and He filled me. Perhaps this profound experience at birth was also the reason that when I was a young child I was considered as something as a prodigy in the matters of God and the Gospel. Mind you, a Protestant child prodigy! Thanks to my Catholic Mother's family, the Angels and Saints were integrated into my life. But where did my Bible strength came from? There was no Bible passage that I did not know and could not quote, of course, cross-referenced with an indication to the author and chapter. I put quite a stress on the religious Teachers and Priests, as I also wanted to learn more about it and to constantly discuss it.

Already at that time I was aware that this could not have been everything because there had to be something more. I read and studied and discussed, but no one spoke about the Love of God, no one reached my heart. This went on up to my Protestant Confirmation at the age of 13, - the priest handed me the bread and the wine - and somehow it was over. The Holy Spirit did not ignite the big flame in me, He left it at the small smoldering flame within me since birth. He preferred to wait. Knowing that I could undertake make my "life experiences" alone. Self-employed, alone, knowing everything, being capable of everything, with a big mouth and waving flags through life's borders and leaving not a few traces of devastation behind me. It is a wonder that many people were able to take that from me!

*
"I am a woman and not a good bargain"
(Teresa of Ávila)
*

So I walked through life for 33 years without God, full of confidence in myself – I always had the basic trust that I have mentioned in the beginning. God was certainly there, but I did not worry concern myself with Him. I had also always been extremely fortunate. Of course it was not just luck, it was the providence of God, and my own skills that I worked with in major German companies – I experienced their difficulties – and in between I emigrated once to Paris and a second time to Brittany only to return to Germany after one year each time with the recognition that in Germany I can work better. The trend continued: Wherever I went, I met people and situations that were in a transition stage or on the verge of difficulties. God made it impossible to just settle down somewhere comfortably. I constantly found myself in a transitional situation, and became the expert in crisis management in every respect. When anyone needed to know what to do next, I came on to my peak performance.

Seven years ago, time had come, my fate had struck. Before the turn a challenge happened I had never known before: I had to forgive the man who had caused the biggest crisis of my life. Gradually I succeeded. God allowed me to recognize and accept my own responsibility. So I could remove that resentment from my Soul. So I prepared the way for the people who felt my strength, and articulated myself in the right direction towards healing others. I became clear of that which is within me, I realized it was God although not entirely, but I knew: That's not me, who was healing people, removing through prayer the curses on homes, diverting storms and doing other seemingly inexplicable things – that was God.

My first effective Lord's Prayer I did with a woman who also possessed much infusions of the Holy Spirit. She was often asked to help when people, animals and possessions were under a curse, as evidenced by their experiences of recurrent disaster. Once I found myself close by her when a telephone call came to her from a family calling for help: Once again, a barn was on fire! "Monika, come, we shall pray together," she said. I did not ask why and did not hesitate, so I sat down beside her and prayed my first Lord's Prayer after 33 years. And once again, and a third time, and I still remember a great power was rising within me and the compassion - not only with this woman who had just included me, probably knowing that God had brought me these seeds to germinate and which were about to sprout, but even with these suffering people and their animals in mortal danger. After an hour, the situation calmed. The firefighters had done their bit, and the Fire-devil had been defeated by God – we were sure! "That's it?" I thought at the time. "Just pray the Lord's Prayer whenever I can! If there is no more that can be done, I still can!" And so at that time there was no more that could be done but to pray. Even today there is nothing more valuable than praying. It's the same for all situations at any level, although for me there has also been a great love story with God between then and now.

*
"If I had known earlier that the tiny palace
of my Soul is housing such a great King,
I would not have left Him alone so often. "
(Teresa of Ávila)
*

II.
Providence

John 1:1,14 "In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word of God ... And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten Son of God the Father, full of grace and truth. " First there was silence. Jesus Christ existed first as a thought of God and His Word in His providence, in His plan. When the time was ripe, the word became flesh, and Jesus came as our Savior on Earth. Salvation means enlightenment. Through Him we can let God's Light shine through us and be a Light of God himself.

As we ourselves also were starting in the silence of God in His Word and His thought, so we go into the silence, and then create with our thoughts and our words anew. We are the creator and sustainer of our health. Our destructive thoughts can make our body become diseased. They can lead to a destructive life. On the other hand our loving, forward-looking thoughts can create a life of health and dignity. Love creates Love. It is entirely up to ourselves, what we make of our lives. If we have not grasped the meaning of life, we will have to suffer it. The meaning of suffering is suffering. It is not of God. He has our plan within a grid placed in His hand.

The core of all created existence is made up of His Light and His Love. God is joy and abundance for all of time. We may well already enjoy in this life His gifts, for only in this moment we are living consciously. The past is gone, the future is before us, only in the present exists the awareness, mindfulness, and only in the present now can we live consciously and responsibly.

Why has God given us this beautiful Planet Earth, if not for this life in the here and now? So that we should use it. We have to ensure the preservation of the Earth. We must also pay attention to develop ourselves with His gifts and not to abuse them in an otherwise superficial life. We live with the body, mind and soul in this life in the here and now. Just as we wish it to be. If we are completely at one with God and are also aware of it, we can leave our thoughts and actions in turn wholly to Him, to live in certainty, according to God's design in love and abundance.

That comes through His preeminent Grace and with the cooperation of the free will of rational creatures, as the term 'Providence' is described according to 'Wikipedia': "A higher power that influences the fate of people and the course of world history." – "Providence is the almighty and omniscient God, inasmuch as He in His advanced awareness is correcting the World’s events and saving those from their own destructive actions. This can be done in several ways: according to the Laws of Nature, through miracles, through His preeminent Grace, through involvement with the free-will of rational creatures, or by admitting our sins, but excludes any of His direct involvement in our day-to-day lives...”

It was Divine Providence that brought me to the historic town of Limburg/Lahn. I pursued this goal without question, just knowing that it had to be! I had become aware in the year of 2008, that my life would continue to decline significantly. By September 2008 I felt impelled to move to Limburg on the River Lahn (about 70km Northwest of Frankfurt) centered around its famous large Dom/Cathedral.

In the later Chapter entitled 'Blessed Mother Mary', I describe how I had found the house in Limburg. It was so easy, I was led up to it. Two minutes after praying to Mother Mary in the Cathedral of Limburg, I found myself standing in front of the house in the little narrow street leading to the Cathedral, and in November I moved there. I had hardly brought with me any furniture, which was good thing as I could not have fitted more into this small and narrow 550 year old half-timbered house with its three floors leading up from a narrow twisting stairway. I had instead brought with me my many statues of the Saints, and the house itself radiated a sacred spiritual atmosphere.

This was to be the best event for me at the time, because it led me on a path straight to God. I soon was to visit Him in the Cathedral, several times a day. Not only during religious services but the in between times. This great Catholic temple attracted me like magic. There were moments when I could feel the energy pulling me up the Cathedral hill, day and night. God pulled me there, He wanted me in 'His Church'! In 2008 I spent a wonderful Christmas and New Year's Eve involved in the ceremonies of the Cathedral. In January 2009, I experienced the first Pontifical Mass, and within that it came to me: In the liturgy I sensed a major spiritual force, I saw with my eyes closed a deep purple, indicating the highest spirituality, the prayers went through and through me, and the Cathedral Choir sang with an almost unbearable beauty.

And then, from an unexpected source, God sent forth me a helper, Johannes, with whom I had a Platonic friendship. His life at that point had not gone as planned, and when he phoned me from Berlin and told me that he was not happy, my answer was: "Come to Limburg!" The next day he was there and was to share my new home for a considerable period.

In previous years I had taught Johannes the virtues of trusting in God. He was well versed in this thinking as he comes from a very Catholic family which included two priests. Actually, Johannes had also wanted to be a priest, and had he practiced for this as a child in his sandbox busily distributing home baked communion wafers to the delighted neighbourhood women – but when the time came, he preferred the boardwalks of the world to an altar in the church. Well, that time was now over – and I reminded him with my newly found passion for God and the Church of his own past as a Catholic. Now it was his turn to teach me something, and he did.

"So you want to be Catholic?" He laughed, "then we will practice." He took out a prayer book and began teaching:. “Hail Mary, full of grace, Thou art Blessed among women ...” – “What does it mean?” I asked having been brought up in a Protestant background, “I don’t know those words and this is something I do not wish to learn!”

No, that had not inspired me, I felt I wanted something more. Johannes then went with me to worship in the Cathedral. I wanted to sit on the pew, but he folded down the kneeling bench and ordered: "Kneel down!" I did it, oh, and it hurt. "This is too hard, I cannot," I protested. "If you want to be Catholic, you have to kneel," was his comment. And he pressed me down off the bench. So I knelt and murmured to myself, “I had thought it might be different from this”

During the Mass, I now began to feel myself being compensated with the experience. Now Johannes paid attention that I was behaving like a Catholic. Getting up, then sitting down, getting up again, kneeling, singing, praying, kneeling again, a very sensual experience. It was not boring: there was a lot of movement, the fragrant incense, the beautiful impressions derived from the organ music and the choir and the priests also looked well in their colourful and beautiful robes. I learned that one becomes a Catholic with one’s body, mind and soul, but also with much love in the heart!

I soon found that I wanted to be truly Catholic and belong to the Church! And above all I wanted finally go to Communion. I made an appointment in the Priest's Office, had some preliminary meetings, and on 25 June 2009 I had achieved my first milestone. Johannes was to be my religious Godfather. He still raves about how his hair stood on end by the force and energy that the Holy Spirit was pouring out on us by the highly gifted Priest blessing me.

When I was finally confirmed, it all really got started for me. Every church in the town was to become my church. At a rough estimate, I visited during the following year, about seven hundred church services, on average two times a day: the daily Morning Mass, the Mass for women, the Evening Masses during the week, and the Friday evening ecumenical worship service - this I soon gave up because of the missing passion - even the final blessing was not strong enough. On the other hand every two weeks there was the Mass in the Latin Rite, which touched me very much. "The Soul remembers," writes the Pope. Yes, my Soul remembered very well, and first of all, I was so touched by this kind of celebration that it almost tore my insides apart. Maybe it was because of the wonderful officiating Priest, for his morning worship services in the Cathedral had the same effect. As soon as he was there, Jesus was there, and this time I had a very intense period of repentance that I had left Him and the Church so long ago.

On the weekends I attended the Vigil Mass on Saturday and the High Mass as well as the evening Mass on Sunday. It all was adding up! In between the Vespers and the Devotion of the Blessed Sacrament and the Rosary and Stations of the Cross, and once a month, there was also the Marian Mass in a small chapel in the Westerwald, which lasted up to four hours. Here, the Priest blesses everyone with a small Monstrance - that was something very special to me! (For all non-Catholics: A “Monstrance” (monstrare - "to show") is a precious liturgical display device with a window area in which a wafer is exposed to reverence and worship, crafted with gold and precious stones).

I could not get enough. The Catholic life captivated me, and I wondered what was happening to me. I took on a complete internal transformation, with sin, repentance, atonement, penance, forgiveness, and my innermost spiritual soul turned inside out and also inwards. Whereby I did not forget the joy! Likewise, my at that time still present inclinations towards the theatrics and passion I could completely unfold. "Johannes! How nice it was once again! The organ, the music, the choir!" Such were my feelings when I came home on Sunday noontimes after a Mass in the Cathedral. Or sometimes I became totally withdrawn into myself and even unresponsive to others, because I was still thinking over the meaning of the sermon.

I will never forget my first blessing with the Priest’s use of the Monstrance: I was completely dissolved in tears, sobbing, shaking, trembling, I thought my last hour had come. When I eventually succeeded in making the short way home, I was not able to speak about it. It took a double brandy with Johannes to completely to calm down and resolve myself. Now I know that my Soul had seen God and went totally out of control. These conditions were repeated at every sight of the Monstrance, and only abated slowly with time. It was a state of ecstasy, as Saint Teresa of Ávila described in her book, "The Interior Castle." However, we must be aware that ecstasy is not always a happy state, it can also at times be the absolute opposite

Even when the period of euphoria was over and I could think clearly again, my newly re-found passion for the Catholic being remained. I may have at times criticized it a lot and wanted to change much, sometimes wishing to give it all up because things did not move forward fast enough, or even that I'm in the wrong place! At one time I even stayed completely away from the Church for five weeks, in order to check out what would remain in the end. And I realized that everything remained the same. In contrary, I also then became aware that I was led only through Love for the Infinite Love that was growing inside me - the Church as an institution did not influenced it.

Nevertheless, deep down I also always maintained my Love for this great institution – I was full of the humility and gratitude that they had accepted me, an outsider, with such open arms. I now firmly hold that the Church – I am speaking now of the universal church of God, not only of the Catholic Church, although I personally prefer the Catholic Church – was created by God / the Holy Spirit and is always protected by Him, otherwise they would not have survived the past 2,000 years.

*
"If there are many Mansions in Heaven,
there are also many ways to get there. "
(Teresa of Ávila)
*

Life with Providence - a life of Joy and Devotion

The devotion to God makes me happy. That joy comes from my heart, it is the joy of the faithful. Look at the true believers more precisely: We radiate inwardly. We may have as many wrinkles as everyone else, but that does not matter. We send out a Light, and it is the Divine Light. The greater the spirituality – by that I mean the faith lived – the greater the perceived and lived joy. Sometimes it can be almost unbearable for others to put up with, that I admit. However, I can also hardly bear to see the discontent around me. The shallowness of society that lives only for its fun and entertainment has long since proven a scourge to Mankind. This shallowness of being comes over those who have no connection to God. In the not too distant future it may all collapse and not be sustained.

The Czech writer Milan Kundera wrote about the excesses of those people turned away from God, in a good book: "The Unbearable Lightness of Being", which was also made into a film. In this novel, Tomas falls in love with Teresa, who is serious in her feelings towards him, but Tomas has nothing better to do than to escape into infidelity and other worldly distractions. Then everything disintegrates and somehow they both die. Life in the Love of God can surely be called as 'the Lightness of Being'. Everything becomes simple, everything becomes easier. Even the toughest trials of life and the most difficult parts of it are bearable with God on our side and with Jesus Christ in our hearts.


As long as I say no to God, I am limiting myself. In this limitation I am not giving God the permission to give me what He wishes to give me. And as long as I do not feel good enough within one field it is influencing all others. This feeling of “not being good enough" is based on a lack of self-love: "I am not enough, so I am not worthy of it all."

If I say yes to God, I then find myself in the vastness of an open space in which everything happens. To say yes to God, it is to accept everything He provides. I open myself for all that He wants to give me. This is the fullness we may live in. However, the more I may have in material possessions, the less I need. If I do not live in sense of lack, I am happy with a few things. How glad I am not dependant on material possessions. I may depend on other Human Beings, but I never want to make anyone dependent on me. This means the opposite: the claim of ownership, the need of possession, the greed. No, I feel myself as being enough, I rest content within myself.

I have a relationship with God. It can never be that God will give us what we do not need. God is Love, and so He gives us Love. He gives us Joy, He gives us Peace. We can be sure it is exactly the right moment He is caring for us. Because - as I said above – God saw that it was good. God knows our true path of salvation, He has our “Book of Life”; so He becomes the Stage Director, he knows how it should continue onwards. That is my conviction.

*
"God will not grow tired of giving
and His mercies are infinite.
Let us not become tired of receiving.”
(Teresa of Ávila)
*

Wish-fulfillment rather than Providence

There is a new science in the great arena of Esoteric: the wish-fulfillment. The intent was certainly meant well, but what people made of it was a new kind of life of consumption: Now they are usually in a position to satisfy their material needs. My house, my car, my boat – will now be imagined and materialized, and new consumer goods are always being added. Everything created according to the original secrets of visualizing one’s wishes! They then call it luck and success. The only mistake is that this materialization has nothing to do with our liberation. Quite the opposite: it is counterproductive. We sought to create the luck to find the wealth within ourselves and what was it? The new garbage of prosperity that clogs us from outside, preventing our self-fulfillment of the Divine within.

God – the Providence – has already created the wealth. When Jesus says, "Thou fool, this night thy Soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided? So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God" (Luke 12.20-21), He meant the wealth of love, of health, of inner peace, and it has nothing to do with all the material possessions. Providence brings us even our income. Do not worry, God knows the needs of our daily bread, and that includes not only the daily communion with the Body of Jesus, but also the cost of our worldly life, and all that He cares for. In principle He is not interested in providing us with the accumulation of material things, because that blocks out our essential spiritual life and keeps us away from His Love.


You do not need now to resolve to give away your collection of antiques, but it's good to think about it. As long as the preservation of old values is important, there is certainly no objection to that. But if the collecting mania becomes rampant, it can take on dramatic excesses, which I myself have often observed and it has puzzled and worried me. Let the energy flow in your life constantly. If you are blocked on one side by a passion for collecting, you should ensure that there still remains a healthy circulation of energy and you will not lose the joy of life. Otherwise, you bury yourself.

*
"Those who can not enjoy,
become unbearable. "
(Teresa of Ávila)
*

How does your Environment react, if you turn to God?

You are not taken seriously anymore – as well as that, no one can really comprehend. This is just too high a level for them! And your ascent to God was probably made too quickly for them and in the beginning they will try to find out how serious you are. Once they understand your commit- ment, they will tend to turn away from you – they become uninterested. "Honestly," they say, "do you really want to say that you do not want to have any part in worldly life?" No one can imagine that you do not need it. Nobody understands that you have a much greater wealth than you've ever had in money, and that God is for you your first place partner, and that any possible life partner must then also qualify with a love for God. "I cannot be with anyone with whom I can not talk about God," wrote Teresa of Ávila. For me also, there is no other way.

Then there are those who are acting as if they were on the same wave length as you. They speak of God as if they had experienced anything of significance in their lives. They appear to be Bible readers and accompany you to church, so they may have some influence with you. But you feel it's not genuine. There are always some points they are bringing up against the Church, they complain about the money the Church is taking in, the scandals within the Church, as if the world had none of its own. Does this concern you – you personally on your way to God, in your Love for God? No! You may also get an earful of offenses listed against God, listen to dumb jokes about Jesus or the like. This you quickly come to dislike, because it hurts you personally in your Soul. You also may have the problem of getting your required time for prayer and retreat, because your friends do not understand that you are no longer available every day for hours of phone calls and you are no longer interested in the problems of the "world". You know them, because you have still your thinking mind. But you know there is nothing to be gained by searching outside and nothing to do. You can only find it in your heart.

Love does not mean to say "Yes and Amen" to everybody. It also needs sometimes to be saying "No". Separate yourself from people who want to suck in your energies, consciously or unconsciously, and protect yourself from negative outside energies. All that belongs to it. Because God gives us obligations but also rights. And that includes the right of integrity of our Soul and that of our loved ones.

I suggest to apply once a week the method I call “The Eye of the Needle”, which I describe in the later chapters. Give God everything, and wait for what He gives you back. What you do not need any more, will not come back. For this you will from now on only meet those people that belong to you. We have all the time. But the world needs to have no more time wasted, to make it a better place.

*
"There is something very great,
in having a free heart and a quiet conscience."
(Teresa of Ávila)
*

Impressum

Texte: German Original Text: "Schleier der Mystik - Wege zum erleuchteten Glauben". Published in FROMM-Verlag 7 July, 2011 ISBN 978-3-8416-0165-0 - all Rights reserved -
Tag der Veröffentlichung: 15.07.2011

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