November 19–“Saint” Mechtild of Magdeburg, Beguine, Third Order Dominican, and Mystic

Photo: Andreas Praefcke, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

The language of love is one of complete self-gift of one to the other: “God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him” (1 Jn 4:16). Pope Benedict XVI wrote the encyclical Deus caritas est, wherein he wrote about love as eros in a way that transcends sexuality: “True, eros tends to rise ‘in ecstasy’ towards the Divine, to lead us beyond ourselves; yet for this very reason it calls for a path of ascent, renunciation, purification and healing” (5). It is this sense of ecstasy and transcendence that the mystics touch in their writings, as well as in their prayer lives with God.

Today’s “saint”, Mechtild of Magdeburg (born about 1210, died about 1282/1297), has not been officially canonized by the Catholic Church, although some have called her saint and blessed. Yet she experienced mystical revelations from the Holy Spirit from the age of twelve and continued to write about these throughout her life, published as The Flowing Light of the Godhead. There, she describes the union of her soul with God: “O Lord, love me excessively and love often and long; the oftener you love me, so much the purer do I become; the more excessively you love me, the more beautiful I become; the longer you love me, the more holy will I become upon earth.” And elsewhere: “And he, with great desire, shows her his divine heart. It glows like red gold in a great fire. And God lays the soul in his glowing heart so that he, the great God, and she, the humble maid, embrace and are one as water with wine. … Then she says, ‘Lord! You art my beloved! My desire! My flowing stream! My sun! and I am your reflection!’” This is the language of love beyond love!