Bible connection

It is necessary to boast; nothing is to be gained by it, but I will go on to visions and revelations of the Lord.  I know a person in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know; God knows.  And I know that such a person—whether in the body or out of the body I do not know; God knows —  was caught up into paradise and heard things that are not to be told, that no mortal is permitted to repeat.  On behalf of such a one I will boast, but on my own behalf I will not boast, except of my weaknesses. But if I wish to boast, I will not be a fool, for I will be speaking the truth. But I refrain from it, so that no one may think better of me than what is seen in me or heard from me,  even considering the exceptional character of the revelations.  — 2 Corinthians 12:1-7

All about Mechthild of Magdeburg (c. 1208-c. 1282/94)

Mechthild is the author of The Flowing Light of the Godhead. She is one of the best-known  beguines. For most of her adulthood, she lived in a communal house in Magdeburg (now in Germany). Women became beguines because they had the same aspirations that contributed to the founding of the Franciscans and Dominicans in the same era: the desire to return to the ideals of early Christianity and imitate more closely the lives of the apostles, to be unworldly while living in the world. Beguines were usually under the direction of a parish priest, but because of their similarities  to the Franciscan and Dominican communities, they often associated with them. They were regularly criticized for being loosely overseen and, as mysticism arose among them, were accused of being unorthodox.

In composing her book, Mechthild felt constrained to answer two questions. What gives a woman with no formal education, no special training in theology, and no place in an approved religious order the right to speak to on theological matters and sharply criticize the clergy? What’s more, by whose authority did she write, or why should she expect to be taken seriously?

The few facts we have of Mechthild’s life come from her own works and subsequent introductions to them. Her familiarity  with the literature of the German court places her from a noble lineage at some low or medium level. She says at age twelve she was “greeted” by the Holy Spirit. An infilling continued daily for over three decades. About 1230, as a twentysomething, she left home for a beguinage in Magdeburg. About 1250, in her forties, she revealed to her spiritual director, Heinrich of Halle, the spiritual favors she had been granted. He commanded her to write her book “out of God’s heart and mouth.” For the next ten years she completed five books. During the next ten years, she decided she was not finished and completed two more.

She finished the seventh book at the Cistercian community at Helfta, under the guidance  of its second abbess, Gertrud of Hackeborn. She retreated there about 1270. She became feeble and blind and needed to dictate the final chapters.

A manuscript of Flowering Light was discovered in 1861 in which the Low German vernacular of Mechthild (“low” means northern Germany) had been translated into the High German of Bavaria. Until then the main versions of her work derived from Latin translations by Dominicans in Halle sometime before 1298. In comparing the texts, scholars discovered the Latin translators toned down her criticism of the clergy and some of her erotic imagery. The later manuscript clarified some of her language which was obscure to people who were not Low German speakers from the 13th century.

Mechthild’s work has no antecedents or descendants. Most “revelations” of her time just reported what happened to the mystic. Mechthild uses her revelations as starting points for reflection. She uses every form of writing available in her time to express what the greetings mean:

• Religious forms: the vision, hymn, sermon, spiritual instruction and tract, prayer, liturgy, litany, and prophecy.
• Courtly forms: love poetry, allegorical dialogue, dialogue between lovers, the messenger’s song, and the exchange (Wechsel).
• Other forms: autobiography, drama, epigrammatic poetry and wisdom literature, anecdote, letter, parody, nursery rhyme and polemics.

Love is the force that compels Mechthild to write. She is not coming up with a system of theology.

Quotes:

Prayer is naught else but a yearning of soul … it draws down the great God into the little heart; it drives the hungry soul up to the plenitude of God; it brings together these two lovers, God and the soul, in a wondrous place where they speak much of love.

The soul is made of love and must ever strive to return to love. Therefore, it can never find rest nor happiness in other things. It must lose itself in love. By its very nature it must seek God, who is love.

The day of my spiritual awakening was the day I saw and knew I saw all things in God and God in all things.

Stupidity is sufficient unto itself. Wisdom can never learn enough.

From suffering I have learned this: that whoever is sore wounded by love will never be made whole unless she embraces the very same love which wounded her.

More

The Flowing Light of the Godhead online. This version also available in print. [Goodreads]

Poems collected by the Poetry Foundation [link]

A meditation on her sayings [YouTube]

YouTube purveyor of esoterica spends 30 minutes on Mechthild to good end:

What do we do with this?